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Amy Cavanaugh: Welcome to Dish From Chicago Magazine. I’m Amy Cavanaugh, Chicago magazine’s dining editor.

John Kessler:  I’m John Kessler, Chicago magazine’s dining critic.

Amy: And today we’re talking about where we’ve been eating lately. We’ve both been checking into old and new favorites and clocking all the ways they’ve progressed and changed. So this will be a fun conversation, plus we’ll also share the best things we’ve eaten lately, which includes one of our favorite new burgers in town.

Amy: All right, John, let’s start and go back and forth. What’s been good?

John: Right. Let’s do this. So I went back to El Che for the first time in a couple of years. And I know it’s one of your favorites, and I see it now. I have seen the light. I liked it pretty well when I went before, and I just effin loved it this last time. We had just wonderful vegetables and great shoestring fries. Delicious tira de asado, grilled short ribs, Argentine style, really, really good roasted oysters with just nice, creamy, crunchy business on top. And loved getting to talk to them and find a affordable, well-aged Argentine wine that was in their cellar that just made us so happy. Yay. El Che, I see it now.

Amy: I am so glad to hear that, one of my absolute favorite spots in town. So I’m so glad you’re on board now. 

John: Great. Tag, you’re it. 

Amy: All right. I just want to check out Fatback Butcher, which opened a couple weeks ago from Charlie McKenna. It’s on Wacker in the Loop, so it’s a popular workday lunch spot. I am a huge fan of turkey sandwiches. I know this is like the most boring food, but whenever there’s a new sandwich place, I have to try the turkey, see how it kind of stacks up around my favorites in town. This one is excellent: roasted turkey, bacon, avocado, tomato, sprouts, obviously Duke’s mayo, on toasted sourdough. Excellent. That’s all I had. But the menu includes, like a muffaletta, there is a country ham, and mustard butter. So a lot of stuff on my list for next time I go back — ndjua grilled cheese, I’ll be back soon.

John: Oh, great. And Charlie McKenna is behind Roux in Hyde Park, which I really like. And he was the brains behind Lillie’s Q barbecue, and for a while, ran the unfortunately named restaurant Dixie, here in Bucktown.

Amy: Well, he’s he’s doing great work there. So excited to get back there at some point. 

John: All right, what’s up next? I did the big one. I went back to Kyoten and had the $490 sushi omakase. God, loved that place. It never changed. Never changes. The laminate on the sushi bar is still peeling in the corner, and it is, you know, there’s still paper over the windows, and it is just all about a comfortable environment where there is amazing food. And holy hell was the food amazing. I think Otto Phan is somebody who, the more you get to know his perspective, the more you appreciate it. I just, it wasn’t just the sushi. The small plates were great. You know, we’re in firefly squid season, which is early spring in Japan. Those were delicious. We also had something very interesting, which was puffer fish milt. Milt being the male reproductive substance from a puffer fish.

Amy: Interesting. 

John: Yes, and the texture of it was on brand. The flavor was great, and it was blessedly fried. Very happy to have eaten amazingly delicious sushi and some things you won’t find elsewhere. On to you.

Amy: All right, so I mentioned the beets at The Radicle last time as the best thing I ate. But we’re gonna talk about it again, because I’ve been twice and I’ve eaten a large chunk of this menu now. So this is the new spot that is from the Daisies team. It’s really, you know, a cocktail bar, but there is a pretty big food menu. On the drink side, my favorite cocktail is the Weeknight Giuseppe, which is actually one of the nonalcoholic options, inspired by your Bitter Giuseppe, which, you know, is a Chicago-based cocktail. Nonalcoholic amaro, cherry, lemon, delicious. I really enjoyed that one quite a bit. There’s also a really fun wine program. And then on the food, we know I love the beets, but the smoked mackerel toast with tonado and radish is absolutely delicious. I really like the Calabrian chile-glazed wings with, comes with an onion dip, ranch, really delicious. Daisies is known for their onion dip, so some variants kind of pop up. Yeah, you can actually get it with veggies here. And the deviled eggs are great. I’ve never met a deviled egg I didn’t like. And then I’ve had a few of the pizzas. I really enjoyed the clam and potato with garlic and cream. Really tasty. But my new favorite is the mortadella with pistachio pesto, lemon. It’s very rich and decadent. It’s really fantastic. So I have really enjoyed my two visits at The Radicle so far, like I think definitely going into my Logan rotation.

