Instead of pairing cocktails with food, Chefs Paul Virant and Nathan Sears will be crafting a menu based on an all-star cocktail list. more ›

Last night, the most exciting culinary destination in Chicago was Hot Chocolate. After six years of great success with her restaurant, Mindy Segal threw a party. Not just any party - a "Bad Ass Chicks" dinner party. Since we love to celebrate great women chefs at Chicagoist, we were particularly excited to hear that this year's event would be cooked exclusively by women. As is traditional with Hot Chocolate anniversary dinners, charity, not decadent vanity, was the order of the evening - all proceeds went to Share Our Strength. As the menu said: 6 Years of Hot Chocolate + 6 Craft Beers + 6 Awesome Women Chefs = Share Our Strength." And share we did! more ›

Last night, the Girl and the Goat's Stephanie Izard joined an all-star team of Chicago chefs to host a "Friends of the James Beard Foundation" dinner. The Beard Foundation, American's foremost nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting fine American food, holds dinners around the country to support its operations, and the proceeds of last night's dinner will be used for culinary school scholarships. more ›

We've been delinquent in visiting Floriole's new space, but during the summer we tend to visit Lincoln Park only on Saturdays for Green City Market. Since they have a booth at GCM, it seemed less important for us to visit the actual storefront to get our fix. Now that market season is winding down, and we needed a spot for a North Side lunch date, we stopped in to check things out. more ›

As of this morning there are still a pair of tickets available for next Thursday's Sound Opinions "Eat to the Beat" dinner at Blackbird. Blackbird's Paul Kahan and Mindy Segal of Hot Chocolate will prepare a multi-course dinner from music selected by Sound Opinions hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot. more ›

Outstanding in the Field, which organizes farm dinners across the country matching local chefs with local farms, released its 2010 farm dinner schedule today. They'll be making two local stops in august. First, Paul Virant will handle cooking duties for a 4 p.m. dinner at Dietzler Farm in Elkhorn, WI on August 2. That'll be followed three days later by a return appearance of Mindy Segal and Aric Miech of Hot Chocolate at City Farm august 5 at 4 p.m. While we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner at Kinnikinnick Farm last year, the first-person accounts we heard about the City Farm dinner with Segal three nights later were overwhelmingly ecstatic, with praise for both the food the view of the Chicago skyline from the dinner. more ›

Mindy Segal celebrated five years of Hot Chocolate last night with a $150 per person dinner to benefit Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation event this August. This year Segal wanted to feature the chefs who helped influence her on her way to becoming one of the best pastry chefs in the country. The lineup she put together resembled a chef's Dream Team. Rick Bayless and Brian Enyart, Paul Kahan, Michael Kornick and Erick Williams, Paul Virant, Bill Kim, Nick Lessins of Great Lake and Benjamin Caulfield of Three Floyds Brewpub joined Segal and her new executive chef Aric Miech in producing a tightly orchestrated seven-course meal paired with beers from some of Segal's favorite breweries. more ›

A few weeks back at Chicago Gourmet, we heard Mindy Segal, the chef/owner of Hot Chocolate, expounding the virtues of cookies to the audience. She particularly plugged her bacon chocolate-chip cookies. It's possible that an audible gasp escaped our mouth at this revelation, and we determined to try them at once! more ›

Thursday night some of Chicago's best chefs will be preparing dishes for Toque, an event to benefit Children's Oncology Services, Inc. The benefit takes place at Harold Washington Library Center (400 S. State Street) and will includes cocktails and a degustation menu as well as both a silent and live auction. Tickets are $250 each. Bill Kurtis, founder of Tallgass Beef Company, will be the Master of Ceremonies and the Chef Coordinator for the event is Michael Kornick of MK, one of our favorites. Featured Chefs include: more ›

If you were thinking you could get through August's events by hitting the Air & Water Show and Lollapalooza and then you'd be done, you're wrong. If you haven't heard of the Share Our Strength / Taste of the Nation events, well, you're about to. Mindy Segal is one of the co-chairs of the program and when she's not running her restaurant Hot Chocolate she's been crazy busy setting up one of the most interesting and promising culinary events of the year. more ›

George Rasmussen of Swan Creek Farms provides quality artisan meats to restaurants throughout the city. More recently, Rasmussen has been a beneficiary of spent brewers grain from Goose Island's Clybourn brewpub. One of the early hits of John Manion's still-evolving menu overhaul there is the sliders made from Swan Creek's "beer-fed" pork. While making local deliveries a week ago Rasmussen lost his truck, trailer, generator and a lot of food intended to customers to a fire. more ›

Obviously the high point of our week (besides clocking out for the weekend in an hour) was the Hot Chocolate anniversary beer dinner. One of the participating breweries at the dinner was Kansas City's Boulevard Brewing Company, currently unavailable in the market. That might change in upcoming months. more ›

Last night Mindy Segal brought together some of the best chefs in the city to celebrate Hot Chocolate's fourth anniversary with a $100 per person dinner to benefit Share Our Strength, a non-profit that works with local food banks, restaurants and community groups to combat hunger at home. Segal is the chair of Share Our Strength's "Taste of the Nation" event, scheduled for August 13 at Ravenswood Billboard Factory (Full disclosure: this Chicagoist staffer is also on the event committee). more ›

