Latest Chicago restaurant reviews

“Excuse me, do you know what this line is for?” “It’s for doughnuts,” I said, humiliated. I was waiting in a line 50 deep for a food most often preceded by the word Dunkin’. “Are they that good?” Before I could answer, the lady in front of me brushed aside her long blond hair and turned to face us with a look of exasperation: “They are.” This was Doughnut Vault: the minuscule, chandeliered vestibule (capacity: approximately four) from which doughnuts appear Tuesday through Saturday at 8:30am, only to disappear just as ephemerally approximately 12 tweets and 90 minutes later. Currently, 750 are made each day, 900 on the weekend. There is no question the rounds of fried dough that emerge from this shoebox—the creation of the restaurateur Brendan Sodikoff (Gilt Bar, Maude’s Liquor Bar)—are as good as any doughnut being made in Chicago. The problem is they’re better. “Stupid!” The Dance editor of Time Out Chicago is not one to raise his voice. “Stupidly good. The über–Krispy Kreme.” He held a chestnut-glazed doughnut, as fresh as one has ever come. I waited exactly 56 minutes for it. After the first 15 of those minutes, the couple behind me left for Sprinkles. The rest of us read novels. We played with dogs. We pretended we knew this was worth it. I, for one, did not know. Not until I took my box of doughnuts to a bench and let my hands and face fall prey to the sticky, airy perfection that is a Doughnut Vault glazed doughnut. Do I wish the glazed doughnuts were less grotes

Food writers often squirm at the descriptors we lean on to talk about restaurants and bars (I’m looking at you, contemporary American). But “fusion,” or the idea of combining elements from different cuisines into a single dish, might be the worst of all. The word first cropped up in the 1980s, when chef Norman Van Aken claims to have coined it in the name of “Floribbean”—squirm—cooking. In my dozen years of food writing, I can say that chefs on the whole can’t stand the term, mainly because it represents a glib catchall for the years-long process of tinkering with flavors and techniques to achieve flawless balance. “I hate the word fusion,” said Pacific Standard Time executive chef/partner Erling Wu-Bower as he knelt beside me, sweating and coated in flour, on my first of two visits. “This food is American.” Unfortunately, diners require more context from restaurant slogans, however inadequate or trite. For instance, I might have rolled my eyes the first time I read PST’s tagline pledging Californian warmth and authenticity. But visiting cemented how maddenly short this descriptor falls of conveying the enterprising dishes that mingle pristine West Coast bounty with Mediterranean influences and Wu-Bower’s sensory memories of cooking with his mother, a Chinese immigrant and food writer. Then again, maybe not. “People have always cooked that way out west, no boundaries between cuisines,” Wu-Bower told me. Perhaps we should call it assimilation cooking. With tables booked

I arrived at Blackbird two weeks ago at 9:45pm on a snowy Thursday. I walked in, and the hostess kindly asked for my coat. I hesitated. It was a cold night. I had walked a mile in bad weather to get there. I was still thawing. But I was also familiar with the legend about Blackbird’s owner, Donnie Madia, and how coats on the backs of chairs made him furious. Having met Donnie a few times, I could see how this would be the case. I handed the coat over. But I kept my bag. I took a seat at the bar, by myself, and I had every intention of eating my dinner unoccupied—no phone, no book. That was the way I wanted it. It was also the way I think Donnie would have wanted it. Still, should a cocktail instill in me the boldness to take out my novel, I wanted to be prepared. The place was almost empty—just a few tables still occupied in the back, near the kitchen. I had the bar all to myself. So when I saw the bartender, my server, ruffling through the day’s newspapers, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had leaned against the wall and started reading. Instead, she fished a New Yorker out of the pile and handed it to me with a raised eyebrow. Yes? she asked with her eyes. Yes, I nodded, and took it from her hand. It was the type of service gesture I expect from a specific kind of great restaurant, but not necessarily from Blackbird. My last meal here—lunch, several months ago—had been presided over with excruciating snobbishness. And since then, the Blackbird group of restaurant

