Oriole has embraced a more challenging path, yet it feels like the rewards of the process are now finally starting to flow…
Seafood
North America’s “number one” restaurant is completely untethered to any kind of orthodoxy or expectation…
My last meal at Oriole left me feeling that the restaurant was undergoing a bit of an identity crisis…
With this visit to Smyth, I feel like I am finally regaining some sort of rhythm…
What does the team have in store for my tenth visit?
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?