Break out your party hats, on Monday, February 23, Hot Chocolate is celebrating its 4th birthday by hosting a ridiculous five course dinner complete with appropriately paired craft beers. Even better, ticket sales will benefit Share Our Strength, a national non-profit working to end childhood hunger. more ›

While the weather when the puck drops Thursday at Wrigley field will be nowhere near the extremes of the Bears' last three home games, it'll still be cold. While we know some of you attending the game will be sneaking flasks, beer and soda will also be served in plastic bottles only. Hot chocolate will be served in a commemorative Winter Classic cup, as well. more ›

The seminars at Chicago Gourmet were a lot like college— you either left feeling smarter after a lecture from a great professor or you sat through the whole thing drawing on your notebook, wondering what all your friends were drinking at the wine tents. I assume many ticket holders attended Chicago Gourmet hoping to expand their knowledge of food and wine. The seminars seemed like the best place to start if this was your ultimate goal. Unfortunately, as Chuck and Anthony mentioned, they proved to be hit or miss. more ›

The cooking demonstrations at Chicago Gourmet were easily the more popular events, despite the fact that tasting the prepared food was a no-no. Since tasting food at the entire event was a seemingly rare experience, who cares? Viking set up two pretty sweet kitchen counters and induction stovetops side by side, so that two chefs could simultaneously prepare dishes, taking turns describing their process and dishes. The Pritzker stage was very effectively transformed into a cooking studio. The induction ranges meant that water boiled at lightning speed and sauces sometimes bubbled over the top of pots but that dishes were completed in the 30 minute allotted time slots. Large, tilted mirrors above the kitchens allowed guests to see the action as it took place. more ›

• Starting off this week with a bit of a review. We slugged back our share of Original Schlitz Friday night at Green Mill. Guess what? It isn't that bad. Actually, as far as clean lagers go, we prefer it over Pabst Blue Ribbon (coincidentally, Pabst brews both). At $4 a bottle, it's also priced perfectly (PBR on draft at Green Mill runs $4.50).
• Louis Glunz Beer Company has formed the "Glunz Beer Culinary Council." This Justice League of culinary greatness includes Paul Kahan, Mindy Segal, Richard Camarota of Custom House, MIke Roper and Ben Sheagren of Hopleaf, Cooper's - A Neighborhood Eatery owner Craig Foss, Siebel Institute of technology faculty member Randy Mosher, author Lucy Saunders, and chariman Jim Javenkoski. Not coincidentally, the restaurants represented also carry Unibroue beers.
• Mike Nagrant waxes on about "green market dorks" in this week's New City

In just a few short weeks, will hit the airwaves and we're counting down the days to the March 12 season premiere. In addition to placing the city's restaurant scene at the forefront of the series and the backdrop for the competition, there are three chefs with local ties competing for the title of "Top Chef." more ›

New York magazine got their hands on a copy of this year's James Beard award ballots (check it out for yourself here) and as usual, our city's restaurants are well-represented. more ›

After months of spying and accounts of shooting around town, Bravo finally announced the contestants for the next season of "Top Chef" today (you can read the release here). While the lineup of chefs vying to impress Padma and company are largely from the coasts, three of the contestants have Chicago ties: more ›

On a recent Monday night, Chicagoist stopped in to Piccolo, the new panini-bruschette-gelato restaurant on 859 N. Damen. The place was empty, save for the two people working behind the counter. And while we can't hold it against them — Mondays aren't known for being a big dining out night — it set the tone for a meal that was most frequently commented on with, "huh?" Which isn't to say that Piccolo is bad, because... more ›

Via Chicago Foodies, we found out about USA Dine Out, a new program sponsored by San Pellegrino. Here is the deal; a select bunch of Chicago restaurants will be offering $25 and $35 fixed price lunches and dinner, respectively, in between August 19-23 and August 26–30. Every table gets a free bottle of water, and Pellegrino donates $1 to Share Out Strength. Now we all know $1 isn't a huge amount of money... but if... more ›

We stopped by Stubbs, our neighborhood’s new coffee shop, the other night and inquired about its name. Along with some damn good Fratelli coffee and a nice salami/provolone panini, we left Stubbs that evening with some literary insight that had slipped by us in high school. Pierce Schmidt, Stubbs co-owner, told us that in Moby Dick, Starbuck was Ahab’s first mate on the Pequod and Stubb was the second mate. After we visited CliffsNotes... more ›

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your ovens! This Sunday is the second annual Bucktown Apple Pie Contest which will benefit Holstein Park. As of Monday, organizers were still accepting entries for what is sure to be a knock-down, drag-our battle for apple pie supremacy. Organizer Megan Wade warned Chicagoist that last year's winner will be entering again this year, so the stakes are definitely high. Entrants need to fill out this form and then bring two... more ›

Chicagoist's favorite thing about Hot Chocolate, the quasi-new restaurant opened by acclaimed pastry chef Mindy Segal, is not surprising: The desserts. We loved them. Chicagoist will admit that we had no doubt that we'd love the desserts. A major reason why MK had long been a favorite of ours was due in no small amount to Segal when she presided over its sweets. It wasn't enjoying her desserts that concerned us. We just had... more ›