John: Continuing on in the super expensive destination dining arena, which I promise to leave soon enough, but I finally made it back to Kasama for dinner, which is a meal I have not had since you and I dined there together before deciding it was the best new restaurant three years ago. Yeah, and it was lovely to go back. It is quite expensive now. It is $325 before tax or tip or beverage. It has two Michelin stars, and it has the kind of staffing and extreme attention to detail you would expect for a restaurant operating at that level. It still kind of presents its menu as sort of an introduction to all the classic Filipino preparations such as lumpia, kinilaw, inihaw, sinigang, which are all different kinds of, perhaps rolls or soups or stir fries, and presents a very, very upscale version of it. I will say that the food was lovely, full of flavor and great. Really took off once you hit desserts. I thought that the food was an A, the desserts were an A-plus. They just are so memorable and different and just unlike anything anywhere. I also poked back in for lunch one day and did my due diligence and waited 45 minutes in line and got a bunch of food to go, and we really liked everything. So nice to go back again.

Amy: That’s great. I haven’t been in a little while, but I feel like I’m overdue on some of the, the mushroom adobo is my favorite daytime dish there, so I really have to go back and have that soon. 

John: It really is great. And it’s such a nice sort of vegetarian version of a silog. You know, a Filipino breakfast with garlic rice and, you know, pickled vegetables and a fried egg. And it was just, it’s really great with that nice, like, thin line of vinegar going through this really rich, dark sauce. Where else have you been?

Amy: All right, so I had dinner at Xoco. Xoco is the Rick Bayless spot where, you know what you want, and it is my kind of go-to between events. So if I ever have a night where I’m like, kind of hopping around, and I have things that are not dinner, but I know I need dinner, Xoco is my answer. So I will say that I had never had anything that was not a torta before. So I decided to branch out, and I got the carnitas enchiladas, super tasty, tomatillo sauce covered with cheese, onion, cilantro. The pork was delicious, beautiful tortillas. Really enjoyed it. I hadn’t known that, you know, they have these plates. Like they also do, like flank steak and chicken milanesa as platillos. And so I don’t know if that’s new or if I just missed that they offered this, but very solid for a quick dinner and that you can easily walk right into. So very well done there.

John: Okay, so next for me is Claypot. Claypot is a Korean restaurant in Northbrook along that Milwaukee Avenue stretch that also has New Village Gastropub and the really, really big Joong Boo Market and a whole bunch of other good Korean restaurants with specialties like, you know, they might serve a certain kind of pork stew. Or there’s one place that it just serves grilled intestines. It’s called Gopchang Story, and I’ve not been there yet. But Clay Pot’s specialty is seolleongtang, which is this kind of ox bone soup that’s very plain. They boil and boil and boil the bones to get all the collagen out so it gets very white and milky, and then you get the soup served to you with your meat garnishes of choice. And alongside are some sliced scallions and some fine sea salt. The soup is totally unseasoned, and once you put a little salt and just all the flavors come into focus, it’s a nice magic trick. It’s very mild. But this restaurant has also started branching out and putting more dishes on the menu. There is a black goat soup with perilla leaves and bitter mustard greens and perilla leaf powder, and it comes in the bubbling clay pot, and it’s absolutely killer. So if you’re up there, it is just the best area in the whole metro area for Korean food. 

Amy: Well, I next went to Gibson’s, which I’m embarrassed to admit how long it had been since I had last dined at Gibson’s, but you put it on our Best Steakhouses list. So I was like, I have to prioritize going here. We had an absolute ball at that restaurant. We went on a Friday night. It was jam packed, lively dining room. Everyone was so happy to be there. We really went classics: shrimp cocktail, wedge salad, split the WR Chicago cut, creamed spinach. And then we kind of hesitated on the potato, and our server was like, Oh, well, you have to get the fries. And so fries would not typically be my potato go-to, I love a baked potato or a twice-baked or something. But these were, like, shoestring — just really delicious. So highly recommend those next time you go to Gibson’s, perfect with— 

John: Good to know. 

Amy: So perfect with the ribeye and the the creamed spinach, really, really good. And then also the cocktails were, like, excellent. I had a Manhattan. There is, like, excellent. Like, just no notes, like, I got a Manhattan, is one of my go tos, and that was perfect. And Kenny had a martini, and it was like, that was excellent.

