John Kessler, our dining critic, loves talking restaurants with our dining editor Amy Cavanaugh. “She thinks about things differently than I do,” he says. “She’s type A, and I’m type B-minus. I’ll get lost in the weeds of the food, while she has a better feel for the overall vibe of the place, the gestalt.” 

Now you can eavesdrop on their conversations through our new podcast, Dish From Chicago Magazine. Every two weeks, Kessler and Cavanaugh will offer their critiques of restaurants, of course, but also their perspectives on trends and happenings in the local hospitality scene. They plan to bring on guests from time to time, and at each episode’s end, Kessler and Cavanaugh will each reveal the best thing they ate that week. “I want people to feel like they’re listening in on a late-night BS session between friends who really love to talk about a topic they’re interested in,” says Kessler.

There may even be some Siskel & Ebert moments. Says Cavanaugh: “We have similar tastes, but we certainly don’t agree on everything.” 

We’ll publish new episodes on our website, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

— Terrance Noland, Editor in Chief

Amy Cavanaugh: Welcome to Dish From Chicago Magazine. This is the first episode of what is going to be a biweekly podcast covering Chicago’s dining scene. I’m Amy Cavanaugh, Chicago magazine’s dining editor, and I’m going to be joined each week by John Kessler, Chicago magazine’s dining critic. We’re going to be covering stories that are in the magazine. We’re going to be providing greater context, and then we’re going to be sharing other things that we haven’t yet covered in the pages, and this could be the first place you hear about them. John, what are you looking forward to talking about? 

John Kessler: What am I looking forward to talking about? Kind of just what’s on top of my head at any given moment. But that’s kind of how my brain works. I don’t know, it’d be nice if, like, when we do this, we could get that vibe we have when we have an editorial meeting and we’re just running down all the food we ate and, you know, just letting people in on the conversation.

Cavanaugh: Yes, I love that. You know, one of my favorite things is, you know, when I’m like, all right, we’re talking about the next issue. What, what do you want to review? Do you have any neighborhood finds? What are some things that you want to cover? Just kind of talking about restaurants casually, is, you know, my favorite part of the job. This week, we’re going to be talking about our Best New Restaurants list, which came out last month. In the list, John named his 11 favorite new openings of 2024 and so we are going to dig deeper into that. We’re going to talk about some details that couldn’t quite make it into print, and some trends he’s noticed. So we’ll get into that. And then we’ll wrap with the best things we ate this week, which includes a baked treat from a buzzy new bakery.  Best New Restaurants is one of our most anticipated food features of the year. It’s one of my favorite ones to work on. And John, you had the really hard task of picking all of your favorites from 2024 so we want to dig into that a little bit more. One of the things that stands out, first of all, is that you picked 11 restaurants. Why 11?

Kessler: Because I believe prime numbers are magic. No, because, because, when I looked at the list, I probably went to about, Lord, probably about 30, 35 restaurants to narrow it down, and the cutting off point for me seem to be— are these places I’d want to go back to, like the ones at the top, are the ones that I just want to go back to over and over and over again, because there’s so many dishes that I kind of obsess over, and things I haven’t tried yet. The others maybe down towards the bottom of the list there are places that are really promising. Maybe, you know, some things are better than others, but I would definitely send readers there, and I just want to get to know all these restaurants better.

Cavanaugh: Yeah, you’ve got a lot of restaurants here that I also return to time and time again. So that’s really exciting. There I, I’ve been to eight of the 11, so I haven’t been to 9, 10, or 11. They’re all on my list to get to really soon. At number 11 is Stumara, which is a Georgian restaurant out in Wheeling.

Kessler: Yeah, get thee to a Georgian nunnery, Amy. You know, it’s, it’s very cool. It’s, you know, there aren’t a lot of Georgian restaurants. It has incredibly different old food traditions. And there are some dishes there, like, have you ever had khachapuri? 

Cavanaugh: I have. I love it. 

