Want to know how detailed a city health inspection of Our Town's restaurants can become? Tribune reporter Monica Eng recently followed two Public Health Inspectors around as they scared the hell out of unsuspecting restaurant owners with spot inspections. How detailed are the inspectors? "(They) employ a 44-item checklist that combines guidelines from the Illinois Department of Public Health and local city ordinances. It's a meat grinder of a survey, the kind of thing that......

Be careful on the two-wheelers, especially if you're a chef. Phil Vettel took time out from covering his Bizarro-world Chicago Gourmet to report that both Laurent Gras of L2O and Café Matou's Charlie Socher were in recent accidents. Gras, a bicycling enthusiast, was hopsitalized for a week and is now back in the kitchen. Socher wiped out his motorcycle (hopefully he wore a leather jacket for a controlled slide); chef Polo Heredia is filling......

De La Costa, the Nuevo Latino restaurant in River North, was recently sold by its parent company. But the $1 million offer by buyer Dock 465 LLC is half of what Panacea Partners LLC is asking. Additionally, the sale could be moot if Dock 465 can't obtain a liquor license from the city. [Crain's]......

After catching a movie at River East, we stopped in at Hub 51, the newest member of the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant empire. Run by R.J. and Jerrod Melman, sons of LEYE kingpin Rich Melman, Hub 51 opened in July and was described by our server as dishing out “American fusion” fare. If you’re curious to know what that means, you’re in good company – we’re not sure the owners know, either. The space is......

The saying goes, "It ain't bragging if you can back it up." It's also been a while since we've visited Alinea, both the restaurant proper and as a news item. This look inside the kitchen is a nicely detailed look at what goes on behind the scenes.......

While waiting for the Procession of St. Rocco to pass yesterday, we began to feel pangs of hunger. Rather than pray to the Patron Saint of Pestilence, we asked for a menu at Bertucci's Corner. The corner itself is known as "Bertucci's Corner;" the family has been a longtime presence in Chinatown and many members of the family are also members of the Order of St. Rocco. This place is one of the best known......

With more out-of-town, internationally acclaimed chefs now able to find Chicago on a map, we could be reaching a point where "Rock Star Chef City" hits critical mass. And that's without Gordon Ramsay's recent threats to test the local waters. In short, when a chef earns the name recognition and acclaim affording him to branch out to different cities, he starts to balance that fine line between chef and restaurateur that draws the watchful eyes......

Say goodbye to Bennigan's. The chain is shutting down restaurants nationwide, with the exception of independently-owned franchise locations. CBS2 confirmed that the Bennigan's at 150 S. Michigan, once dubbed the "busiest Bennigan's in the world" and the location where Michael Jordan met his now ex-wife Juanita, is among the ones closing. [CBS2]......

We attended the soft opening for Graham Elliot, the new River North "bistronomic restaurant" from former Avenues chef Graham Elliot Bowles at 217 W. Huron, last month and were sufficiently impressed by what we sampled to put it on our list of restaurants to return, keeping in mind that soft openings are generally where a new restaurant does its best to maintain initial appearances Since that soft opening, however, Bowles has taken his lumps in......

A few weeks back a reader e-mailed Margaret asking where he could find good biscuits and gravy in town, the way he remembered it in the South. Being the boss, she forwarded over the e-mail and asked, "I'd like to know, too." This set us to pondering. We certainly know how to whip up a good batch of biscuits and gravy from scratch. The problem with trying to find it out in town is the......

Sure signs of summer: fluff pieces from newspapers analyzing the dietary habits of our Presidential candidates. This one in the Wall Street Journal (via the Bright One) takes a look at the restaurants both Senators Barack Obama and John McCain frequent and discover what those restaurants say about them and their families. The Cliff's Notes? Obama is a cosmopolitan husband and father living in a city known for its world-class dining; McCain is some doddering......

From today's Tribune: Alderman Tom "Sticky Buns" Tunney, citing opposition from the restaurant industry (of which he's a member as owner of Ann Sather's) intends to force a vote on repealing the ridiculous-but-upheld-in-court foie gras ban. "We think we have the votes to (repeal) it," Tunney told the Trib. This puts Tunney square in the sights of 49th Ward Alderman Joe "Protector of Ducks" Moore, who lobbied to pass the ban nearly two years......

We know that Chicago is a restaurant hot spot. While out-of-town writers particularly tend to maintain the clichés (earned, mind you) of Chicago being a steak and potatoes, deep dish pizza town, out-of-town chefs know the real score. The cover story to yesterday's Sun-Times food section was about the flood of celebrity chefs opening restaurants here in the upcoming months. Laurent Gras is opening L2O, Jose Garces' Mercat a la Planxa is one of the......

From Crain's comes word that Le Lan Executive chef Bill Kim is leaving behind the river North French-Vietnamese outpost to open a noodle shop/casual eatery in Logan Square. Urban Belly, a casual, BYOB eatery at 3053 N. California, is set to open in mid-June. It's also fulfills a longtime dream of Kim's to open a chain of casual restaurants and to highlight noodles on to show that there's more to them in Asian cuisines than......

Sweetbreads are one of the best misnomers in cuisine. Neither sweet nor a bread product, a sweetbread is either the pancreas (stomach sweetbread or noix in French) or thymus gland (throat sweetbread or gorge in French) of an animal, typically lamb or a calf. If that alone turned you off of sweetbreads, the lengthy preparation to remove any blood from the tissue, off-tasting fat and gristle won't exactly have your mouth watering. But their delicate......

