We're not so sure we'd have included Alinea's $145 tasting menu on a list of "40 great travel bargains." Yes, it's a restaurant not to be missed. Yes, it's an iconic Chicago experience. Yes, it's cheap compared to the $225,...
In an eminently correct decision, GQ food guy Alan Richman has named the mortadella pie at Andersonville's Great Lake the very best in the entire country. "No man is slower," Richman says of Great Lake's idiosyncratic pizzaiolo, Nick Lessins....
Responses to our compilation of complaints against Esquire restaurant guy (don't call him a critic!) John Mariani have been extraordinarily varied — from chefs corroborating the story of Mariani’s list of demands to restaurant publicists coming to his defense. But...
That sound you just heard were the heads of the entire New York food establishment (restaurateurs, bloggers, reviewers, blogger-reviewers, reviewer-bloggers) bursting into flames as the New York Times announced that Frank Bruni is leaving his post as the paper's restaurant...
What is with Michael Nagrant and culinary interspecies mating? First he tells the world that Lockwood's lobster hot dog was like Hot Doug's had sex with a lobster, and now the title of his writeup of newcomer Paula & Monica's...
For the SF Gate, restaurant critic Michael Bauer wonders why it is that it's so much more expensive to open a restaurant in San Francisco than it is anywhere else in the country. (The answer, in a nutshell, is...
Yesterday we reported that Esquire restaurant critic John Mariani was in town for dinner at Graham Elliot, and it was like a bomb went off. "I can't believe that asshole has the audacity to even call himself a restaurant critic,"...
Dan Shumski of Fruit Slinger has put up a Kickstarter page to support his blog. He's planning to use donations to underwrite web hosting costs and buy a better quality camera for photo-illustration purposes. The Slinger of Fruitis trying to...
• It's kind of a disastrous evening for Mike Sula at Via Ventuno: the delights of a chicken liver bruschetta and deftly executed house-made pastas are undercut by tone-deaf sauces, unwieldily large entrees, and service so gaffe-prone it's impossible to...
• The western-inflected Indian food (or is the other way around?) at Marigold comes under scrutiny this week, and Phil Vettel generally speaking likes the appetizers more than the entrees. The samosas in particular are a can't-miss dish. Bonus:...
In this week's installment of his series on "Oustanding Newcomers," New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni headed to Chicago to take a look at L2O — and, perhaps even more importantly, L2O's chef, Laurent Gras. High praise for...
Citing this year's disappointing Beard outcome and the fact that Food & Wine magazine didn't include any Chicago names in their annual Best New Chef roundup, TOC's David Tamarkin wonders whether Chicago's moment in the culinary spotlight is over. Further...
We suppose this was inevitable. The newest player on the twitter scene is none other than RealPhilVettel. Whoever's manning the alter-ego of the Tribune restaurant reviewer seems to have left the caps lock on, and is digging into the...
The James Beard Awards, the putative Oscars of the food world, are being held next Monday in New York City. We rounded up some of the Chicago nominees and asked them to share with us their thoughts on the awards,...
The rumors are flying that Paul Kahan (executive chef of Blackbird and subject of this morning's Meet Your Beard Nominees interview) is included in People magazine's 100 Beautiful People issue, hitting newsstands today. While Kahan is no slouch in the...
The James Beard Awards, the putative Oscars of the food world, are being held next Monday in New York City. We rounded up some of the Chicago nominees and asked them to share with us their thoughts on the awards,...
Sad news for food media: While she isn't a casualty of the Trib's layoffs per se, food writer extraordinaire Monica Eng's journalistic skillz have been redistributed into the newspaper's investigative/watchdog department. Eng announced the change in job description via her...
If you've ever wanted to see Kevin Pang get totally reamed by one of the oh-so-polite counterwomen at Weiner's Circle, you can! In the second episode of The Cheeseburger Show. "Is it Niman Ranch?" Pang asks, tongue-in cheek. The...
Sometimes we get this strange, persistent feeling that somewhere out there, right this very second, Phil Vettel is making fun of us. Previously: The Perils of Novelty: Chicago Mag's 22 Best New Restaurants and: The Reader's Best of Chicago Awards:...
Chicago Magazine's May issue (on newsstands now) loudly proclaims on its cover that it contains a list of the BEST NEW RESTAURANTS. Inside, the mag's big hitters Dennis Ray Wheaton and Jeff Ruby run down twenty-two relatively new spots...