There are cities in this country where the modern restaurant’s purpose is to take you somewhere else: London via a gastropub, North Carolina via a smoke shack. Restaurants become the tool of escapism. Chicagoans mostly have the opposite experience. In our buzziest contemporary American spots, a shared aesthetic has emerged, and it’s not American food—it’s Chicago food. Grubby and pubby at its base, Chicago cuisine is often accompanied by beer, and it venerates miscellaneous cuts of meat from an animal’s organs or forehead. It’s deceptively pricey (all those small plates add up). It claims European influences (but it’s really inspired by the Midwest). There are vegetables in Contemporary Chicago Cuisine, but they’re tossed with cheese or lard. And desserts— ironically, they’re afterthoughts: a waffle here, a shortbread cookie there. CCC is a masculine—no, a machismo—way of eating, and men eat meat. Dessert is for Nellies. Eating this food is the opposite of a transporting experience. You don’t escape Chicago at these restaurants. You fall deeper into it. The “roasted pig face” at Girl and the Goat is classic CCC. Two patties, looking like something thawed from a Jimmy Dean box, formed from the meat of a pig’s jowls and chin. Some fried potato sticks, almost identical to Potato Stix, are strewn around the plate. There’s a fried egg on top, of course, because, though not quite unique to CCC, fried eggs are the cuisine’s default garnish. Unpleasantly charred on the outside, th

Any taco shop that opens within a mile of the intersection of Milwaukee, North and Damen will be subject to the Big Star question: Is it as good as Big Star? Is it as cheap? Most important, is it worth potentially missing out on a seat on Big Star’s patio? To maximize the pleasure Antique Taco is capable of providing, ignore all these questions. It’s not that Antique can’t compete with Big Star—it can. But why pit the two against each other? Wicker Park, it turns out, is big enough for both. So on nights that call for shots of whiskey and boys with mustaches, keep going to Big Star. And on the quieter, reflective nights of summer, head to Antique. The vibe is cute and vintage (and some of those vintage items are for sale), but the space is uncluttered enough that you can relax. And the tacos, more composed than most, feel like meals in miniature: Light and crispy battered fish is topped with smoky cabbage; sumptuous carnitas carry a considerable kick from an adobo rub. A corn salad is a decadent mixture of kernels, onions, beans and mayonnaise—it is probably one of the only mayo-based salads you’ll eat and yet still find sophisticated. And the hefty meatball slider is given a proper sauce: a smooth mole poblano. Could you sit on the sidewalk patio with a glass jug of the rosemary margaritas (good, but hard to find the rosemary) in an attempt to re-create the other taco joint in the ’hood? You could. But Antique works best inside, with the happy staff, the adorable interior

“Nostalgia works because it takes us back in time, which is the only place we can’t go,” says Dana Salls Cree, the former Publican brand executive pastry chef who opened Pretty Cool Ice Cream with Bang Bang Pie owner Michael Ciapciak this summer. For Salls Cree, nostalgia is standing at the end of her driveway with change in her pocket awaiting the melodic jingle of the ice cream truck to indicate her favorite cherry-pineapple swirl pop was within reach. Over the past few years, making ice cream has become her main preoccupation—yielding an approachable cookbook (Hello My Name is Ice Cream) and, more recently, a four-seasons ice cream shop in Logan Square. I met two dates at Pretty Cool just before dinner: One of them, a bouncy toddler with a stuffed ice cream toy under her arm, gaped at the sight of the handheld treats lining the display case like technicolor soldiers. “Which flavor do you want?” her mom asked. With a sweeping gesture, she pointed to what I could only decipher meant “all of them.” Starring cream from Lamers Dairy in Wisconsin and an ever-shifting cast of fruits sourced via Local Foods, the pops stand out most for their beautiful density and texture. A peanut butter bar coated in thick chocolate and studded with salty potato chip pieces crunched snappily before giving way to the stretchy chew of nutty, rich custard. Blue moon, Salls Cree’s Smurf-blue take on the beloved Midwestern ice cream flavor, tasted like a concentrated sip of cereal milk from the bo

