Bon Appetit Crowns Chicago 'Restaurant City Of The Year'
By Stephen Gossett in Food on Aug 8, 2017 4:53PM
Smoked scallops at Elske. Photo by Kailley Lindman.
Not without substantial cause, the folks at Bon Appetit are very taken with our city's dining scene: And on Tuesday, the magazine awarded its annual "Restaurant City of the Year" honors to Chicago. The nod comes just one week after four Chicago restaurants landed on the mag's list of 50 best new restaurants in the country (no other city had more), and fewer than three months after a similarly smitten Conde Nast Traveler named Chicago the Best Restaurant City In America.
"Where other cities fall into soulless trend cycles, Chicago has a way of generating distinctively personal restaurants, writes Julia Kramer, a native Chicagoan and onetime food critic at Time Out Chicago, in Bon Appetit. "So, SF and L.A., this might hurt a little, but here’s all the proof you need that the Midwest is best."
Kramer hones in on eight noteworthy aspects of Chicago's restaurant scene in particular in her roundup: Anna Posey’s desserts at the much-acclaimed, Danish-influenced Elske; the pilgrim-worthy dinners at Hanbun, in Westmont; the celebrated fine-dining/pub split-level that is Smyth and The Loyalist; Diana Dávila's Mexican-street-food homage Mi Tocaya Antojería, in Logan Square; small-plate newcomer fave Giant; the baking wizardry at Fat Rice's daytime baked-goods incarnation; farm-to-table gem Cellar Door Provisions; and the city's unstoppable mezcal boom (see Quiote, Estereo, Mezcaleria Las Flores and Leña Brava).
Tough to argue with that group.
Bon Appetit gave Restaurant City of the Year honors to Washington D.C. in 2016 and San Francisco the year before. Check out the full profile here, and be ready to take some notes.
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