gourmet babble

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Alinea

Food:	39	Ambience:	39	Purity:		Cost:	$$$$$	SHAVE:	Close

Cuisine:	Post-modern	Executive chef:	Grant Achatz	Dining date:	2005-09-16

Region:	Chicago	City:	Chicago, IL		Lincoln Park

• 

After my first dinner at Alinea, I wrote the following in my dining notes: "I just got back from the longest meal I think I've ever eaten."

Alinea is another hot new Chicago restaurant offering immersion in post-modern cuisine. There's a (no longer) recent review that actually highlights a lot of the cuisine that I sampled that night — and sampling it was, as we went for the "tour," which that night was a 26-course tasting menu that lasted five hours. It was worth the hype and every penny, however; it's simply a phenomenal place. Many courses were "really good" or better; the consistency was unexpectedly high throughout the entire meal. Perhaps my favorite course was squab in mushroom soup with foie gras foam, the extra details of which I could not recall at this moment I wrote the review up (it was simply too difficult to keep in my head; unlike moto, there are no printed menus from which to pull notes, and I didn't keep a notebook with me through dinner). I've been a fan of Grant Achatz's since his tour at Trio in Evanston; as seems to be the pattern (set perhaps by Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand when they went off to start Tru), a fair number of the highly-skilled waitstaff there were from the old days of Trio. Service was precise and elaborate; the room was modern and gorgeous — the entryway is simply amazing in and of itself! Although the food did not peak at the levels that moto peaked at, I felt it was more consistent (though not due to a lack of experimentation and risk) and still ended up placing Alinea as one of the five best restaurants in Chicago today. (If you're looking for the other four in my highly-subjective, highly-opinionated, ephemeral list: Moto, the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carleton, Charlie Trotter's, and Les Nomades.)

Yes, $175 is a hefty price for a tasting menu — but what a tasting menu! It's also perfectly in line with the other new stellar greats in the US, such as per se in New York, and is in fact perhaps "a deal" when compared to Alain Ducasse's restaurant at the Essex House or many of the stunning French restaurants or Michelin three star restaurants out there.

The bottom line? If you are a lover of exciting, dynamic, and post-modern cuisine (and live in the Chicagoland area) — make a reservation (which you'll need to do well in advance) and go.

The next spring, on April 5 (my little personal historical marker of terrestrial position with respect to the sun), we went back. That time was notable in two extra ways: first, I did the wine flight along with the tour; second, I got a copy of the menu to take home as a keepsake (a little thing I like to do sometimes — call me sentimental, I guess). So I figured I'd just share the menu and review it as best as I could remember (bearing in mind that I was already up past my bedtime and was barely staying awake even as I type this), before too much time passed and I lost the thread of it entirely. I was far too tired that night to attempt such a herculean feat. Even with memory fading, it took all the free time I had over the course of two four days.

HOT POTATO, cold potato, black truffle, parmesan
paired with Pascal Doquet Premier Cru Brut Rosé, Vertus

A one-bite course with a thick slab of black truffle on the top. Anything with a thick slab of black truffle on the top is a portent of a heavenly meal. This was a fantastic melange of textures, tastes, and temperatures on the palate all at once. Heaven in a bite! The accompanying champagne was full but still light enough to start a meal cleanly (I'm not usually a fan of rosés, but this one did make the grade nicely.

PINE NUT, radish, balsamic, olive oil

Each item was in some gelée, purée, or other alternative form. Another one-biter, this was heavenly, and if I recall correctly, was served as a spoon balanced in a ring-dish that had no bottom.

SALSIFY, parsley, smoked salmon, steelhead roe
paired with Wieninger Nussberg "Alte Reben", Vienna 2001

The wine was light and nice, different and refreshing. The dish… this was an amazing amazing experience. Another one-biter. Every flavor was in perfect balance (this is saying something for me, as I usually fervently object to parsley).

LOBSTER, coconut, hearts of palm, yuzu
paired with Jean Chartron Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru "Clos de la Pucelles" 2002

A fine little salad, with some excellent poached lobster and hearts of palm, plus a few other surprise delectables, all under a long, rectangular sheet of coconut so thin that it was translucent. I am a big fan of Montrachets; this one was a very good one indeed.

