Resto 100 is, as always, a list of “essential” restaurants, which is most definitely not synonymous with “best.” We strive to reflect a world of dining in a constant state of innovative transition, to capture a snapshot of the state of the food world at this time.

As last year, when we first dropped Charlie Trotter’s, we’ve continued to cull the old guard of the high-end, both as a reflection of the economic times and as a call to action for such spots to up their game. This year, TRU, MK and Boka didn’t escape the chopping block. While we don’t deny their importance in creating the food scene we have today, there are many other places we’d rather send folks—for example, Sepia, Bonsoiree or Cibo Matto (where, ironically, chef Todd Stein is a vet of MK).

Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand are two of the most successful cooks this city has, but neither spends a significant amount of time at TRU. This is not so much an observation as it’s a cry for the fact that we really miss Rick’s cooking. We appreciate his cookbooks and that he tried to open a nationwide restaurant chain, but with that not working out, why not return to his roots? It should also be noted that Chef de Cuisine Tim Graham was doing some incredibly innovative work, but was recently transferred to Brasserie Jo.

Boka, which we loved for its Charlie Trotteresque complexity, has frankly been a little inconsistent in its execution on recent visits, and frankly maybe too Trotteresque. We love the direction Perennial has gone, look forward to Stephanie Izard’s Girl and the Goat, and think maybe they outshine the original jewel in Kevin Boehm and Rob Katz’s mini-empire.

That’s not to say you have to be cutting-edge innovative or perfect to make the list. For if you do something old-school or classic and you continue to do it well and you didn’t make your bones by being a game-changer, we honor that as well. This year, we added some overlooked classics including Marie’s Pizza, Ginza and, much to our own surprise, Hyde Park’s Calypso Café. Maybe the biggest surprise was Café des Architectes, which used to be as old-school as it gets. Martial Noguier and his pastry chef Suzanne Imaz are probably two of this city’s most underrated cooks, putting out slighty twisted old-school French gourmet plates flawlessly.

Likewise, the trend of informal, casual rustic dining doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere, and we dig that. To celebrate that movement we’ve added The Bristol, Paramount Room, Brown Trout, Kith and Kin and others.

The beauty of any list, though, is that you may not agree. So drop us a line and let us know.

—Michael Nagrant, Resto 100 editor Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nagrant

I’m pretty sure I can pinpoint the moment Heavy D, aka Dwight Errington Myers, the rotund rapper who brought us the fine jingle “Now That We Found Love,” jumped the shark. It wasn’t when he portrayed the half-wit migrant worker Peaches alongside Tobey Maguire in the “Cider House Rules,” though that was close. It was much earlier in 1991, when he appeared on Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” album rapping on the song “Jam.” Consider the heart of his rhyme on that ditty: “Mingle Mingle Jingle. In The Jungle. Bum Rushed The Door. 3 And 4’s In A Bundle.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, Heavy also dances in the video alongside Chris “Mac Daddy” Kelly and Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith, aka Kriss Kross, originators of the backwards-clothes-wearing movement and prepubescent crooners of “Jump,” the #75 rated song on VH1’s “100 Greatest Songs of the Nineties.” Oddly, Kriss Kross never actually sing on “Jam.” They just hobble around in their ill-fitting reversed baseball jerseys and flash baby gang signs throughout the video. Did the King of Pop mercilessly cut their vocal part? Read the rest of this entry »

In the kitchen at Alinea/Photo: Lara Kastner

Resto 100 is, as it has been in years past, a list of “essential” restaurants, which is most definitely not synonymous with “best.” We strive to reflect a world of dining in a constant state of innovative transition, to capture a snapshot of the state of the food world at this time.

In these particular hard economic times, we find ourselves dining out a lot more at the BYOBs, mom-and pop-spots and small ethnic joints than we do at the high end.  That being said, while we didn’t set out to consciously create a list to address our lighter wallets, it sure turned out that way.  More than ever, this list is a cross section of the wealth of culturally diverse and reasonably priced restaurants Chicago is lucky to have. Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nagrant

They say you always remember your first. And were we talking about a kiss, I remember sitting on a recessed bench filled with orange life jackets on the second level of the Boblo Island ferry leaning towards my sixth grade “girlfriend” Monica. I remember the stench of rotting sea life from the Detroit River and the paprika scent of Better Made BBQ potato chips mingling with the floral waft of Giorgio perfume from her neck (though I suspect it was the Parfums de Coeur Designer Imposters knock-off—after all what 12-year-old can afford the real thing?) as we hesitantly merged our lips. Were we talking about sex, I remember that too, but kissing and telling is one thing, getting laid and doing so is quite another.

