38
Mike Cain
Owner, Kuma’s Corner
We don’t even know if the burgers are good here anymore because we’re too lazy to wait in the massive lines. But, like at Hot Doug’s, we know there are still lines. And that’s probably all we need to know.
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39
Nick Lessins and Lydia Esparza
Owners, Great Lake Pizza
We don’t know what it is about Andersonville that attracts control freak super-artisans, but add Lessins and Esparza to the list of incredible food craftspeople that don’t believe the customer is always right. According to Alan Richman of GQ, they serve the best pizza in America and folks will wait hours for a pie, so for now they can do whatever they want. We just hope they don’t go the way of their control-freak bakery neighbors, the recently shuttered Pasticceria Natalina.
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40
Bruce Sherman
Chef/Partner, North Pond; Chefs Collaborative and Green City Market Boards
Sherman is actually the antithesis of hot. He’s one of, if not the most deliberative and intelligent chefs we know. But, that attention to detail and nuance makes him one of Chicago’s best advocates for locally farmed high-quality food.
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41
Ben Schiller/Mike Ryan/Paul McGee/Brad Bolt
Mixologists/Head Bartenders, Boka Group/Sable Kitchen & Bar/The Whistler/Bar Deville
Ok, we’re cheating here by grouping four in one, but it’s kind of impossible to elevate one of these dudes over another. Booze brothers from different mothers they’re equals in the fight to bring great cocktailing back to Chicago.
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Photo: Lara Kastner
42
Joe Catterson
GM/Sommelier/Wine Director, Alinea
If you don’t truly understand wine and food pairings—and few really do beyond, say, a big red and a hunk of ribeye—go see Joe. Like most sommeliers Catterson has an incredible palate and taste memory, but he also has the discipline of a monk. If he can’t pinpoint a perfect pairing with his brain, he’ll open up twenty bottles and taste them side by side with the course he’s trying to nail. In the end, whether it’s matching Slovenian Veliko Bianco (who knew they made wines in Slovenia?) with orange and lemongrass broth or hooking up a funky sherry with turtle soup, his pairings are as logical as ice-cold milk and a chocolate-chip cookie.
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Angel's
By Giovanni Wrobel
Sometimes, especially in the winter, they come well before the sun rises. Carpools of families making their way to Ashland and Adams to stand in line waiting for the Mexican Consulate to open at 8am. These are some of the people who brought restaurant owners Pedro Angel and Luis Perea to the neighborhood to open establishments nearby.
Angel’s Restaurant occupies an odd structure sandwiched between a two-story office building and a small storefront within two row houses facing Ashland near Jackson Boulevard. The restaurant opened two years ago, when Angel moved his family’s eighteen-year-old business from the Andersonville neighborhood to the West Loop.
Angel’s start-up was not easy. “In the beginning, I think the biggest challenge was trying to get our dinner working, because the area is a little weird,” Angel says. “It’s definitely more for breakfast and lunch, people come to the neighborhood to work, so by four o’clock things were kind of dying out.” Read the rest of this entry »
43
Billy Lawless
Owner, Henri and The Gage
Aside from Next, Henri is probably the only high-end restaurant to have launched in the last two years. While everyone else was out pimping jeans-preferred beer and pork emporiums, Lawless’ fearless investment in Louis Sullivan-inspired decorative plaster, glinting chandeliers, and sea-foam velvet chairs and impeccable service has paid off.
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44
Paula Haney
Owner, Hoosier Mama Pie Company
If anyone can take over the world one bite at a time, Haney, armed with her incredibly flaky crusted sweet and savory pies, is definitely poised to do it. Everything we’ve ever eaten here, be it jiggly banana cream or custardy quiche, is one of the best things we ever put in our mouth.
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While the fannypack set will be trucking through Grant Park this week, turkey legs and fried dough in hand, another high-octane food-sampler gathering will be revving up in the West Loop, with the debut of Ethyl’s Truckin’ Thursdays.
Ethyl’s Beer & Wine Dive, Scott Harris’ (Francesca’s) latest dining concept, will become a food truck city, a safe haven for Chicago’s gourmet meals on wheels when its spacious parking lot and patio will function as the campgrounds for seven food trucks every Thursday from 6pm-9pm. Ethyl’s founding partner Donnie Kruse thinks this is a big move for a city that has been slow to welcome the trucks to its streets.
“Food trucks are kind of a controversial thing in Chicago, however, they’re a big story. The Food Network had a show, ‘The Great Food Truck Race,’ and I spend a lot of time in Austin, Texas, Portland, Seattle and think they’re a wonderful part of the food community,” says Kruse. Read the rest of this entry »
There is no shortage of burger joints in Chicago—the city is home to dozens. And the themed fast-food counter is nothing new here, either. The Windy City metalhead can satisfy his need for beef at Kuma’s Corner, and the gourmand can sample the fare at Burger Bar. It’s a market where standing out can be difficult.
Now diners seeking a more Zen-like experience may have found a home with The Burger Philosophy, which is now providing Andersonville with freshly cut hamburgers and fries with a side of illumination. Opened at the end of last month by the Verveniotis family, father Miltie and sons Nick and Chris, its walls are dotted with quotes from celebrated thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche. Read the rest of this entry »