Kessler: Oh, my God. So, you know, khachapuri is this Georgian-style, like flatbread. I guess you could call it pizza, but it’s filled with just this, like cheese and egg, and it just swirls into goo at the table. And it’s just goo you can’t resist. Plus, they’re these wonderful soup dumplings called khinkali, and just a lot of other dishes that are just super bright with lots of fruit and nuts and herbs, and then, of course, Georgian wines are pretty amazing and are very influential in the world right now. Orange wines are super popular now, and in Georgia, they’ve been doing it for centuries. They call them amber wines. So you know, it’s in Wheeling — get a designated driver.

Cavanaugh: Yeah, I feel like orange wines have been everywhere, and between that and the khachapuri, that’s gonna be high on my list.  So, number 10 is Fire, which is the revamped Roister, which was one of my favorite restaurants when it first opened. I feel like this has been one of your most contentious picks. 

Kessler: It has. I’ve definitely gotten some shit about that pick from friends whodidn’t like it as well as I did, but I had kind of fun. There were hits and misses, for sure, on the menu, but I feel it really taps into something that’s big right now, which is live fire cooking. And also, for people who want to, maybe can’t afford Alinea, but are very curious about it, I think it’s a little bit of an, you know, an entry point to Grant Achatz’s brain. So I stand by it. 

Cavanaugh: The next spot we have, the one I’m probably most excited about visiting, actually, that I haven’t yet been to, is Sanders BBQ and SupplyCo.

Kessler: Love that place. It is across from the Metra station down there on 99th Street, which is just this beautiful, old building. So you feel like, you know, you’ve just wandered into the set of Fried Green Tomatoes or something when you get there. And then it’s just this wonderful, great environment inside, really bright. It’s all tiled, and it’s just legit barbecue. The thing to get is the big ol’ short rib. It’s like just this huge thing where you just want to pick up that, you know, the bone, and just go all Flintstones on it.

Cavanaugh: And our next spot is a restaurant I’ve been to, Oliver’s, which is in the South Loop and has kind of like an American supper club-ish vibe.

Kessler: Yeah. So it’s in the old Acadia space. The supper club thing. They’re trying to say that they’re like, a, you know, L.A. supper club from the 30s, you know, trying to get that whole zoot suit, you know, era, yeah, I find that a little bit of a hard sell in a place that’s, like, completely made out of engineered concrete. They’ve got a great bar guy there, Luke DeYoung, who makes great cocktails. The food is super expensive, but it’s kind of classic American in a great way. The chicken, I think, is the best in town. And the chef, Alex Carnovale, is really a talent to watch.

Cavanaugh: Yeah, the chicken was the standout when I went as well. And then yes, Luke is doing such an incredible job with the drinks there. I keep wanting to go sit at the bar and just have some of those and have a have a bar dinner. 

Kessler: Have you had the, I haven’t had it yet, but, you know, he has this, like, milkshake machine, and he makes Ramos Gin Fizzes in like, three minutes in it, you know, like, that’s that drink that you takes like, 20 minutes to make. But he can just whip those things up. I really want to try one. 

Cavanaugh: Our number seven restaurant is one that I particularly like, too. I think they’re just doing such a fun job with Italian American classics. Can you tell us about Void? 

Kessler: Void is really cool. It’s in Avondale, but it feels like you’ve wandered into some weird neighborhood in Milwaukee you’ve never been to, and found this place that’s like a Wisconsin supper club that’s also an Italian restaurant. The food is really punchy and different. It’s kind of funny. You know, they do those Spaghetti Uh-O’s out of a can. They do this huge chicken parm. The flavors are nostalgic, and it’s just, it’s got a nice neighborhood vibe. I love it for just when I’m around there and I need dinner, and I know I can get in and eat at that big, long bar. I’m there.

Cavanaugh: Our number six restaurant is still within the Italian cannon, but goes in a very different direction. Tre Dita is from Lettuce Entertain You, and Evan Funke, and is in the St. Regis. And so this is really the most gorgeous restaurant that has opened, I feel like, in years. And I agree that the food also, you know, warrants its inclusion on this list. 

Kessler: I thought it was really good. I mean, it’s a beautiful place, so it’s fun to be there. And though I did not try the namesake, three fingers thick, you know bistecca Fiorentina, which is, you know, what is it like, $750or something? No. 