What I’m really talking about here is my first Eggs Benedict, the legendary English muffin raft conveying tasty castaways of salty pork and jiggly poached eggs awash in waves of silky hollandaise. And of that, I do not remember my first. Read the rest of this entry »

By Sarah Klose

Koen, my Belgian boyfriend, said he didn’t notice that I gained twelve kilos (almost twenty pounds) while living in Belgium. I moved to Leuven, a small medieval college town with cobblestone streets, when I was in my twenties. True, I gained the first ten pounds before I met Koen, but perhaps he was being diplomatic about the other ten.

My love affair with Belgian food began with the country’s famous waffles, which I ordered topped with vanilla ice cream and fresh peaches circled with whipped cream. At Erasmus restaurant, I often met up with friends to dine on steak with frites. We sat on the patio and washed our food down with Belgian beer—Stella Artois, Duvel, Hoegaarden Witbier. While walking back to my one-room apartment, I passed Leonidas. Their chocolates were another temptation—especially Manon, a coffee buttercream candy with praline filling, topped with a hazelnut and enrobed in white chocolate. Overwhelmed by the delightful food, I practically became Augustus Gloop, the chubby boy who drank from Willy Wonka’s chocolate river and fell in.
Read the rest of this entry »

Sit down, relax and have a cup of coffee.

The coffeehouse has become a center in the contemporary city, serving as a meeting place, a “home office” and a study hall for the community. And the best serve as counterpoint to the prevailing corporate culture: shaggy, friendly and, rather than studies in the science of turning tables as quickly as possible, welcoming enclaves where lingering is virtually encouraged. Chicago has a wealth of great coffeehouses, and with due respect to the chains, it’s the independent, locally owned and operated institutions that give the city its caffeinated flavor. Treasure them and support them, though, for many are fragile endeavors. And as we learned this year when Filter gave way at one of the liveliest spots in Wicker Park, it’s not necessarily Starbucks that threatens their existence. Apparently, it’s the inexplicable need for a bank branch on every corner.

We’ve put together this selective indie coffeehouse guide as a service to those of us who value their existence, and as a service to the spirit they inculcate. Read the rest of this entry »

Sausage Panino

By Michael Nagrant

“I don’t care if my tomato was raised in a lab or some hippie’s backyard. I don’t even care if it causes the occasional tumor in lab rats. I only care that it’s the best-tasting damn tomato available.”—Anthony Bourdain, Travel Channel TV host and bad boy foodie

You expect hyperbole from a guy whose personal logo is a toque-clad skull biting down on a chef’s knife dripping with blood. While I usually dig Bourdain’s brutal observations, my first instinct was to write this quote off as typical bobblehead claptrap to fuel television ratings. In the last few weeks though the quote’s essential truth has been haunting me a bit.

Last week I wrote favorably about Michael Altenberg’s new venture, Crust, the first certified all-organic restaurant in Chicago. According to a recent Chicago Reader article, the stringency of the organic certification process means that Altenberg can’t use the products of certain responsible local farmers, people that he’s worked with for years at his other venture Bistro Campagne, because those producers aren’t personally certified at Crust. For that matter, he can’t use many of the local sustainable farms at the Green City Market. Read the rest of this entry »

Caramel Banana Pancakes

By Michael Nagrant

Those who might bemoan the ebb of old-fashioned Chicago patronage need only look at Greektown to change their mind. The Near West Side neighborhood is one where waiters still beget restaurateurs who beget waiters who beget more restaurateurs, a place where family and immigration isn’t a random mingling of bloodlines, but a concrete strategy in the business plan. Meli Café (301 South Halsted), a fantastic breakfast and lunch spot, and the newest addition to the Halsted strip, serves as the perfect business case.

Owner Nikos Karabelas, a barrel-chested dark-haired man, came from Athens in 1973 to work as a dishwasher, detoured back to Greece and landed back as a waiter at the Parthenon working for owner Chris Liakouras, the inventor of flaming saganaki cheese, who himself was once a waiter at the now-defunct Diana’s Opaa. After saving money and teaming up with partner John Theoharis, Karabelas launched Nine Muses across the street from the Parthenon in 1990, where they celebrated their seventeenth anniversary last weekend. Read the rest of this entry »