The restaurant is called Boeufhaus and its tagline is “eat carnivorously,” which might mislead you into thinking that this is merely a palace of beef, where vegetarians and pescatarians will be left out. You’d be wrong, since the French and German-inflected steakhouse, led by chef Brian Ahern, gives as much thought to its non-meat dishes. The menu is blessedly focused, and you begin with a mix of snacks and starters. A firework of fresh crudités are beautifully presented in a glass dish and served on ice alongside a creamy Green Goddess dressing. Thin slices of salmon are drizzled with ginger oil, then decorated with pickled mushrooms, chilies and crispy skin. A velvety polenta comes topped with nubs of escargot, a dish I’ll dream about come cold temperatures. A foray into meat led us to the fleischschnacka, pork sausage pinwheels wrapped up in pasta.    The starters are so ridiculously good that it’s a little let down when the meal starts to falter. There are steaks, of course, like the 55-day aged ribeye, pricey for the area at $60 (though not for the city), which is well-salted with a nice funk. But it, and the seared halibut, were served lukewarm, while the bread crumbs atop the cauliflower gratin were burned. Desserts change frequently, which is good, since the tiny apple tart felt like an afterthought. Still, there’s a ton to like here, including the delightful server, who knowledgeably guided us through the wine list. Boeufhaus isn’t perfect, but I’m already thinking

Bang Bang Pie & Biscuits poses some downright tough dilemmas: Pie or biscuits? Key lime or mint-chocolate? Candied bacon or braised greens? The good news is, if you visit often enough, you'll be able to try it all. Other Chicagoans know this, too, as evidenced by the line that often stretches out the front door on warm summer days. Whether you visit the Logan Square or Ravenswood outpost, there are usually six pies on the menu every day. The flavors rotate regularly, offering a taste of seasonal produce and funky flavor combinations concocted for special holidays. Come summer, diners might be able to grab a slice of lemon pie with tangy lemon cream, frothy lemon mousse and lip-smacking lemon curd. In the winter months, keep an eye out for more indulgent creations, like the chocolate-caramel pie with shortbread cookie crust. Key lime is available all year for good reason—it's an excellent example of what the little shop can do. Citrusy custard pools in a graham cracker crust before being topped with a dollop of fresh whipped cream. It's spectacularly simple yet inexplicably divine. The biscuit menu is a bit more complex, with biscuit sandwiches, biscuits drowning in gravy and biscuits piled with eggs and candied bacon, among other iterations. First-timers will delight in the Scratch variety, which is served with seasonal butter and jam, allowing the dense but fluffy pastry to really shine. But that shouldn't keep you from ordering the avocado biscuit, which is topped with p

Now under the talented Cosmo Goss, Paul Kahan's Publican is still as relevant as it was when it opened in 2008. It boasts a fantastic beer list, packed with Belgian and local brews; a menu that equally celebrates meat, seafood and veggies; and the best brunch in town, served Saturdays and Sundays. The chicken is legendary, the oysters pristine, and the desserts, from Anna Posey, are inventive—we'd happily eat every meal here, if we could. 

