Top Chef Week 7 Recap: Duck, Duck, Goosed
I'm usually a blur when watching Top Chef. My fingers clack away at the laptop, my eyes dart back and forth between TV and computer screen, as I mentally organize...
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Would Chicago chefs serve horse?
On the Facebook page of "The Butcher & Larder," the Noble Square butcher shop, owner Rob Levitt posted a link Wendesday to an article about Congress lifting the ban on...
Top Chef Week 5 Recap: Over and done
Probability, you fickle law. Here we are to think more Chicago chefs competing means a greater chance a Chicagoan would be crowned Top Chef, and we forget its inverse, that...
Takashi and Mantuano open casual offshoots Slurping Turtle and Bar Toma this week
Takashi Yagihashi and Tony Mantuano weren't born in Chicago, but their restaurants have become stitched in the city's fabric. Takashi's eponymous Bucktown restaurant and Mantuano's Spiaggia are on my shortlist...
Top Chef Week 4 Recap: Tear-Inducing Chili
This was an episode of Top Chef where no contestant screwed up so royally they had X's branded on their foreheads. The losing team was the least best , and...
Sprout’s Dale Levitski to open second restaurant, frog n snail, this spring
Around this time two years ago, Dale Levitski took over as chef at Lincoln Park's Sprout. He had just emerged from a long depression, set on by the closing of...
Defining Wisconsin’s supper club culture
My brother-in-law Nick is Kenosha's proudest son. When I mentioned stopping by Mars Cheese Castle, I spied his subtle "oh, my naive friend" shake of the head. He steered me...
Taking the pulse of Wisconsin supper clubs
KENOSHA — My future brother-in-law Nick is Kenosha's proudest son. When I mentioned stopping by Mars Cheese Castle, I spied his subtle "oh, my naive friend" shake of the head....
Top Chef Week 3 Recap: Befelled by a Tortilla
Sun comes up, sun goes down, 2+2=4, the human head weighs eight pounds, and we all die in the end. As sure as Texas Julys are hot, someone's packing their...
Chicago classic restaurant: Gene & Georgetti
The Mahogany Club, the world's most exclusive/easy-to-enter steakhouse social circle, is accepting new members. Qualifications: Can you buy a round of whiskey? Can you trade stories from the trenches with...