MUSSEL, chamomile, cucumber

A nicely balanced course; the chamomile was not overpowering, the mussel not fishy, and the cucumber strong enough to hold its own.

SKATE, caper, lemon, and brown butter powders
paired with François Villard Condrieu "Terrasses du Palat", N. Rhône 2003

The wine was an excellent pairing for this dish, though I'm not sure how fond I was of it solo. But I can hardly remember, because of how perfect this skate was! I am not a fin fish kind of eater, historically, but this was done absolutely to perfection — a long, thin ribbon of wavy skate, with powders for each of the typical condiments alongside. Yes, this is a hallmark of any post-modern restaurant What distinguishes moto is their condiments; what distinguished Alinea was the perfection of the skate.

PEAR, celery leaf & branch, curry

This was served like a truffle on a little stand, taken as a shooter like an oyster. It was… am I using words like perfection too much? Well, it was really stellar. Let's say it that way. Wonderful consistency, absolutely stunningly balanced flavors (and I don't like pears most often, although I simply adore all things curry and celery both)… Grant really has a beautiful touch with the subtle combinations.

LAMB, akudjura, niçoise olive, eucalyptus veil
paired with Bodega Mustiguillo "Finca Terrarazo", El Terrerazo, Spain 2001

A very small amount of some beautifully done lamb, with heady aromas and exotic tastes that did not overpower but subtly and artfully complimented the flavorful lamb. The wine was heavier and more potent, forward, and yet, again, complemented things simply magnificently.

BISON, braised pistachios, sweet spices
paired with Bodegas Weinert Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina 2000

The wine was heavy, almost too pungent for me. Not my favorite, though interesting. But I have to admit, it went well with the bison. It also made me feel a little off almost immediately, so I backed off from it. The dish… there were three different preparations of pistachio on the plate; in a sauce, braised, and ground fine.

SWEET POTATO, bourbon, cinnamon fragrance

This was a nice little dish that came at a time when I was reacting not so well to the Mendoza. In short, I don't remember any details. (*wince* sorry)

VERJUS, lemon thyme, beet
paired with Dashe Late Harvest Zinfandel, Dry Creek Valley 2005

The late harvest zin was fuller than I expected (I'm not very experienced with zinfandels). This was a cute little one-bite course that was pleasing but gone all too soon; not earth-shattering, but elegant in its simplicity. It was served on a counterbalanced long skinny steel rod they call "the antenna"; the method of consumption was to lean forward, enclose it in one's mouth, and then pull it off the thin rod by moving your head back. As the waiter quipped, "don't sneeze."

SPRUCE, pomelo pith, young walnut

This was a heady aromatic one-biter that really encompassed its flavors very well.

YOGURT, juniper, mango

Of all the dishes, this was the only one I didn't like and didn't finish. It was presented in a highball glass, with a pool of mango at the bottom, juniper emulsion mixed around it, with tentacles that looked like the Flying Spaghetti Monster coming out of it made of freeze dried yogurt. The trick was to mash it all together in the bottom with the spoon and eat it. The tastes didn't mesh, and there was a very weird oily taste in there that didn't seem quite right. It was actually quite unappetizing.

YUBA, prawn, miso, orange

Another dish laid out on a long rectangular plate with "stations" of various items that can be mixed experimentally to find heavenly taste combinations. Wonderful stuff. The prawn was delicious, and the reduced miso (not a gel, but denser than a foam) was fantastic.

ASPARAGUS, egg yolk drops
paired with Albert Mann Pinot Auxerrois, Alsace 2004

This was wonderful! There was a light broth that the egg and asparagus was in that was just heavenly. The only comparison I have for the eggs, in size, appearance and texture, is to a weird confection known as Dippin' Dots. However, these eggs were not flash-frozen; they were in fact all apparently hand prepared. I had burned out on eggs 20 years ago but this was delicious, wonderful, and I would gladly have this far more often. The Alsatian wine was heavier than some, given the combination with the pinot blanc grapes, but unlike the other malbec I had that evening, this was quite enjoyable indeed, and (you knew it was coming) went wonderfully with the egg and broth!