When we first walked up to 5 Rabanitos, my date asked if we were in the right spot—the signage doesn’t provide a lot of promise that it’s going to be a great meal, but once we were in the door, his attitude changed immediately. It’s nothing fancy, but the green walls and a sparse dining room with old Spanish love ballads playing in the background give it a charm that’s perfect for devouring as much Mexican food as possible. Chef Alfonso Sotelo, a XOCO alum, helms the kitchen, providing delightfully comforting dishes with just the right amount of personality. His dishes are flavorful and heartening—if I could sit and eat his food for hours I would. This is definitely a spot where you can hunker down and order a huge plate of tacos without breaking the bank—each is only $2.25. I’d pick at least two of the carnitas tacos, but there’s no doubt in my mind that all varieties are delightful. The only question our server asked after running through our large order was if we also wanted an order of guacamole (the answer is always yes). The refreshing and creamy dish came out on a beautiful plate garnished with radish slices. Actually, everything here is garnished with radishes as a tribute to the restaurant’s name—“rabanitos” is Spanish for radishes. The rest of the menu doesn’t disappoint, whether you’re having the ceviche verde with avocado tomatillo lime salsa, dotted with bits of jicama and cucumber and pieces of tender calamari and shrimp, or the caldo de res, a delicious soup

I didn’t grow up eating the delectable, Filipino chopped pork skillet known as sisig. But the version at Cebu—with pig-face nubs, duck livers and jalapeños slicked in oyster sauce and topped with a poached egg—elicited childhood memories of the ham hashes my family would fry up the day after a roast. Cebuano-style barbecue chicken wasn’t in my regular dinner rotation in the Chicago suburbs, either. But on hot summer nights, Dad would nestle chicken thighs into an aluminum pan with a whole bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce and grill them till tender and sticky—flavors that flooded back as I tore into Cebu’s caramelized, bone-in chicken inasal painted with sugary sauce. Cebu is one of a small handful of restaurants around the country specializing in the food of its namesake Filipino island province, known for sugar-white beaches and lechon (crisp-skinned roasted pork). This easy-going Wicker Park café’s generous, meaty comfort dishes have a transportive quality that takes you somewhere warmer but also familiar. This skinny North Avenue storefront lives in the bygone locations of Euro-emulating Americano 2211 and brunch fave Birchwood Kitchen. As my date and I walked in, our eyes were drawn to chef de cuisine/partner Malvin Tan methodically assembling Halo-Halo, the layered shaved ice dessert, at the marble counter behind a glass display case. Tan opened the restaurant with his two siblings, pastry chef/partner Cybill Tan and partner Marlon Tan. If you couldn’t yet tell, this

In Chicago, fusion food is arguably easier to come by than authentic ethnic cuisine. That’s not to say that cross-cultural fare is a bad idea; Kimski, Mott Street and En Hakkore are examples of top-notch spots seamlessly blending traditions. But in some ways, creating something authentic seems like the harder feat. That might explain my high hopes for HaiSous, a new restaurant in Pilsen from Embeya vets Thai and Danielle Dang. The tagline promises “a true Vietnamese kitchen preserving heritage through food,” something most Chicagoans haven’t experienced south of Montrose Avenue (aside from the smattering of pho and banh mi spots downtown). Guests can choose from a $33 tasting or the a la carte dinner menu; my date and I went with the latter, which didn’t disappoint. Divided into five sections, the dinner menu offers “for fun” salads, drinking food, house specialties, vegetarian dishes and pickled things. Start with Dang’s papaya salad, a family recipe that’s bursting with fresh, herbaceous flavors. Shards of young papaya, culantro (a cousin to cilantro) and savory Vietnamese beef jerky dance in a puddle of mouth-smacking chili sauce. Similarly refreshing—though a touch sweeter—is the hand-shredded duck salad, with crunchy green cabbage, banana blossom, scallion oil and ginger. En route to the “drinking food” section of the menu, we ordered a round of adult beverages, the favorite of which was the Sake Signature Cocktail, a comforting blend of Japanese rice wine, honey, Tahi

