The crew at Moto have made a video of an entire tasting menu. more ›

16 courses of gastronomic wizardry - all in black. more ›

Cantu hit the road to talk about the miracle berry and its potential to fight hunger and diabetes. Watch his TED talk and CNN segments to learn more. more ›

Now there is only one three-Michelin-star restaurant left in Chicago, after L20 dropped two stars. more ›

As food gets more and more complicated and involves more technological wizardry, does it also require legal protection? more ›

Learn about our hometown contestants, the show's new features and more - and be sure to watch tonight! more ›

Six Chicago chefs are going to be in the first round of Top Chef Season 9, and Amanda Rockman's funnel cake led to her removal from Top Chef: Just Desserts. more ›

It's a big day for Homaro Cantu news here on Chicagoist. It's no secret that we were skeptical about using miracle berries to feed the poor, but this is a potentially good idea - Chef Cantu, miracle berry evangelist, told the Sun-Times last week that he's working on a diet book based on the berries. Why miracle berries? Because it would allow you to eliminate sugar from your diet without loosing the sweetness. more ›

When we first visited iNG, we were more impressed by the computer systems than the food. Well, the computer, which iNG servers refer to as "Skynet" (is that creepy or awesome? will it poison us?) has just gotten even better. Chef Cantu is just about to release a new system into the world, which he calls "The Matrix." He gave us a hint of this a few months ago, saying that he planned to distribute the amazing software that runs the complex menus at Moto, and now it's ready to go. The Feast got a full-scale run through of the software last week, and it's worth watching for any foodie, nerd, or foodie nerd. And yes, it can also play Pandora. more ›

Comedian Patton Oswalt is a noted foodie, and has been known to talk about everything from KFC to Chicago's better restaurants at length. But we didn't know that one restaurant was a fan of him until we stumbled across an interview a few weeks ago from the WTF With Marc Maron podcast, discussing a dish featuring an unusual topping that is usually only made by hand. more ›

When I walked in the door of Homaro Cantu's ING, I honestly had no idea what to expect. I'd been to Moto many times, and to Otom (the previous tenant of the space) once before, but aside from some buzz about miracle berries and a lot of tweets ending in "-ing," I was pretty much in the dark. What I experienced was a potential revolution in restaurant logistics. For all the highfalutin talk about feeding the poor, levitating food and "molecular gastronomy," the real stories of the night were the fun, interesting food cooked by executive chef Thomas Bowman and the incredible machine Cantu has created to run such an immensely complicated restaurant. Food aside, we may be seeing the future of restaurant management at ING. more ›

Homaro Cantu, the mad scientist behind Moto, Otom and ING, is well known for making large-scale claims about the importance of his culinary inventions. He has worked with NASA, extolled the virtues of edible paper, and holds many patents for his culinary inventions. Heck, the chef has a display in the Museum of Science and Industry! His work is exciting, and his ideas push the envelope of food innovation. But an article in today's New York Times has us a little skeptical, not only about Chef Cantu's ambitions for the global food landscape but also for the offerings at his new restaurant, ING, which opens on Monday to Valentine's Day patrons. From everything available in the press, many of the restaurant's tricks center around the "miracle berry," which Cantu believes could be "an answer to global hunger." more ›

Last month, we confirmed that Homaro Cantu, the mad scientist behind Moto, was opening another restaurant. It was to be called "ING" and promised to be our favorite restaurant named after a suffix, but no other information was available. Bits and pieces have come out - due to a quirk of postage, Time Out Chicago got the invitation to the media preview first and posted some potential menu items. Cantu sent Kevin Pang at the Tribune an unmarked pill (Pang made another staffer try it) and we got an email over the weekend telling us that all Otom Groupons would be refunded - the final confirmation that Otom was out and ING was in. Now Cantu has started tweeting out videos of the new space. more ›

Back in December, Grubstreet told the world that Homaro Cantu, the culinary mad scientist (and we mean that in the nicest way) behind Moto and Otom was opening a new project. It will be called "ING," and no more information was available. more ›

I hear (and often proffer) so many complaints about bad service, badly designed menus, food cooked into shoe leather and waiters spilling wine onto shirtfronts that I often forget that the customer is sometimes the stupid one. Sometimes this clueless behavior rises to such epic levels that I am tempted to vault across the table, jump the intervening aisle and shake some sense into the hapless fool. "Of course," I remind myself, "I'm in an unusual position - I do my research, I know chefs and restaurants. Maybe I'm not the best judge of what is a normal informed customer." But when customers enter a restaurant totally unaware of its basic premise, the food offered or what they can expect and instead sit down and expect to be served according to their every whim, I get quietly violent. more ›