PORK, grapefruit, cornbread, ohio honeycomb
paired with N. Joly Savennieères "Clos de la Coulée de Serrant", Loire 2003

Wonderfuly tasty, but I remember almost nothing about the preparation itself. I do remember thinking "this doesn't taste like pork." The wine was also nice, but equally unmemorable (which is not to say that it isn't a stellar wine, but given the amount of alcohol I had already consumed and how many other stellar courses I had already ingested, this simply didn't stand out in any way I can remember a week later).

KOBE BEEF, honeydew, cucumber, lime rocks
paired with Josef Umathum Zweigelt, Burgenland, 2003

Now, technically, I remember him saying that this was an American Kobe, which should made it Wagyu, no? (Much like "sparkling wine" vs. "champagne".) However, Alinea is pretty serious about their ingredients. Perhaps I'll email them and follow up about this. Regardless: it was wonderful. It came on a small plate with a thin cucumber sheet covering everything (superthin, translucent); the lime rocks were interspersed underneath the slices of beef, honeydew and other delicate accompaniments. (The lime rocks were dried lime preparations in lieu of salt; the tanginess of the lime made salt unnecessary for this dish… in fact, the lime rocks were almost too strong to be used! Still, I made the noble effort to do so, and was well rewarded.) The Zweigelt is not a wine I would drink in quantity but it had a nice offset to the richness of the waygu beef and the pungency of the lime rocks.

FOIE GRAS, hibiscus, licorice, blueberry soda

One shot of foie gras and morsels, followed by a quick upending of the small container to get the blueberry soda, which gave an interesting finish to the dish (since it still had traces of the oils from the foie gras and essences of hibiscus in it). Surprisingly (or perhaps not), the Zweigelt actually provided a nice finish for this as well.

DUCK, apple, onion, pillow of mace air
paired with Clos Vougeot Grand Cru "Musigni", Gros Frère & Soeur 2001

The pillow of scented air is a hallmark of Alinea's. A fine paper mesh pillow, open at the bottom and filled with a spice mist, is placed under the course. The pillow slowly deflates over the time of the course, with wisps of white "smoke" coming out the bottom and curling around the pllow (which is just finely powdered mace). This causes an olfactory loading of mace that adds to the spicing of the dish overall. The interaction on one's palate is just amazing. The duck itself was good, very nicely done; it was the presentation that made it all truly special. The wine was good but, again, I was not seeing anything screamingly unique about it at that point. (Overload of brilliance?)

PINEAPPLE, tamarind, thai basil, chinese sausage

This came on a bow-like steel device with three wires; two curved ones on which it sits, and a straight one between those two ends holding tension and, attached like a clothesline, the dish. This is what they called their "adult fruit rollup": it was a pouch of pineapple leather, containing the tamarind, basil, and sausage, a tiny bit of each. You pulled the pouch off the steel wire, and ate the whole thing at once — again, no silverware. A fun dish, and tasty, although I think the pineapple overpowered the basil and the sausage. Then again, I like chinese sausage, and I love pineapple and thai basil. So there was really no "losing" for me with this dish.

SABLÉ, jasmine, toffee, plantain
paired with Ochs Blaufränkisch Eiswein, Weiden-am-See, Austria 2004

The first of the desserts. Nice, but nothing amazing that I recall. The Eiswein was nice, although I wouldn't want to drink too much of it; fortunately, that was a really small pour.

ARGAN OIL, white chocolate, sumac

I remember this tasting really nice, much lighter than I expected, full of interesting palate interactions, but I have absolutely no memory of the presentation.

CHOCOLATE, kola nut, chufa, date
paired with Elio Perrone "Bigaro" Brachetto/Moscato, Piemonte 2005

This was a singly long pliable ribbon of chocolate mousse (it held internal tension like a spring, and in fact had been wound up on the plate interestingly), with little powders and sauces of kola, chufa, date, and chocolate garnishing. It was very nice, though not any sort of breakthrough dish. The wine was interesting in that with the addition of the brachetto, it had a much darker color (not at all your standard Moscato d'Asti) and fuller flavor without too much heaviness. It was really nice, and I finished the whole thing barely in time for the next course.