John: I kind of loved the dirty martini there. And I’m not a, like, a dirty martini drinker, but I had one there once, and it was just, so I don’t know, so big, so, yay, big, yeah, but it was so icy, and I don’t know it just, there was something about drinking it there that was such a nice experience that I have repeated it a few times. 

Amy: Yeah, it is a great little spot that everyone already obviously knows about, but 

John: Exactly. 

Amy: You know if you haven’t been before.

John: Yeah. Listen to us for all the latest, you know the latest and hottest tips that you’re not going to hear anywhere else. All right, I went back to Galit, which was great. It’s gotten a bit more expensive. It’s, the four-course menu is up well above 100 bucks now, but the food is delicious, and they thread the needle so well between being kind of a genre-style dining, where you can expect a certain amount of Middle Eastern food presented in a way that feels very true to the origins — you know, a lot of mezze to start and great hummus and beautiful inflated pillows of pita like you have never seen. They’re just the best pita and then nice entrees and simple desserts. How about you?

Amy: So I went to Cleo’s Southern Kitchen, which had been on my radar for a long time, and I had just never made it before. I’ve gotten, you know, it’s a place that people come into my DMs and are like, highly recommend. Have you been there yet? So I finally went. They just opened a new Lake View location a couple months ago, so that was a good peg to go in. And I love fried catfish. And they make a very nice fried catfish. I particularly like the version served over grits and drizzled with comeback sauce, which is a Mississippi condiment, chicken was also good. And then they make just an excellent baked macaroni and cheese, like, just gooey, yummy, really tasty. So they have a few locations around town, all the kind of packaged up to go. So you can definitely think of it as, you know, a takeout joint. But the portions are absolutely massive, like you can get a main and a side or two, and that is good for two of you. So kind of a more affordable option, if you want to get a couple things and then share it for your dinner. So that’s great to know about. Yeah, how about you? What’s next for you?

John: I went back, had a nice meal with some friends at S.K.Y., Stephen Gillanders’s restaurant in the Belden something or other. What’s that building called? 

Amy: The Belden Stratford. 

John: The Belden Stratford, yeah. And it was very lovely. I really do appreciate his food. I idolize his beverage director, Jelena Prodan. The staff is great. The food was a little hit and miss, but the hits were big hits. They do this Singapore-style crab cake that is in your face with a lot of flavor. Fantastic. Their great pastry chef Tatum Sinclair now makes a bread pudding for two that you have to order ahead of time. And I’m like, oh, yeah, I don’t want bread pudding. Bread Pudding is boring. It’s just more starch. I don’t need more starch. But I tried it and it was like, I need more starch. I need this starch. I need all of this starch. It was just the crustiest, fluffiest, most delicious bread pudding I’ve ever had. So there were a couple dishes I didn’t love, but it’s all in all very, very solid restaurant.

Amy: Yeah, I have had one excellent meal there, and I’m eager to go back and try some more.

John: Yeah, it’s good to know. And you can get in there too. And it’s a lovely room. It’s not a, it’s not one of these reservations that will like, you don’t have to camp out for it. You can usually get in. So it’s great. All right, we’re starting to wind down to the last few. What do you got?

Amy: Del Rio Restaurant in Highwood. I don’t know if I’ve talked about this restaurant on here before, but it’s over 100 years old, classic old-school Italian, family-owned place, one of the restaurants I go to the most and I almost always get either a parm, like, eggplant parm, chicken parm or a branzino, which they do in a very lemon butter, beautiful sauce. On my most recent visit, I was like, I’m gonna branch out. I’m gonna try something new. And I got the duck lasagna because chef Todd Stein came into my DMs when he saw that I had gone there previously, he’s like, you must get the duck lasagna. So it’s, like, all right, absolutely delicious, ground duck, a creamy tomato sauce. Really, really delicious, like, I’ve been thinking about it since I ate it last week. I will definitely be getting it again. This is just, you know, a very classic place. There’s like, a house veal dish. There’s tortellini in brodo, Caesar salads, chicken piccata, very classic, but the service is always wonderful. The room feels like a time warp, but a place that you can kind of, you know, go and shut out everything else. So one of my favorite spots to go to, and I was rewarded for branching out for once.

John: That’s nice when that happens, because I hate that, what always happens is the opposite, is you think, Okay, I’m not going to get my usual order. I’m going to try something else. And then, nope. 

