What does the team have in store for my tenth visit?
Seafood
Whatever ends up happening, this is a key moment in the restaurant’s history that is worth perceiving and preserving…
Ten years after Oriole’s debut, I cannot think of a tougher or more rewarding test for a restaurant that has earned its place in Chicago’s all-time fine dining pantheon…
These past few experiences affirm that the kitchen has built a foundation through which its best ever work may now be realized.
Can lightning strike twice? Can the team at Warlord totally reinvent its tasting menu without losing what made those first two meals so special?
How does the menu here change month to month? How does the perception of quality and value, when one no longer approaches Phan’s work with the romanticism of a “special occasion” splurge, change with it?
Mariscos San Pedro’s “Taco Omakase” is not just a relocation of what Chingón did before, but an expansion and evolution of the same idea: a crown jewel offering within a bustling restaurant that, indeed, may be looking to win Bibendum’s favor once more.
By offering diners the freedom to define their own evening, by welcoming and caring for them expertly across all levels of indulgence, the Poseys construct that sense of hygge. Elske should serve as a model of what a boundary-pushing, community-oriented restaurant should be.
You dub Andrés “the Alinea killer,” and you attest that one sprawling meal at Bazaar Meat—enjoyed at total leisure, with total warmth, and built, plate by plate, in accordance with one’s personal taste—negates any need to go to any of Achatz’s concepts ever again.
You cannot say you have eaten at Le Francais or Charlie Trotter’s in their prime, but you feel no fear in saying Smyth is the greatest restaurant Chicago has ever seen. And, by all accounts, the Shieldses are only getting started.