COFFEE, mint, buckwheat, passionfruit
paired with Toro Albala "Don PX" 1971 Gran Reserva, Montilla-Moriles

Interesting; a good mix of flavors that almost hit the mark but just didn't quite make it. The coffee was in a freeze-dried log surrounding a watery mint crème, surrounded by frozen buckwheat and buckwheat gelato (which was nice) and the passionfruit reduction and powders. The Don PX was very interesting, however; exceptionally sweet, almost like a tawny port, but without any of the acidity or heaviness; eminently drinkable. Again, I had already drank quite a bit, but I gleefully finished this one off.

PEANUT, five other flavors

Five steel rods docked in a very small steel base, each of which could be pulled out and the morsel (roughly each the size of single bean) consumed straight off into one's mouth. I'm not a huge peanut fan, so I recognized that this was a good course, but not really to my taste, and nothing truly "special". But that was okay; I was already saturated with amazing food.

In short, was this the best meal I had ever had? Absolutely not. I have had meals of pure perfection at Charlie Trotter's and Daniel's. Was this in the next level down? Absolutely. It's a great experience, with some stellar, amazing, wonderful, exceptional food, and some incredibly good dishes. (And one stinker that second time.) Was it worth the $175 tour price? Absolutely, if you're into the finest kind of dining adventure. Was the wine flight worth it? Yes, but only on special occasions (but then, I don't drink much any more anyway). In this case: absolutely. A memorable meal, a nice evening, a gorgeous room and building. Oh, and as opposed to last time: this one only took four hours. Record time!

I could have written more, or found more links for the wines, or any number of things, but it had already taken a week, and I felt like if I take any more time, it might never get out. So: I'd love to hear specific questions or feedback; leave comments, and I'll respond in kind.

This is a hybrid of two reviews I originally posted on 16 September 2005 and 12 April 2006 to daily babble under the titles "five hours of culinary splendour" and "ex facto post: alinea".

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moto

Food:	37	Ambience:	32	Purity:		Cost:	$$$$	SHAVE:	Close

Cuisine:	Post-modern	Executive chef:	Homaro Cantu	Dining date:	2005-08-16

Region:	Chicago	City:	Chicago, IL		West Loop

• 

Not the cell phone company. In this case, I'm talking about the absolute sheer genius of Homaro Cantu and his staff at moto restaurant.

We had the "gtm", the Grand Tour Moto, which is the largest of their three degustations (all they offer as alternatives are the aptly-named "five" and "ten" — guess how many courses come in each?). The gtm is a shifting 15 to 20 course tasting spectacular; tonight it was an 18 course festival of taste, texture, temperature, and trickery.

Yes, he's famous for mad inventions of his own, such as edible inks that he prints via inkjet onto edible paper that incorporate with various dishes, and repurposing other technology, such as a cook-at-the-table 400° NASA-designed-polymer steamer that offers spicing of two courses via aroma while you watch it cook a third course (without any heat source other than the 200° sauce in the bottom compartment) in front of you.

More importantly, though: he's an artist. He understands the subtleties of the holistic dining experience and presents them in a way that transcends description. He's no mere technician or trickster; he's the genuine article, capable of taking you to a state of culinary bliss that I've only experienced in four or five restaurants before.

In fact, during the third dish, I hit a place that I truly hadn't found in perhaps six or seven years, in terms of dining. I recognized a resonance that I hadn't felt, gastronomically, since the height of Charlie Trotter's in the 90s. So it came as no surprise when we asked "Where was Chef Cantu before here?" and one of the first answers was Trotter's. Clearly, tutelage under the master worked wonders for Cantu; you can see the touches in the waitstaff's attention to detail, in the nature of the tasting menu, and in the daring of the dishes. But Cantu takes it to the next step, truly embracing the "postmodern cuisine" phenomenon full-tilt. Edible info blurbs float like hypertext on your dishes (we had no less than three expositories in our dinner); he even had a nod to the very concept of hypertext in the name of the first dish — "MAKI in the 4th dimension". An artichoke and macadamia nut morsel that came on one spoon as a combination of purée and sorbet, shaped like a little snowman, designed to be eaten in one swift pop into your mouth. A carbonated half-orange that you squeeze yourself over a portion of lobster sitting next to a sphere of brown butter, all resting on a small cake of lobster sorbet. Chips, in the form of a small ball of purée, and salsa, in the form of a small translucent gelée cube, on one spoon. Every dish, every single dish, had some flair or distinction to it.

