Ad Categories: Dining & Drinking

Window Treatment
“The South Side is hurting for restaurants,” says Dan McGee, a Chicago native who has worked in kitchens from Peru to Switzerland (and Charlie Trotter’s in between). So McGee repurposed his former Whittingham’s Gourmet Market as a 44-seat American restaurant called Dan McGee (330 W. Lincoln Hwy., Frankfort; 815-469-7750). The polished room is by Tom Nahabedian (who designed Naha for his cousin Carrie Nahabedian), and McGee’s menu has some interesting twists, like grilled halibut served on Asiago mashed potatoes with mushroom-shrimp compote. And that window that looks into the kitchen? “I wanted to see what was going on in the dining room, but the kitchen is so bright and the dining room is dark—I’m looking at…

C Food
Little by little, it seems every culinary star has begun setting his sights on Chicago. The latest is Marcus Samuelsson, the highly celebrated chef at New York’s Aquavit and Riingo, who announced his intention to open C House, a casual seafood restaurant in Streeterville’s Affinia Hotel (formerly the Fitzpatrick; 166 E. Superior St.), in March. “Chicago is an unbelievable food town,” says Samuelsson, 36. “And I want to be part of that.” C House’s menu will be full of crowd pleasers such as whole snapper for two, wild salmon, a lobster club sandwich, and a salmon burger—Samuelsson calls it “simplistic food built on great ingredients,” which may be a generic sound bite, but when a chef this talented says it, we take note. Look for an open kitchen in the dining room’s center to focus on small dishes, and rooftop seating to follow next summer…

Jacky’s Back
In January, Jacky Pluton, who flirted with four stars at Pluton a couple of years back, plans to open a traditional brasserie called Haussmann in the space that once housed MK North and Brasserie T (305 S. Happ Rd.; Northfield). “It will be a Chicago brasserie with Parisian flair,” says Pluton. “Some very rustic dishes, but some dishes will have more of a 2008 feel. We will do a lot of tableside, from rib eye for two to Dover sole to roasted chicken for two. And every day, we will have a baked fish in clay.” The restaurant, named for Baron Haussmann (a 19th-century French legend who rebuilt Paris under Napoleon III), is the latest attempt to succeed in a familiar address. “I think it is one of the best spaces in the North Shore,” says Pluton. “No one took advantage of it before. And I will be honest: I think…

Trotter to the Moon
By now, you’ve probably read about the $5,000 all-star chef blowout dinner at Charlie Trotter’s (816 W. Armitage Ave.; 773-248-6228) on October 7th to raise funds for Trotter’s Cullinary Education Foundation and to celebrate the restaurant’s 20th anniversary. Pollack attended the event, in deep disguise, and like everyone else, she was blown away by the food and the passion contained within the walls of the restaurant, courtesy of world-class chefs Ferran Adrià, Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, Tetsuya Wakuda, Pierre Hermé, David Myers, and Trotter himself. (Thank God no culinary terrorist decided to target Lincoln Park that night.) She also recorded every chef’s speech, which included the obligatory…

You may have heard by now, but allow us to verify: After two meteoric years of business, Schwa (1466 N. Ashland Ave.; 773-252-1466) has closed. Aaron McKay, the sad-sounding guy who answered the phone when we called, hemmed and hawed before saying that Schwa was closing “indefinitely.” Chef-owner Michael Carlson’s cell phone has a perpetual … Read more