I couldn’t get into the lobster roll at GT Fish—the bread was too sweet, the lobster too wet. And when it came to the stuffed squid, I found myself digging out the chorizo, shrimp and rice—the squid itself had been overcooked, and I wanted to avoid having to gnaw on it. Desserts—I’ll get to those in a minute. But let’s just say they did not provide happy endings. Everything else at GT Fish I loved. I loved the cocktails, which was no surprise given these expert Dark & Stormys were designed by Benjamin Schiller. And I loved the room, which ever since the Boka Group (those guys behind Girl & the Goat and Perennial, among others) announced would become GT Fish I’ve mistakenly referred to, in conversation and in print, as a “fish shack.” Clearly, I did not know of what I spoke. Fish Bar in Lincoln Park—that’s a fish shack. GT Fish is a restaurant. And in contrast to Fish Bar, here the nautical details lend the room a sleekness. The aura is cool, salty. Not unlike the wind in Cape Cod. The Cape is not the only thing this place is selling, though. With every order of oysters—cool and plump and ocean-kissed—comes two bottles of GT-branded hot sauce, in packaging that leads me to believe we’ll soon see the stuff at Jewel. The sauce itself is neither remarkable nor un, but it’s indicative of this restaurant’s secondary ambitions: to raise the profile of chef Giuseppe Tentori, perhaps even to the level of the other star chefs in this company, Paul Virant and (especially) Stephanie I

By now, I, and Chicago diners, should be tired of Italian restaurants. Over the past couple of years, we’ve eaten so many variations on the cuisine—Piedmontese at Osteria Langhe, seafood at Nico Osteria, Sicilian at Ceres’ Table—plus so many generic Italian spots that it almost feels like a reward to be handed a place like Formento’s. The restaurant, from B Hospitality Co. (The Bristol, Balena), offers takes on classic Italian-American dishes, like shrimp scampi, fettuccine alfredo and chicken Parmesan. It’s a comfortable restaurant—the dining room has an old-school vibe, with red leather banquette seating, white tablecloths and black and white photos affixed to the walls, while the long, curved bar and tin ceiling provide a dark, comfortable place to sip well-executed classics like Manhattans and Negronis. Our engaging server commented that the theme reminded her of the Italian supper clubs she grew up with in central Illinois, but the restaurant only claims to be “inspired by” the classics, so those expecting faithful, straightforward dishes won’t find them on Tony Quartaro’s menu. And that’s not a bad thing, because it means dishes like the scampi, fat, sweet langoustines that are halved and topped with nubs of shrimp sausage and lemony breadcrumbs. I started scraping up the buttery garlic sauce with my fork, and a server brought us pieces of garlic focaccia to soak up every drop. Similarly great was Nonna’s relish tray, an array of tiny vegetable bites, including olives

Oyster Bah, the new seafood spot from Lettuce Entertain You, is a bit of a misnomer. Besides being ridiculously silly (shouldn’t it be “Oystah Bah,” if you’re truly trying to embrace a Boston accent?), the name doesn’t fully get across how wide-ranging the menu is. Oysters from both the East and West coasts share menu space with New Orleans barbecue shrimp, fish tacos and tuna poke. Classic New England dishes are here, but this restaurant is more of a paean to American seafood, in all styles, rather than a New England seafood shack. And that’s a fine thing, given how expertly chef Peter Balodimas prepares dishes. Starting with raw or chilled seafood is necessary, and cleanly shucked oysters, teeming with liquor, pop with a drop of tangy stout granita, while plump chilled shrimp come with or without a sprinkle of Old Bay seasoning. On the cooked side, a pair of hearty New England stuffies pack chopped clams and chorizo into quahog shells—it’s a classic dish I love but never see around Chicago. Entrees are fairly simple, like steamed crab legs with lemon and butter for dunking, though the most buzzed-about dish, the crispy one-sided snapper, is a scene-stealer. Spicy Thai chili glaze adds heat to the flaky fish, which is served on the bone. It’s not surprising that Oyster Bah is so strong so soon after opening—it’s the little sister to Shaw’s Crab House, which has long been my favorite Chicago seafood restaurant. Though between the casual space and thoughtful drink offerings

