Simple to make and super shareable, the spicy-sweet shrimp at Cebu, a Filipino restaurant in Wicker Park, has a good-time vibe that wouldn’t be out of place at a buzzing Madrid tapas bar. And that’s no coincidence: Co-owner Marlon Tan explains that the sizzling shrimp is a play on gambas al ajillo, one of the … Read more
What are the best BYOBs in town? Let’s start with Bayan Ko (1810 W. Montrose Ave., Ravenswood), where the Filipino-Cuban menu (get the Cubano fried rice and thank me later) goes nicely with a bottle of dry rosé. I’d bring an off-dry Riesling to match the delicious fare at In-On Thai (4641 N. Broadway, Uptown). … Read more
The restaurant, now open in the former Elizabeth space, shines a light on local ingredients.
In recent years, an influx of money from Asia has transformed Chinatown, replacing beloved if long-in-the-tooth Cantonese places with bright restaurants in line with international tastes. Dim sum parlors have been supplanted by Taiwanese teahouses, Korean barbecues, Sichuan spice-o-ramas, and hot pot spots. So many hot pot spots. My favorite of this new guard is … Read more
The city’s most buzzed-about restaurants this month.
Fancy egg sandwiches, featuring everything from longanisa to braised kale, are having a moment. Try these five.
As they planned their Louisiana-inspired Junebug Café (which now has locations in Portage Park, Near North Side, and West Town), Jacqueline and Chris Murphy had no shortage of source material: Jacqueline was well versed in the region’s flavors through her French Creole grandmother, June, while Chris’s parents own Oak Park’s Cajun-influenced Poor Phil’s Bar and … Read more
Poutine — the French Canadian fast food consisting of fries, cheese curds, and enough steaming gravy to turn the assemblage into a gooey-crisp object of supreme face-stuffability — had its trendy moment here. In Canada, however, its trajectory has been from street stalls and food courts into sit-down restaurants that take the idea and run with it. In Montreal, … Read more
As the brand has grown and expanded, Kim looks back at its start.