It was a blissful, almost holy experience. I'll end this post with a repost of the menu for illustrative purposes. Although it's one of the more expensive restaurants I've ever eaten at, if you are ever in Chicago and want a dining partner for a truly transcendent dining experience, just let me know. Yes, it truly was that off-the-charts good.

• MAKI in the 4th dimension
• CHAMPAGNE & king crab
• CORN soup with mexican truffle
• LOBSTER & orange
• SWEETBREADS & cheese grits
• ARTICHOKE & macadamia
• SWEET potato pie
• BASS baked tableside
• QUAIL pull apart
• MARGARITA with chips and salsa
• BEEF with braised greens & garlic
• BACON, horseradish & amaranth
• EDIBLE literature of explorateur
• SHARLYNE & crenshaw melon with frosted anise hyssop
• STRAWBERRY, rice pudding, peanut & soy ice cream
• FREEZE dried pina colada
• DOUGHNUT soup
• CHOCOLATE cake with hot ice cream

This review originally was posted on 16 August 2005 to daily babble under the title "bliss, heaven, and genius in 18 strokes".

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Quartino

Food:	18	Ambience:	14	Purity:		Cost:	$$	SHAVE:	Regular

Cuisine:	Italian	Executive chef:	John Coletta	Dining date:	2006-02-22

Region:	Chicago	City:	Chicago, IL		River North

Chicago has had a surge of enotecas, an Italian combination of a bistro, wine bar, and tapas place. Hugo Ralli and Steve Lombardo, best known for their Chicago standards of Gibson's and Hugo's Frog Bar (reviews forthcoming), have entered into this hot new fray with Quartino, a challenger just a block away from the new Lettuce Entertain You enoteca, Osteria via Stato (review forthcoming). Sadly, like many things Hugo and Steve do, this is more about show than substance, but especially so here. The tables are jammed together worse than your traditional kosher delis, with floors and walls that reflect sound everywhere, coupled with a fairly hip, arrogant, (and thus) loud crowd; in toto, it makes for a lousy dining experience. The waiters think they're funny with their pushy attitude; it simply doesn't work in this environment, coming off as almost boorish instead. The dishes were hit and miss in quality, more good than not (though nothing especially great), and forget about asking for anything done a certain way by the kitchen; it's clearly a production line that has a stock set of formulae and don't even bother trying to mess with it. Their marinated fare was perhaps their best; I had a housemade (or so claimed) giardinara that was kind of nice, and some of the dried meats seemed tasty enough. Like the patrons and the service, though, much of the food was brash, unsubtle, and overbearing. Example: sweet potato fries were big and overbreaded; tasty, but in a way that makes you go, "okay, I get the point, stop shouting." The red pepper sauce that came with them was nearly identical.

Their true win is the wine, and the fact that they named themselves after their wine presentation sort of shows at least they're aware of what they're hawking. Moderately priced choices of truly average wines abound, in carafes as small as the quartino so you can have many choices on the table. They serve the old style diner water glasses for you to take small pours from quartinos so you can get little tastes of just about everything your party orders (and I'm sure this encourages a sort of "endless drinking" concept that reflects well on the final tab). Since I tend to dine with highly discriminating wine enthusiasts, we found ourselves with a couple of quartinos of almost drinkable fermented grapes. I think one of my fellow diners would have labelled it as "good for kids" (meaning people my age and younger) but not worthy of a serious (think "your parents' age") wine drinker's time.

After a Friday at Orchestra Hall, if I need a Ralli and Lombardo place to stop at for an early dinner (as was the old family tradition), it's going to be Hugo's, not this place. In fact, I don't think I'll ever go here again… unless I have some friends who are just in love with the place, and I don't care if I can hear what they are saying during dinner.