Let’s knock this out right away: You’re getting the arroz gordo. It’s a spectacle to behold, a paella-like thicket in which sausage, pork, clams and prawns are piled on a bed of rice—a dish worthy of sharing its name (which translates to fat rice) with the restaurant itself. Tackle the prawns first: Crack their shells and disengage their plump insides. Now the clams. There might be a stray sandy one in there, but the rest have integrity. Next, a tea egg (boiled, then cracked and steeped in tea and soy sauce, such that the liquid seeps in, marbling the exterior): It’s fragrant and saturated with seasoning. And now the unsightly hunks of pork, a disappointing mass of tough and chewy meat. Just when the arroz gordo becomes almost senseless, there’s an olive: an acidic reprieve. And then there’s the soul of the dish, crisped black at the pot’s edges, packed with nuggets of Chinese sausage and pickled raisins that burst with sweet, tangy juices. I’m talking about the rice. There’s something about big, conglomerate dishes like this—the fat rice, the low-country boil at Carriage House, the moqueca at La Sirena Clandestina—that makes them immensely pleasurable to eat. They’re the opposite of faddish: They’re dishes with long histories, things you don’t have to think about to enjoy. This sense of history and of place is what makes Fat Rice’s approach so successful: Owners Abraham Conlon and Adrienne Lo (formerly the duo behind the supper club X-Marx) are cooking the food of Macau,

Paul Fehribach's exploration of Southern culinary history draws on historic recipes (like farmhouse chicken and dumplings, circa 1920) to tell the story of Southern cuisine. The collard green sandwich, with tender greens and cheddar tucked between fried corn pone, is a Native American dish, while crispy catfish a la Big Jones is lightly fried and served with grits and piccalilli. Brunch, which begins with complimentary beignets, is a similarly epic affair.

When I ask Erick Williams, the chef/owner of Virtue, to describe the inspiration behind his effusively warm, broad-spectrum Southern restaurant in Hyde Park, he heaves a long sigh. “I want to be thorough,” he says, pausing again. “The food is inspired by the Southern experience of cooking.” That sentiment encompasses centuries of chosen and forced migration, strife and survival, and the collision of myriad regions and ethnicities—which Williams channels into satiating, elevated fare at his solo debut. The menu’s boiled-down dish descriptions (pork chop, salmon, shrimp) all but hide the intense attention to detail that he devotes to techniques and sourcing methods. It's a reminder that we're here to be fed, first and foremost. “What’s with this place? I keep dropping people off here,” our Lyft driver commented as we pulled up to the Hyde Park storefront that formerly housed A10. Inside, the soaring dining room and bar were already brimming with revelers despite single-digit temperatures outside. Much like the menu verbiage, Virtue’s design elements reverberate with deeper meaning. Burnt reclaimed-wood sideboards from a Detroit artist nod to urban blight and perseverance; cut-paper works by Bridgeport artist Amanda Williams depict Chicago neighborhood grids inlaid in maps of Iraq. In a large, warm-toned portrait by Dominican-born artist Raelis Vasquez, a time-traveling salon of influential African-Americans—from journalist and activist Ida B. Wells to poet Langston Hughes—ga

Restaurant review by Amy Cavanaugh Prior to last week, I had never eaten bear. Or snail roe, which I didn’t even know was something people ate. Or foie gras molded into tiny owls. Welcome to dinner at Elizabeth, Iliana Regan’s two-year-old Lincoln Square restaurant, which is equal parts fascinating and adorable. It’s easy to be charmed by soup served in owl mugs and decor like tree branches or a white deer head that greets you at the door. But at $354.78 for dinner for two (with service and tax, but before drinks), merely to be charmed by dinner is not enough. My dinner (always) needs to be delicious and, if I’m paying that much, it needs to be something I can’t get elsewhere. Dinner at Elizabeth is both. Elizabeth opened in September 2012 with communal tables and three tasting menus, which ranged in price and size. In other words, your enjoyment of dinner depended heavily on your tablemates, which you had zero control over, unless you bought the whole table. Now, two years later, the communal tables have been replaced with two or four-seat tables, there’s a single tasting menu each night, and there are beer pairings in addition to wine and nonalcoholic pairings, plus a cocktail list. And while you can order tickets online, a la Next and Alinea, as I did, you can also just call up the restaurant and reserve a table. In other words, it’s become a more diner-friendly experience. According to Elizabeth’s website, the restaurant offers “new gatherer” cuisine, which is a way o

