BRAVO’s “Top Chef: New York” launched its fifth season this month, titled “Bright Knives, Big City,” and on cable’s number-one-rated food show, seventeen “cheftestants” will cook off for their chance at culinary fame. What’s more, one of the gastro-gurus beckons from Wicker Park’s very own Between Boutique Café & Lounge. Radhika Desai, executive chef at Between Boutique Café & Lounge, decided to try out for this season’s show on a whim. “I have nothing to lose,” she thought. She stuck out the “long and intense” interview process and was then finally selected to get her culinary game on in the Big Apple. The taping of the show “was really surreal,” says Desai. “It was equally stressful and exciting, keeping your cool without freaking out and cooking your best food under pressure.” Desai, a first-generation Indian American, was born and raised in Ohio. She was trained at the Cooking & Hospitality Institute of Chicago and then practiced her well-seasoned cuisine worldwide. Though she’s learned her technique from the best, her favorite advice is still to “cook with your heart and don’t be afraid to express yourself.”
Raise A Glass: Local Taverns Where Good Times Have Rolled For More Than A Century Village Tavern in Long Grove, York Tavern in Oak Brook, and Green Door Tavern in Chicago. All three of these public houses are more than a century old, stand in their original locations, and are great ways to enjoy a bit of history along with good food and drink.
