Results tagged “mado”

Craft breweries may receive (deserved) recognition for the inventiveness they're using to raise the profile of beer in the marketplace. It's wise to remember that today's brewers are merely dusting off techniques that date back generations, to those first groups of friars who discovered that fermenting malt made for a nice loophole to their fasting. The brewing history of the De Landtsheer family starts in the 1600s, but Emmanuel "Manu" De Landtsheer's Malheur (French for "misfortune") listed his first beer for public consumption only 12 years ago. The Malheur brews we'd shank a man with a sharpened toothbrush handle for are the ones brewed in the "methode champenoise" style.

         

"Have you ever been to one of our family dinners?" Rob Levitt of mado asked us Monday night at the LTHForum GNR awards dinner. Allowing that we hadn't, Levitt's eyes lit up. "They're fun and, with this one, you're gonna be in for a real treat."

You can always count on mado to go where few other restaurants will go in their quest to adhere to serving all things head-to-tail. Lately Rob Levitt's been on a mutton kick that will continue for the foreseeable future. Mutton — older, mature lamb &3151 is noted for its richness in flavor. Because it's a tough meat, however, mutton is best cooked long and slow.

Just received word from the Bluebird's Jason Baldacci that the beer and wine dinner they were collaborating on with with mado and Webster's Wine Bar has been postponed. Baldacci e-mailed, "It's been a new challenge for all of us to put together an event between three different bars/restaurants, and we want to make sure that we're as prepared as possible, and that the dinner is going to be as good as we can all collectively make it." We'll let readers know when a new date is set.

Looks like the Publican/New Holland beer dinner isn't the only must-eat dinner in town Sunday. Rob and Allie Levitt of mado are putting together a five-course dinner of their own featuring wood-roasted pig’s head with spicy greens and marinated chickpeas, spit-roasted leg of mutton and smoked trout with apricots, chilies and polenta abbrustolita. The dinner starts Sunday at 6 p.m.

Sometimes it pays to subscribe to a restaurant's Twitter feed. Case in point: the hyper-seasonal and snout-to-tail experts at mado. Co-owner Rob Levitt occasionally posts updates to his feed letting fans know, among other things, what he and wife Allie are making in the kitchen and the not-uncommon complaint from a new customer regarding their commitment to using every bit of what they buy. Today Rob Levitt posted what the restaurant's "first piece of hate mail" to the restaurant's website It's a scan of highlighted capsule review of mado with the following written in green ink next to it:

Mado, Rob and Allison Levitt's hyper-local Wicker Park restaurant with the constantly updated chalkboard menu, gets more love from the East Coast. Mado made Bon Appetit's upcoming list of the 10 Best New Restaurants in America (see the full list here).

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.

This has been making the rounds at other blogs, but we still wanted to share it with you. Mike Gebert at Sky Full of Bacon followed around localvore hero Rob Gardner as Gardner acquired a pig's head from the Oak Park Farmer's Market, then took it to Mado, where chef/co-owner Rob Levitt promptly made testa (aka "head cheese") out of it. This video is not for vegans or the queasy, nor should it be.

A couple of weeks ago we had the chance to stop by Mado, a new Wicker Park dining spot. Just off the main Milwaukee Street business district, Mado is tucked away in a cute little spot with exposed brick, chalkboards on the walls and pretty, understated décor. We’d heard a lot of good things, and went in with high expectations.