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mk

Food:	29	Ambience:	27	Purity:		Cost:	$$$$	SHAVE:	Regular

Cuisine:	Continental	Executive chef:	Todd Stein	Dining date:	2006-05-16

Region:	Chicago	City:	Chicago, IL		Loop

• 

mk is restauranteur Michael Kornick's main presence here in Chicago, although his glitzier offering, N9ne (review forthcoming), might have more nameshare, especially with its trendy ghostbar. Still, the roots of Michael's approach is in the food, and with Todd Stein now at the helm of his flagship restaurant (a change formalized at the end of last year), Michael should have nothing to worry about. Todd won a number of "Best New Chef" awards for 2005 (odd, since he's been in the industry for a while, and even Chicago before, but who is he to argue with a little press?) and they were well deserved. He keeps his food simple, but with a robustness of flavor and a solidity of presence. His line is well-trained, consistently turning out dependably good meals — and as a catastrophe with a recent fellow diner's sweetbreads showed me, Todd is not above stepping in on the line himself when something has to be corrected. Todd is a fan of preparing foie gras (diatribe on that forthcoming elsewhere on gourmet babble) and he does it right; he also makes sure to stock a proper sauternes or two to pair it with. They often have good solid Italian and French reds there, even by the half-bottle, and fairly reasonably priced at that. His sauces are often intense, even heavy, but always complementary to the main ingredient at hand.

Todd's philosophy of dining carries over to his whole restaurant, and I think it serves him well: "Use great ingredients and treat them well. Respect is key. Dining isn’t just eating. It starts from the moment you walk in. It includes the service, the flatware, everything." That's the case at mk; the service is dependable, friendly, and in all ways engaging. The room has a bit of a New York feel to it; it's large, open, with broad strokes of black (but not drearily so) and soft uptempo ambient or synth music in the background. The menu is reductionist, tongue-in-cheek, with all-lower case dish names like "lobster" and "lobster again"; desserts are handled similarly (if slightly more loquaciously) by the talented Kate Neumann, with dishes like her signature "one banana, two banana" and "cake and shake"

David is our absolute favorite waiter there, and you would do well to sit with him; his suggestions are nearly always dead-on, he remembers your preferences and knows a palate after he starts to work with you, and he's a lot of fun without being at all overbearing. Oh, and trying the pommes frites is worth it, but do yourself a favor and order an extra truffle cream from the start. You'll each want one, trust me, and it only comes with one to start.

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Topolobampo

Food:	35	Ambience:	32	Purity:		Cost:	$$$$	SHAVE:	Close

Cuisine:	Mexican	Executive chef:	Rick Bayless	Dining date:	2006-05-25

Region:	Chicago	City:	Chicago, IL		River North

• 
• 

This is an absolutely amazing restaurant. Rick Bayless may purportedly have a large ego in some ways, but this alone would hold him in good standing to have earned it. Imagine the approach taken in nouvelle cuisine and applied to mexican food, and you basically have the concept behind Topolobampo and the attached, lower-priced and more raucous Frontera Grill. Topolobampo, however, is in a class by itself. They have a huge kitchen where they do extreme processing of their own fresh supplies and save them for days, weeks, or even months when necessary — for instance, one type of tomato is necessary for some of their soups and sauces, so they buy literally tons of them during the month or so they are available, and then they process and flash freeze them themselves, storing them in their cellar freezers underneath the restaurants. Every ingredient tastes fresh and alive, and in balance and harmony. Their oysters are good, with fantastic sauces; their ceviches (and there are always three different ones available) are fresh, good, spicy, and interesting; and I have yet to have a less-than-stellar soup there. I cannot stress the sheer miraculousness here for me; they have taken quite literally my least favorite cuisine and made a restaurant I cannot wait to go back to. [Previously, I had a diatribe about their lack of quality wine, but I have since been shown that I was grievously in error in that regard and have thus excised it. –Scott 4 November 2006]

I had lunch here recently and it was amazing. The dinner I had previously had was apparently phenomenal even by their standards (went with a long-time fan of Topolo's), but this lunch definitely was in the same league. There is clearly a reason that Bayless won two James Beard awards in one year for this place. The habanero, cilantro, lime, and other-goodies-I-forget based ceviche of shrimp and calamari was potent and wonderful and the almond-thickened soup with seven or eight wonderfully complementary ingredients (yes, I should have taken notes, but I was too busy being in heaven at the time) was just glorious.