As you might have gathered from our Pasta obsession, we’re very picky about our Italian food. “Modern” Italian fails to impress, more often than not, and it’s been a while since we’ve found a new place worth mentioning. So, rather than check the restaurant listings, whenever we get a craving for Italian we always end up heading to Lincoln Square to La Bocca Della Verita. La Bocca is named after a Roman landmark made famous......

The S. Pellegrino list of the World's 50 Best Restaurants was announced yesterday. Both Alinea and Charlie trotter's made the cut: the House of Achatz settles in at #21 while Trotter's lands at #38. What is notable about the two restaurants' inclusion on the lsit is that Alinea jumped up fifteen spaces from its debut on last year's list, while Trotter's fell eight spots.......

Should Marina Towers be a landmark? That's one of the questions on the table now that the once nearly bankrupt iconic apartment buildings are back in the black. Another question: Is Dick's Last Resort really going to open in the base of one of the corncobs? Dick's Last Resort is a chain of cheesy bars the Trib calls "in-your-face," and which identifies itself as "outrageous." Eh, it's a jerk-themed Bennigans, but more stupid. Anyway, about......

Foodandwine.com just announced their "Go To List 2008," where they list their top ten restaurant cities in the world, ten up and coming restaurant cities, and 300 dining destinations around the world. It should come as no surprise that our broad-shouldered city ranked #8. That's behind Tokyo, Paris and New York, but ahead of Stockholm and Vancouver. Credit where credit is due, Vancouver still has better skiing and gentlemens clubs. Food & Wine's "Go List"......

Chicago has more cozy neighborhood joints than any other city we’ve ever lived in. Even better, some of those places have absolutely amazing food. Every hardcore foodie we know has been raving to us for months and months about Drew and Susan Goss' West Town Tavern, but we only got around to going last week. And then we liked it so much, we went again just six days later. Golden wood, exposed brick, soft lighting......

Photo by Deltaspy The Sun-Times takes a look at "elimination communication," a technique some parents are using to toilet train their very young children. Perhaps you read about it. In the New York Times. In 2005. [S-T, NYT.] Police are investigating the human remains discovered in Downers Grove but so far can't establish age, race, or how long ago the man died. [Trib] Alinea won Restaurants & Institutions magazine’s Ivy Award, which is a......

A gift from Cupid's Treasures may be nice once in a while, but food is a time-tested aphrodisiac. Restaurants throughout the city are gearing up for one of their busiest days Thursday. Here is a list of price fixe dinners guaranteed to mae a romantic out of even the most callous individuals. Shawn McClain at Spring has crafted a four-course menu featuring the highest quality seasonal ingredients for $80. $40 extra will get you wine......

The sweetheart deal negotiated by the investors of Park Grill and the Park District has been covered before. But a good story is worth repeating, so we'll remind you, the taxpayer, what you're paying for at Park Grill: - garbage collection - their gas bill - half of the restaurant's construction costs (an estimated $4.2 million). Oh, they also don't pay real estate taxes. Faced with such insurmountable odds, Park Grill's investors are finally starting......

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......

To say that it isn't hard to stumble into a taqueria in Pilsen is an understatement. Focus on the Blue Island corridor, however. and the question becomes trying to avoid one. We took advantage of yesterday's thaw to walk around, enjoy the weather buy some pirated movies (you should see our copy of "Untraceable"). Then, after we worked up an appetite, we headed into the first taqueria we saw for a quick bite, which wound......

January is National Hot Tea Month. We love tea. Even more, we love places that serve tea – especially when they serve it in a cozy setting accompanied by good food. And while we have several favorite tea-sipping haunts, we’re always on the lookout for more. So when we spotted Susan Blumberg’s All the Tea in Chicago on the guidebook shelf at our favorite bookstore, we grabbed it. In the last 10 years, tea has......

Some chef news for you: Monday both Chicago Mag's Dish and TOC broke the news that Avenues' Graham Elliot Bowles will be leaving the AAA five-diamond award winning restaurant in April to open a new restaurant in the former Harvest on Huron space (217 W. Huron). Bowles told Dish that he's looking to create "redefined dining." Gone will be the restraints he faced making progressive cuisine in a hotel fine dining atmosphere, replaced by a......

Common sense dictated that we should have stayed in Saturday night in the slightly drafty but hospitable environs of our apartment. However, when the fine folks at Unibroue plan a beer dinner, it's usually a great event. What made Saturday night's event stand out was the location of the dinner. Sheffield's in Lakeview would not normally be on our list of places to grab a bite to eat. But owner Rick Hess (who also owns......

Like many Chicagoans, we cried a little in 2006 when the Berghoff restaurant closed its doors after 108 years in the loop. While the Berghoff was never known for its “gourmet” cuisine, it did serve up hearty portions of German cooking and nostalgia for old Chicago. We were delighted to see that part of the Berghoff legacy would carry on “17/West at the Berghoff.” The gruff old waiters (and heavy German food) are nowhere to......

The Tribune has what they say are their best food photos online today. And they sure are pretty, although, for our two cents we'll always take a shot like Zesmerelda's beautifully framed photo of Crofton on Well's Indian Pudding. You can find this and other shots at the flickr Chicago Cuisine pool.......