Just as I was getting comfortable on my stool, the bar closed: This is my last post as The Chaser. I’m moving down South this weekend—following Mr. Chaser to graduate school—and will be, with a mixture of sadness and excitement, trading the Matchbox’s Manhattans (ah, bourbon-soaked cherries!) for something likely involving sweet-tea vodka. I leave you with a list of the bars I’ll be pining for and…
Starting Over
The star-crossed space at 444 North Wabash Avenue has another chapter. You may recall it as the former Jazz Record Mart or the place that Jason Paskewitz and Phil Lotsoff had rebuilt a few years back to house Jackson Park Bar and Grill, which never opened. Now it has been leased to…
Never mind the fish and chips, the see-and-be-seen patio seating, or the Tiffany-style chandeliers. When it comes to Division Ale House (1942 W. Division St.; 773-384-6886), the new Irish-ish pub from the owner of Wicker Park’s People Lounge, we’re most curious about the “portable tabletop beer tower,” a device that sounds either frighteningly frat house or…
Jason McLeod, exec chef of the Elysian Hotel’s two restaurants, Balsan and Ria, has got a handle on Balsan’s artisanal comfort food three meals a day—croissants, gourmet charcuterie, wood-burning-oven pizzas
By August all of Chicago could be hooked on this restaurant’s promised roasted whitefish with peperonata, balsamic, and parsley oil.
Assets include a bucolic outdoor patio, old family recipes, and organic grass-fed beef.
If the casually charming 35th Street Café served nothing but its superb, just-made chips, we would still be fans. But there’s also actual food, protein and vegetables and things.
Heading to Andersonville on a beer mission is nothing new, but steering past Hopleaf is—and yet, last night I managed to close my ears to its sudsy call and continue on to a new microbrew destination: Mary’s Rec Room.…
Moral and Hearty
Steve McDonagh and Dan Smith, a.k.a. the Hearty Boys, are quietly moving forward with plans to turn their catering facility/TV studio (3819 N. Broadway; 773-244-9866) into a full-service restaurant, Hearty. “We’re calling it that, because that’s what the food will be,” says McDonagh. “It’s all twists on American comfort-food classics, like a deconstructed tuna casserole, which is…
Sean Sanders, the chef/owner of Browntrout, loves to play around with familiar flavors from his past to bridge the gap between adolescence and maturity.