Let’s play a little choose-your-own-adventure.  A. Are you serious about your drinks and want to chat with the bartenders while snacking on shared plates? B. Do you want to be in the middle of the hottest new restaurant, or willing to put up with chaos to tackle the dinner menu? C. Are you an early riser who wants to sneak in breakfast before work or have a leisurely morning meeting? If you answered A, just show up and snag seats at Salone Nico, the bar adjacent to Nico Osteria (or at the even quieter bar upstairs). If you answered B, head to Open Table to make a reservation for dinner. And if you answered C, you’re in luck, because Nico serves the best new breakfast in town. Gold Coast newcomer Nico Osteria, an Italian seafood restaurant from Paul Kahan’s One Off Hospitality that's located in the Thompson Hotel, may offer a variety of experiences, but you'll get excellent food and drinks at all of them. On a recent night, we showed up early for our 9:30 reservation so we could have a drink at the bar first. It’s something you should do, too, since the food is ideally paired with wine (there's an excellent list of Italian wines from Bret Heiar), but you won’t want to miss out entirely on Matty Eggleston’s cocktails. The list is divided into three aperitif and three full-strength cocktails, my favorite of which is the Nico, a Negroni-esque drink that's strong with a bitter backbone and made with gin, amaro, Cocchi Americano and mineral water. The other cocktails, like the

There’s no denying that the quality of coffee and tea across Chicago—not least of all in coffee shops—has never been better. So how come coffee-shop food, on the whole, still sucks? This quandary so irritated Rafael Esparza (Yusho, Kimski) and Daniel Speer (Nordstrom’s former corporate chef) that they decided to open a café of their own. Finom’s tight, affordable food menu draws on the meaty and paprika-tinged cooking of Speer’s wife’s native Hungary. Relying on little more than a toaster oven and an induction burner, Esparza and Speer Macgyver everything from veal-brain pate on toast to custardy scrambled eggs to sausage-and-pepper ragout. It’s delicate yet sustaining—like the dainty, mismatched china it sits on—and, frankly, the sort of food we should expect alongside a $3.50 cup of coffee. My mom and I arrived on a sunny weekday to Esparza’s warm greeting, his figure obscured by a hulking manual-lever espresso machine on the wood-paneled bar. Finom lives in a 200-year-old two-story frame structure that’s housed a grocery store, pharmacy, bar and even a spa in its lifetime. The owners leaned into its time-worn vibe, outfitting the wood-paneled space in vintage bureaus, tchotchkes and a handful of squashy upholstered seats. The decor seemed to match my Turkish delight, a fragrant latte from beverage manager Ari Franco (Brew Brew Coffee & Tea) comprising espresso and steamed milk kissed with ground cardamom and rosewater syrup, then framed preciously with dusty-sweet drie