Cavanaugh: It’s alarmingly high.

Kessler: It’s alarmingly high. It’s not that high, but it’s very expensive. We did not try that. We did try some steaks and some pastas that are very, very good. Love the wine by the glass program. 

Cavanaugh: Yeah, the drink program is really good. Tre Dita has the rare privilege of being the only place that also appears on my Best New Bars list that I worked on with Karl Klockars earlier this year, and I put them on the best bar list because even though I’ve had dinner in the dining room, I’ve gone back to sit at the bar, have some cocktails, have a pasta, and it’s fantastic. So the cocktails are really great as well. Diane Corcoran is the beverage director, and probably my favorite drink in Chicago right now is the Garibaldi Banger, which is a mash up between a Garibaldi and a Harvey Wallbanger. 

Kessler: Okay. 

Cavanaugh: Ridiculous. Yes, very, super fun. 

Kessler: Also, I think my next, you know, fake reservation name so people don’t know me is going to have to be Garibaldi Banger. 

Cavanaugh: Yes. No, no one will find you out. All right. So for our number five restaurant, this one’s fun because I came with you to a lunch to assess this one. Minyoli is a Taiwanese restaurant in Andersonville, and I really loved it. I thought that. You know, the food was super fun, but I’d love to hear your take. 

Kessler: Yeah, I felt that restaurant had a weird opening because, you know that hype machine that is so prevalent in dining culture these days, you know, those super long lines that people, you know, want to, you know, torture themselves in. So, every— when it opened, everyone went and waited away. They waited and said it was fine, and they didn’t see the place evolve. They, you know, the signature items are these, you know, hand-rolled noodles, and they’re very good. But there’s so much more on the menu. The service is just impeccable. They really teach you about Taiwanese cooking. I love all the small plates that, just like the best cabbage I’ve had, is there.

Cavanaugh: The cabbage was fantastic. 

Kessler: Wasn’t that good? Yeah, I know. So good. Yeah, it’s serious. And then they do a nice version of lu rou fan, which is that, you know, very basic Taiwanese lunch of a rice bowl with meat and egg and pickled vegetables on top. And it’s delicious. 

Cavanaugh: Let’s talk about Cariño.

Kessler: Yeah, and we’ve eaten there together a couple times. So Cariño is the restaurant from Norman Fenton, who had previously been in the same space with Brass Heart, and then before that, was a chef at Schwa. Very, very talented guy got a much deserved Michelin star. It’s a small dining room, and he serves the tasting menu. It’s flavors of coastal Latin America. His wife and kid are near Tulum, where he runs another restaurant, and he lives there. Beautiful, beautiful food. Just a very intricate, very talented guy. But what I love, and I what I think you love too, is the taco omakase that happens at night. It’s at the seating counter. It’s just, I don’t know, six or seven seats, so not as expensive. It comes with two drinks. You go in at 10, you’re out at 11, boom, boom, boom. And it’s super fun, delicious tacos, fun small plates and just something like you don’t see anywhere else in Chicago. 

Cavanaugh: Yeah, I am here for that taco omakase, the suadero taco is incredible. I don’t live too far from Cariño, and I wish he would have, like, a taco window so I could just, like, go pick up a few, because I was obsessed with, like, that one suadero taco.  So we are now down to our top three spots. Our number three one is a really interesting one. I have joined you for a dinner here. It has gotten perhaps more online buzz than any other restaurant, and the chef here, Jake Potashnick, also received a Beard semi finalist nod. And there’s a lot to talk about with Feld. 

