After spending a bit of time exploring two of Chicago’s more longstanding fine dining concepts, you now shift your focus to a restaurant that has successfully reached middle age…
Two Pineapples
In North Pond, you find a restaurant that stands totally apart from time yet, just the same, has stood firmly ahead of its time for most of its existence…
Jinsei Motto forms a valuable addition to Chicago’s sushi scene. It is the approachable, irreverent entry point to the genre, and one that—with such a clear, undeluded sense of self—you find rather refreshing.
Rising from the ashes of Elizabeth, Atelier has already surpassed your expectations, with the restaurant representing an essential beachhead in the fight to democratize fine dining and foster an appreciation of local sourcing that transcends the cloistered world of “foodieism.”
Chicagoans need to beware that the experience offered at Sushi by Scratch Restaurants today is a pale facsimile of the version Phillip Frankland Lee put on at opening, but there is still some fun to be had.
With LEYE’s luxe sushi spot recently celebrating its first birthday, the time seems ripe for you to pay the concept a visit and test its intention of being “the best omakase in Chicago.”
Valhalla confirms Gillanders’s status as one of Chicago’s most talented chefs, yet the restaurant still only represents a half step in his journey…
Understanding Adalina
Hype is anathema to a cynic such as you. Yet some places fulfill–dare you say, surpass–expectations from the very start. Some places not only please, but they promise. They stand as a bastion of dynamic cookery and gracious service that is sure to elevate the expression of those arts across the entire city. They beg you not merely to check them once off of your bucket list, but affirm the splendor of those rare restaurants that embody a living organism.
The dark days of the pandemic–a reality managed, throughout the meal, unerringly by Alinea’s team–have led the restaurant back towards the fountainhead of its inspiration. No “smoke and mirrors,” just creative cooking–just the drama of the table. Alinea “3.0” is the return to the source from which Achatz–during the decade he helmed Alinea 1.0–made his name.