Have I said enough good things? I'll update the review next time I go again for dinner. In the meantime… go for yourself! [If you have the opportunity, ask to be seated with Oliver. He has, time and time again, proven to be an absolutely stellar guide through Topolo's rich cuisine and his recommendations are on-target. –Scott 4 November 2006]

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David Burke's Primehouse

Food:	26	Ambience:	28	Purity:		Cost:	$$$$	SHAVE:	Coarse

Cuisine:	Steakhouse	Executive chef:	David Burke	Dining date:	2006-04-17

Region:	Chicago	City:	Chicago, IL		Streeterville

Nested in the first floor of a well-positioned hotel that I had never heard of, Primehouse is clearly meant as a place to "see and be seen". They have decent-to-generous portions of extravagantly priced food, with some good flairs; they dry age their own beef in a salt cavern that they've made with pink salt blocks that they imported from somewhere (I've been told four or five times, and I still can't remember where). Their dishes often have a whimsical component, and the more whimsy, the less content; one of their signature appetizers, the "Angry Lobster", is tasty and pleasant, but is more show on the plate than lobster meat for the eating. Even the complimentary bread has that whimsy to it; there are no loaves of bread, but everyone gets served a popover, mostly hollow, in a little copper pan; a brick of butter with a little coarse pink salt (sense a theme here?) serves as your "accessory" for the popover, though why and how you butter a popover I still cannot figure out. I am especially fond of their Kobe beef tartare, made with a truffle cream sauce and toasted shallot slices, served over a brick of the pink salt from the cave. (We'll ignore the fact that it's pretty clearly not actually Kobe beef, but "merely" Wagyu beef… but that diatribe is forthcoming anyway in the "ingredients" section of this site.)

Like the enoteca fad that has hit Chicago of late, Primehouse serves their wine in little quartino carafes so you can sample many different varieties during dinner; too bad their wine list isn't actually so worthy as to have many wines you'd really want to sample. Their dry-aged meats really are quite nice, and they offer a choice of seven or eight different sauces, creams, and soufflés on the side to augment the dishes; I am fond of the truffle cream, worth the $3 or $5 surcharge, and their 207L complimentary steak sauce. (Avoid their "standard" steak sauce at all costs; it's sugary and pretty horrid, and a great way to ruin their otherwise fine meats.) The peppercorn sauce is quite nice as well, though my dining companions usually enjoy it more than I do. Their "South Side" bone-in, oversized, lightly dry aged filet mignon is a nice hunk of meat; I've eaten there a few times now and I still think it's my favorite, despite having tried several different cuts. They make a big deal with lots of marketing literature that all their meat comes from a common ancestor, a bull they personally own: 207L, sitting at their fields in Kansas. I personally think it's way overhyped, but I suppose there is something to be said for a known source for your beef, both in terms of location and genetics. Still, one wonders if he isn't borrowing from the coastal overhype of mad cow disease a tad.

Desserts are unilaterally lousy, and even though we have yet to escape without getting given a complimentary dessert, usually a signature one (like the David Burke dipped cheesecake lollipops), we have yet to enjoy one, even though in total, I've tried bits of four or five of their sweet offerings. Frankly, I'd rather just have another Kobe beef tartare.

The atmosphere of the place is leathers and woods, though not so much so that it only appeals to "old rich white republican men." I believe it opened only a few months ago (March 2006?), and they're definitely trying to make it an "in" scene; being pretty seems to get you a better shot at a better table, and quicker. When we went on the Monday night of the National Restaurant Association show, it was absolutely packed; clearly it was seen as an "in" place, and David was being ferried from table to table to meet with industry movers and shakers. Even as busy as it was, though, our usual waiter (Scott) did right by us and took good care of us, which was a good sign.

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If MTGoogleMaps and RightFields would play nice together, there'd be a Google map here…

IMSA Cafeteria

Food:	2	Ambience:	5	Purity:		Cost:	¢	SHAVE:	Coarse

Cuisine:	American			Dining date:	2006-05-02

Region:	Chicago	City:	Aurora, IL

Since August 2005, the IMSA cafeteria has been under the control of Sodexho food management. It is generally considered to be inferior to the previous management, Arbor, which is saying something not very kind at all.

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