Kessler: Oh, my God is there a lot to talk about. So Jake was somebody, he was on TikTok under the handle @notyetachef. And he built a lot of anticipation through this very well attended TikTok channel for the restaurant. And soon after it opened, like a Reddit review came in just talking about how much they hated it. And then pretty soon, some local reviewers also chimed in. Hated it too. And the thing about Feld is it  — he’s, he’s kind of cocky. It’s his first restaurant. Jake Potashnick has cooked in, really trained in a bunch of restaurants, good restaurants in Europe and other places. And it’s very, he calls it relationship to table, which sounds, it’s kind of twee. You know, I get, I mean, it’s easy to hate on that, but what he’s saying is, you know, his relationships with farmers, with fishers, with chocolate suppliers, with all kinds of people — like he gets to know the people who make the food for him, who grow it, who, you know, cure it, do whatever else, and then he brings that to you in just this series of about like, 30 small bites. And it’s the most un-Instagramable food you’ve ever seen. I mean, like people go to it, oh my god, you know. So everything looks just like a little, you know, bit of goo in a little dish. Not everything, but there is a lot of goo in little dishes, but, but yummy goo, right? 

Cavanaugh: I think that what I really liked about Feld is he has a real perspective. I, you know, we go to every tasting menu in town. We eat at every new restaurant. I feel like there are a lot of tasting menus that could be perhaps interchangeable, you know, what chef is making them. But I find that the food at Feld is just this, is very much his. It’s his perspective. It’s his take, and honestly, it’s like, just really fun. I had a blast in that dining room. I felt like the servers were really energetic and really fun. I just remember getting just this beautiful slice of tomato. And I was just like, This is how I want to eat tomato. This is the simplicity. It’s so beautiful. 

Well, our number two is also a favorite of mine. I’ve been a few times. It’s Mariscos San Pedro, which is from the crew behind Taqueria Chingon and Obélix and Le Bouchon and all the places that are just really fun to eat right now. John, what did you love there? 

Kessler: What really nailed it for me there was going to brunch. Oh, my God, the brunch is good because the—

Cavanaugh: I have not done the brunch yet. 

Kessler: Girl, get you there. You know, you really need to try that brunch, because Antonio Incandela’s pastries are amazing. And it’s just they do these great breakfast tacos, a really nice like fish pozole at brunch, which you know may not be everyone’s idea of what you want to wake up to, but it’s definitely mine. It’s a place where you get a bunch of plates and you share them. You get a big, whole fried fish. You get a seafood tower. You get lots of little tacos. You get like, an octopus hot dog, and you just get all — it’s just like, super, super creative. So I’m always happy to go back there. 

Cavanaugh: Yeah, they they just do, they really kind of think outside the box in terms of what their offerings are. That fried fish is really remarkable, too. 

Kessler: That fried fish, yeah. And it’s because it’s just, like, super high-quality ingredients, you know, and that’s really what makes that place work, you know, the the recipes for sure, maybe some of the dishes they they could, you know, remove a thing or two, you know, Coco Chanel it. But other than that, I just think it’s, yeah, great. Are we ready for number one? Drum roll?

Cavanaugh: I think we’re ready. You texted me over Christmas to say, I think we have number one. And I was like, waiting with bated breath to find out what you were going to say. And then you just said, it’s Maxwell’s Trading, which is from Erling Wu-Bower, Chris Jung, Josh Tilden. And I was like, that’s it. That’s perfect. That is completely the right choice. Tell me about what makes this number one. 

Kessler: Okay, well, everybody, she lied. What I said was Portillo’s, but she made me do this. No, so Maxwell’s Trading: When I first reviewed it, I liked it. The menu was all over the place. It felt very inconsistent, but I did like it. I love Erling Wu-Bower and Chris Jung and their perspective, they both have Asian heritage. They both know different kinds of Asian cooking really well. Erling’s mom, Olivia Wu, is a very well known Chinese food writer. Chris Jung’s heritage is Korean, and they show a really kind of deep understanding of flavors that they bring into, kind of like American bistro dishes. So it doesn’t feel, I mean, you know, it’s a stupid comment every food critic makes, but it doesn’t feel fusion-y. It doesn’t feel like they’re, you know, pouring ponzu and sriracha onto something. 

Cavanaugh: I think the food is great, but I think that what I like most about Maxwell’s is just like the overall experience being in that room, which I think is beautiful. I think that the service is excellent, whether you’re sitting at the bar or whether you’re sitting at the table, and it’s just like a place you want to be. 

Kessler: Kristina Magro, the beverage director, has done such a good job with both cocktails and the wine list. It’s a really fun place to sit at a table with a group, order nice, big dinner and drink a bottle of wine, and it’s a great place to sit at the bar with an amazingly delicious cocktail and just have a couple small plates.

