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player ready...You are likely to find food you crave – as well as fare you didn’t realize you craved or even existed – on the menu at the Harvest Room in Palos Heights.
Breakfast, served until 2 p.m., brings a stack of cinnamon pancakes or biscuits ‘n’ gravy, but also Monkey Bread, loukoumades, gluten-free crepes and items utilizing local cage-free eggs, smoked brisket, red dragon sauce and griddled challah bread.
For lunch, remoulade and tomato marmalade are among the 22 options for the build-your-own burger on a brioche bun.
And for dinner, pot roast means root beer-braised short ribs with potato pave, crispy onions, crispy bacon aioli and root beer float spheres. Mac and cheese involves brisket smoked for 14 hours, a homemade strawberry barbecue sauce and Mornay sauce.
Starters include sliders of grass-fed beef with Merkts cheddar and caramelized onions, pork fried rice elevated to a new level with a quail egg and combed soy paint, and Scotch eggs – two hard-boiled eggs wrapped in pork sausage and panko, fried and accented with pesto and dijonnaise – the latter drawing the attention of WGN-TV’s “Chicago’s Best” for a Feb. 3 filming.
Chicken and waffles are also on the menu and involve bacon in the batter and a sauce of maple caramel.
Drink selections include a new, more refined wine list with some lower price points plus limited bottles from Three Floyds Brewing Company. Small-batch bourbon is paired with maple-bacon doughnuts fried in duck fat and frosted with buttercream on Fridays at 5 p.m. for “Bourbon and Doughnuts.” Specialty cocktails are poured at a 20-percent discount on Mondays with live music and during the monthly Lush’s Brush painting events while wine is half-priced Tuesdays.
Desserts range from cobbler with ice cream from the Plush Horse to a chocolate creation called the Glacier made on a Himalayan salt block.
“Chef Jon (Harootunian) brings his humor and creativity into the menu, touching on everything from molecular gastronomy to comfort food,” said Carri Sirigas, who owns Harvest Room with husband Christ Sirigas.
“Customers can be as adventurous as they want to be or as traditional,” he added.
The owners of Harvest Room, which celebrates its third anniversary Jan. 22, attribute their success to a unique and varied menu based on seasonal harvests and sourced locally, including from Zeldenrust Farms in Chicago Heights and Miller Poultry, an Amish farm in northern Indiana, and to Harootunian, who was hired a year ago and quickly garnered a three-star review from baiduhai restaurant critic Phil Vettel.
“It’s all about having fun and that’s what Jon likes to really promote in back of the house and the front of the house,” Christ Sirigas said. “He is the Michael Jordan of our kitchen who fuels the passion and teaches everyone.”
Harootunian, whose 35-year career spans Tallgrass and Public Landing in Lockport in the mid-1980s to Vivere and Meritage in Chicago, Courtright’s in Willow Springs and Carlucci in Downers Grove, said being a mentor is critically important, not just to him but to the whole experience.
“Being able to motivate the younger generation and have them be a part of the democratic think-tank mentality and tweak ideas and translate them onto a plate is for the better enjoyment of our customers, and that’s what it’s all about,” said Harootunian, who doesn’t rely on books or television for culinary innovation. “My inspiration is ever-evolving. It just happens.”
Vickie Jurkowski is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
Harvest Room
Location: 7164 W. 127th St., Palos Heights
Hours: 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, until 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Information: 708-671-8905 or harvestroomrestaurant.com
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