Amy: All right, what’s your last? 

John: Well, so you went to Del Rio’s in the north suburbs. But have you ever heard of Dell Rhea’s Chicken Basket, which is in Willowbrook?

Amy: Yes, I’ve been there. Oh my god, many years ago, probably like 14 years ago.

John: What a hoot and a holler that place is. Oh my god. It was so fun because we went to a national ping pong tournament that was happening in the arena right next door, because my nephew was involved with national ping pong, and we just went afterwards, and we got fried chicken and old fashioneds made with maraschino cherries that have probably been sitting there for three years. And I shouldn’t say that, but you know, just these very old-school bar old fashioneds. Pretty good fried chicken, really kind of nice mac and cheese and ribs in sticky sauce and great waitresses and just this great old diner environment. So it was happy-making meal, very fun. All right. Amy, close us out. 

Amy: All right. Right. So I— 

John: What was the last great one?

Amy: I went to Atelier to do the a la carte menu, and I really, really enjoyed it. Have you been to the new space yet? 

John: I’ve not, I need to. 

Amy: Yeah. So now they have, it’s two rooms. In the front room, there’s a bar, and that’s where you have a la carte dining. And then in back, you walk past the kitchen, and there are the tables for the tasting menu. So I haven’t done the new tasting menu yet, but I very much enjoyed the a la carte menu. Solid beverage program from Ali Martin. She’s doing a really nice job there. The food changes quite frequently. So I’m looking at the menu now, and I see it’s different from when I went and so things I mentioned may not be available when you go next. But there was this really great charred salad with beets, feta, grapefruit, a really nice white fish dip I really enjoyed. The jerk rabbit leg with coconut rice and beans was absolutely delicious. And then had a really nice pasta with mushrooms and sauerkraut and truffles and so— 

John: That sounds great. 

Amy: Yeah, very solid. Would be eager to go back. Would also just like to go sit at the bar, have a glass of wine and have a bite or two. They do have some very like, smaller bites. Like the oysters were also really good. They came with a strawberry mignonette granita that was very tasty. So you can go in and have a glass of wine, a couple snacks, or you can do a la carte, or you can do the tasting menu. So they’re now offering a lot of options, still generally kind of Lincoln Square area, but like a little bit south, which I think is probably a better location, feels kind of less hidden away.

John: I’m really curious to go back and try it again. 

Amy: John, what’s the best thing you ate lately? 

John: I went back to Beity, the Lebanese restaurant in the West Loop that is owned and run by a young chef named Ryan Fakih. And it was really lovely. The cocktails there are great, as you know, but just to sit at the bar and order a lovely plate of hummus with his homemade pita bread was great. It’s a, if you’re in the West Loop and you just need a little snack, highly, highly recommend it. There are several kinds of hummus they serve. And I had one that was topped with just the most beautifully booked, meaty rendered maitake mushrooms. Just really the best, most flavorful maitakes I’ve had. And so it’s a sweet place. I really enjoyed it. It’s a little expensive, but it’s a la carte now, so you don’t have to commit to a tasting menu if you don’t want to. And I’d really recommend to checking it out. How about you? 

Amy: So I went to Cerdito Muerto. Have you been there? 

John: I have not. 

Amy: This is I really, really enjoyed it, and I will definitely be going back. It is a cocktail bar in Pilsen. Mexican in terms of its food focus, in terms of its cocktail focus. I enjoyed the drinks, and I really enjoyed the food as well. The steak quesadilla was with salsa macha was absolutely delicious. But kind of the sleeper hit was the burger, which, it was a mix of beef and chorizo for the patty, and then it was topped with Chihuahua cheese. Actually, it was a double patty, so it was like a smash burgers. So, yeah, beef and chorizo topped the Chihuahua topped with curtido, which is like a cabbage slaw, fantastic. This is definitely in the conversation among best burgers right now. I, best one I’ve had in a minute. Like, really, really enjoyed it.

John: That sounds great. I love the idea of, like, the vinegar edge from the curtido on a burger, because I love it when kind of nice, yummy, fatty, greasy meat is offset by something vinegary.
Amy: Yeah. Like they, it was, it was a very good call to add that there. We’ve been seeing smash burgers everywhere, and this was just a great take on one that felt like perfect for the place, and then really with a great point of view. So highly recommend.