Cavanaugh: Well, 11 restaurants is not a lot, and a lot more restaurants opened in Chicago in 2024. I’m sure that everyone has their restaurants that they’re like, “Why didn’t he include this one?” Mine is Brasero. Brasero is one of my favorite openings of the year. Big fan of the food there. I think it’s gotten better each time I’ve gone. Love the drink program and the wine program, always super fun. Why isn’t it here? 

Kessler: Gosh, I tried with Brasero. I went four times, honestly, and I— it is a fun place. I think the world of John Manion as a chef and a human being, there is something about the food I can’t connect to. It’s all so rich. There’s just, like nuts over everything. I found the kitchen to to be very inconsistent, so I’ll keep trying. I know people love it, but you know, gotta be me, gotta be honest on it. And it just didn’t, didn’t work for me.

Cavanaugh: Putting together this list, visiting dozens of restaurants, I’m sure that you know, you have some kind of overall takeaways. What has stood out for what’s going on in Chicago’s dining scene right now, besides, you know, specific restaurants, what are some trends you’ve seen?

Kessler: God, they’re a lot of sweet potatoes. Everyone loves them some sweet potatoes. 

Cavanaugh: There are. 

Kessler: But they’re really good. I mean, you know, Maxwell’s has a good sweet potato, Fire has a good sweet potato, Brasero has a good sweet potato. A lot of that sort of, you know, center-of-the-plate vegetable stuff. Shorter tasting menus, I’ve noticed. What else. Yeah, right? Ones that are like, not $200 and, you know, three hours, but are like $125 in an hour and a half. So. Oh, yay to that. I don’t know. What else have you noticed? 

Cavanaugh: We definitely see a lot of independent restaurants on this list, which is fantastic. You know, we’ve got Tre Dita, which is Lettuce Entertain You. We’ve got Fire, which is Alinea Group. But other than that, like, these are, like, indie groups which, you know, I love to see. And they all just kind of feel like, you know, they’re pushing things a little bit. We’ve had what feels like a lot of steak houses and French restaurants open in the past couple years, which I love those too. But for the majority of the places here, it feels like they’re doing something outside the box, Which I really appreciate.

Kessler: Yeah, which Chicago has kind of needed for a while, right? We do genre really well. We do tasting menus well. Street food is like, you know, classic, But it’s just those places that, small, independent restaurants with chefs thinking out of the box: Yes to that.

Cavanaugh: We’re gonna end with the best things we each ate lately. John, what’s the best thing you had?

Kessler: Finally checked out Cafe Yaya, the new restaurant from the team at Galit, it’s right next door. Really, really delicious pork schnitzel. They serve it at night. It’s got like, this creamy, tarragon-y, lemon-y mushroom sauce over the top of it, and that was a plate-licker. How about you? 

Cavanaugh: That’s fantastic. Well, I waited in line at Del Sur. I went, I waited 45 minutes. I went on a Friday when the weather was gonna be nice, and honestly, like, I’m not a big wait-in-line person, but I really didn’t think this was that bad. So I got one of everything that was in the case when I got there. I think that was nine pastries. And there were some real highlights. And I could have picked a couple different ones, but I’m gonna go with Basque cake with pandan cream and rhubarb jam on top. It is so good, like I’m already thinking about going back, particularly because I know that he swaps out that jam seasonally. And so rhubarb, I think, was his second offering, really fantastic. There’s some other gems there too, but I know lines are not for everyone, yeah, and, you know, I’m sure that they’ll also, you know, once they’ve been open for a little bit, they’ll probably — the lines won’t be as intense, but he’s doing a really good job at Del Sur so I’m super excited about that spot.

Kessler: Wow, that sounds great. I, ugh, maybe I’ll do it.

Cavanaugh: Thanks for joining us for this episode of Dish From Chicago Magazine. Your hosts are dining editor Amy Cavanaugh and critic John Kessler, editing by Sarah Steimer and music by Bill Harris. You can find us online at chicagomag.com. We’ll see you next time.