Sepia Aigre Doux Smoque Old Town Brasserie Nazarlik —Michael Nagrant Top 5 Restaurants We’ll Miss Schwa Scylla Del Toro Southside Shrimp House Timo —Michael Nagrant
Top 5 Disappointing Restaurant Openings Gage Otom Powerhouse La Madia Crust —Michael Nagrant Top 5 Desserts Sweet potato beignets, Powerhouse Sticky toffee pudding, Aigre Doux Sweet Corn Flan, Boka Everything, Pasticceria Natalina Motichur or Bindi Ladoo, Sukhadias Sweets —Michael Nagrant Top 5 High-End Bites Pork rillette with bacon pistachio brittle, Sepia Ravioli-stuffed with four cheeses, white truffle sauce, red wine reduction, Viand Guava foam with lime zest, Alinea Poached shrimp salad, Aigre Doux Hudson Valley foie gras with honey and almond cake, roasted Wisconsin strawberries, watercress and drizzled almond cream, Vie —Michael Nagrant Top 5 Low-End or Ethnic Bites Brisket, Smoque Blueberry pierogie, Smak Tak Bramborové knedlíky plnené uzenm masem, Operetta Marlin ceviche, Sol de Mexico Tosilog, Tapsilog at Iba Pa —Michael Nagrant
Top 5 Tacos Mole Rojo, Manolos/Rubi’s Pastor, Taqueria Uptown Carne Asada, Tio Luis Carnitas, Don Pedro Arabes, Cemitas Puebla —Michael Nagrant
Top 5 Annoying Dining Trends Substandard thin-crust brick- or wood-fired oven pizzas Gastropubs Underground dining Arrival of out-of-town celebrity chefs Nouveau steakhouses, Powerhouse Primehouse, Brasserie Ruhlmann —Michael Nagrant
Top 5 Mystery Meat and Vegetable Preparations Sliced Beef and Maw (tendon) Szechuan Style, Lao Sze Chuan House Sausage, Parthenon Sweetbreads (thymus gland), Pegasus Boudin Noir (blood sausage), La Sardine Huitlacoche (corn smut) quesadilla, Maiz —Michael Nagrant
Top 5 Sandwiches Ropa Vieja sandwich, El Cubanito Bocadilla de la Mancha, Pastoral Pastor Torta, Apachee Grill Marky B, Jerrys Banh mi, Ba Le —Michael Nagrant
Top 5 New Top or Executive Chefs Giuseppe Tentori, Boka John Peters, Powerhouse Shin Thompson, Bonsoirée Kendal Duque, Sepia Mohammad Islam and Malika Ameen, Aigre Doux —Michael Nagrant
Top 5 Up-and-Coming Chefs Tim Graham, Tru Jeff Pikus, Greg Baxtrom, Dave Beran, Alinea Nathan Klingbail, formerly Schwa and now Alinea Aleksiy Shalev, Sola Christine Cikowski, Jason Stern, Joshua Kulp, Sunday Dinner Club —Michael Nagrant
Big Heat 2023: The Food and Drink 50 This year, Newcity’s Big Heat feature focuses on those who stand behind the chef in the kitchen. We want to recognize the people who’ve succeeded big time, but we also want to recognize promising upstarts.
Not Just Corn and Soybeans: The Big Food Disconnect and How to Fix It As people in growing cities began to disconnect from the work of farming, what people knew about farming diminished rapidly. In Illinois today, ninety-six percent of all farms are family owned. That’s roughly 70,000 family-owned farms, of which nearly 9,000 have been in the same family for more than a century.
Sicilian Street Food from a Ghost Kitchen: Sfera “We started at farmers markets about three years ago with our arancini—stuffed risotto balls—which is our specialty,” says Daniela Vitale, who runs Sfera in Avondale with her partner, Steven Jarczyk.