Friend of Chicagoist Mark Bazer, of "The Interview Show" fame, recently had moto chefs/Future Food hosts Homaro Cantu and Ben Roche on his show, where they talked about dining at moto, Future Food and other things. We've embedded part 1 of the interview in the post. Check out part 2 here. more ›

We caught up with Chef Homaro Cantu (right) and Chef Ben Roche (left) of moto earlier in the week to discuss their new show Future Food, premiering on Planet Green on Tuesday, March 30, at 9 Central. more ›

Last night, we attended the Future Foods premiere at moto, the show we told you about a few weeks ago. Here are some pictures from that event, but be sure to catch our interview with Chef Cantu and Chef Roche on Thursday when we delve into Future Food - which premieres March 30th on Planet Green. Details coming on Thursday! more ›

We are big fans of the creative cuisine by Chef Homaro Cantu and Chef Ben Roche of MOTO so we were excited to hear that Planet Green gave these two a series called FUTURE FOOD. Our sneak peek into upcoming episode descriptions includes the team creating a seafood menu that does not contain seafood, vegetables that resemble eyeballs, and making a meal of peanut shells and apple cores. more ›

Much speculation has been made about Homaro Cantu's Disruptive Food countdown and the big reveal he's supposed to announce on November 13. Privately we've been asking ourselves and others, "Wouldn't it be a big letdown if it just turned out to be another Food Network show?" Our suspicions were further piqued by the Chicago Bites team of Tammy Green and Bridget Houlihan. They had dinner over the weekend with Ted Allen in moto's private downstairs dining room and said the room will "apparently will soon be transformed into to a TV studio for a new cooking show." more ›

The countdown to Homaro Cantu's big reveal of his "Disruptive Food" project currently stands at 62 days. Today, however, we're gonna give you another reason to follow Cantu on Twitter. More accurately, to sign up for the messaging service yourselves. more ›

From Homaro Cantu's twitter feed this morning: the moto chef/owner is giving away a free electric car to the first person who can answer this question on his Disruptive Food website. more ›

Both Grub Street Chicago and LTHForum were abuzz yesterday by the video above featuring moto's Homaro Cantu and Ben Roche working their dark arts of the kitchen. The video shows Cantu and Roche brewing crumbled Dunkin' Donuts for cops, serving pizza-flavored photos to pizza deliverymen and making ice cream that doesn't melt at room temperature. Cantu asks in the LTH thread, "When was the last time we had a real paradigm shift in food? Get ready, because its about to happen and every top tier food company ceo is going to be scratching their heads trying to figure out what Moto has been up to with the crazy NDA's (non-disclosure agreements) and secrecy. Its almost time to let the ticking bomb go off. Tick tock tick tock tick tock..." Ellipses his. more ›

We are looking to you, dear reader, to let us know where you'd like us to visit for our Food Pr0n series. Any restaurants in particular have you curious? Comment below or Twitter lstolpman. Here's a reminder of where we've been: more ›

We're back with some more pictures from moto's kitchen. Take #1 explored some dishes, Take #2 showed the mad scientist side of Chef Homaru Cantu. This time we'll show the technique behind the new bagel and lox menu item, as well as get a sneak peek of a dessert by Pastry Chef Ben Roche not yet on the menu. Enjoy!
more ›

Chef Cantu decided to show me a little microwave trick. I should mention ...that white stuff he set on fire and put in the microwave? I had just eaten some of that. more ›

We recently spent a Saturday afternoon in the kitchen at moto. Chef Homaro Cantu set things on fire for us (video this afternoon!) while Chef Ben Roche created and destroyed a dessert for our benefit (pictures of that this week). We also captured images of a new bagel and lox menu item and how the salmon gets smoked right at your table (keep watching for those, too). For now, enjoy some images of moto's cuisine and be sure to return for behind the scene pictures. more ›

). more ›

Phil Vettel writes that Anthony Bourdain is filming at moto today and will be at Matchbox and Silver Palm (768-770 N. Milwaukee) from 8-10 p.m. this evening. Make us flip a coin between stalking BOURDAIN and watching "One Tree Hill" reruns. [The Stew] more ›

The Gawker-affiliated travel site Gridskipper took a look at the local dining scene yesterday. Laura pointed out to us - and after reading the post we concur - that the tone of the post strikes the balance between "yeah, that's about right" and "this is why people in New York shouldn't write about Chicago." Seriously, they consider moto to be overrated, when we found it to be the most fun we've had in a restaurant in years. And Violet Hour is so six months ago, according to them. more ›