Restaurant review by Amy Cavanaugh With almost no exceptions, you want to order the dish a restaurant is named for. At Momotaro, that’s the momotaro tartare, which melds dehydrated tomato, a spicy hit of Dijon and onion puree into a slightly sweet, savory spread. It’s served with puffy rice crisps, which are totally unnecessary, since my dinner date was content to just scoop up the tartare on its own—and for that matter, so was I. It’s a wholly unexpected dish, and it sets the tone for a dinner at Momotaro, the latest restaurant from the Boka group (Boka, GT Fish & Oyster and others), a restaurant group known for opening exceptional restaurants. Here, chef Mark Hellyar and sushi chef Jeff Ramsey have teamed up for a take on Japanese cuisine that’s elegant, and in most cases, delicious. If you haven’t made a reservation (and even if you have), you may wind up waiting for a table along with boisterous groups of 20- and 30-somethings. There’s a small bar area in the huge, wood-paneled dining room, but a better bet is the downstairs izakaya, which glows with red light and has a four-sided bar and seating designed for groups. I liked the space so much that on a recent Friday, we went to the izakaya to wait for our table and returned to end the evening with a nightcap of Japanese whiskey. There’s a 15-deep Japanese whiskey list, which includes easy-to-find types, like the Yamazaki 12 and Hibiki 12, along with Coffey Grain, a relative newcomer to the U.S., which is round and swee

You don’t get a glimpse of Marisol Escobar until the bill arrives, affixed to a black-and-white postcard depicting the late avant-garde French-Venezuelan sculptor (who was the first to contribute work to Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art). But this restaurant’s namesake is homaged throughout the menu—in a cheeky ’70s-style salad dressing and a steak sandwich (the artist loved late-night steak and eggs). She also typifies a creative freedom that permeates chef Jason Hammel and chef de cuisine Sarah Rinkavage’s wide-ranging menu, in which fleeting produce serves as both the inspiration and medium. The MCA’s cool glow spilled onto the wet pavement as my dates and I arrived on a soggy Thursday evening. Housed on the ground floor just inside a street-level entrance, Marisol is partitioned off only a third of the way to the ceiling by wooden booths, creating a disconcertingly exposed feeling of dining in a lobby. Walking in, your eyes are immediately drawn left, to British artist Chris Ofili’s magnetic figurative mural overlooking the enclosed private dining room. Its brilliant jewel tones are echoed in the chairs, benches and couches scattered throughout the mostly grayscale dining room, where Ofili has also etched abstract flora on the windows and walls. Marisol is the centerpiece of a $16 million renovation that aims to make the MCA more accessible. (A companion counter-service café called The Street peddles coffee and pastries.) I tend to find cocktails too bold for foo

We’re all guilty of preconceptions. When I read that mfk.’s Sari Zernich Worsham and Scott Worsham were opening a spot inspired by the Basque region with Joe Campagna, I pictured a sunny boite slinging garlicky prawns and cascading bright, fizzy wines from porrones into delighted open mouths. Delayed debuts and pre-opening chef shuffles notwithstanding, the entire Chicago foodsphere was awaiting this opening with rapt attention. Thanks to joyfully irreverent design and a broad mix of dreamy, Franco-Spanish–tinged eats from chef Johnny Anderes (avec, Honey’s) to match botanically inclined cocktails, Bar Biscay upended many of my expectations. And I can’t wait to return. My husband and I arrived before our two dates early on a Friday to find the bar already teeming with weekend revelers. That half of our foursome (my BFF and I) had spent time in the Spain portion of Bar Biscay’s purview only ratcheted up our anticipation. As its name suggests, the restaurant focuses its gastronomic sights on the roughly 1,100 square miles of Spanish and French coastline edging the Bay of Biscay. For a spot that stakes such a clear geographic claim, Bar Biscay doesn’t necessarily scream “Spanish” or “French” in its design. In fact, I can’t think of any place quite like this South Beach-lite brasserie from the future. The three-part space is bright and airy up front, with blonde-wood booths and tables, pastel-toned wire chairs and natural light seeping in from the wall of windows facing Chica

Chinatown’s Richland Center mall is a Windy City favorite for cheap, authentic Asian eats: its food court counts excellent Filipino, Japanese and Chinese vendors among its yummy offerings. In the latter category, we flock to Qing Xiang Yuan, a sleek, recently renovated sliver of a restaurant steaming up delicious dumplings in a variety of flavors. The lamb and coriander variety, bursting with juicy, well-seasoned meat, is our fave, but we’re also partial to pork and zucchini and shrimp and leek dumplings.