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 ›

It's perfectly fitting that this benefit dinner is at Vie, Paul Virant's locally-inspired Michelin-acclaimed restaurant. more ›

- Bleeding Heart, everyone's favorite Punk Rock bakery, has just taken things to the next level. As of today at 6 AM, their new bakery/cafe is open for business! Featuring breakfast/brunch foods, pastries, coffee drinks and a Rare Tea bar, the new spot is sure to be an instant hit. They also have a (very on-trend) donut bar that makes us want to give up on ever being thin - try the Chicago Blues, a yeast doughnut with fresh opal basil and crushed Seedling Farms blueberry glaze. No booze yet, but we'll see how things shape up. 1916 W. Chicago Avenue. more ›

Last week, Our Town's food cognoscenti was stunned at the news that Ryan Poli was leaving Perennial to helm the kitchen at the soon-to-open Tavernita, where he hopes to pursue his passion for Spanish cuisine. This led to speculation as to whom would replace Poli at the Lincoln Park eatery, spurred in part by BOKA Restaurant Group owner Kevin Boehm's hints that the chef was a "celebrity." more ›

Do we dare celebrate this brief retreat winter's been making? Can we safely point and laugh at the once-Andean snow piles that've been reduced to pathetic roadside lumps? Part of us says no, any pleasure we take in these hood-down halcyon days will come back to bite us on the...nose. (Mother Nature is so immature.) If only we could somehow honor the fruits of the season, but in a refreshing beverage built for these blissfully tepid days of pre-spring. Luckily, we've got guys like Michael Page, bar manager at Vie in Western Springs, working on the problem. more ›

When talk among local food nerds turns to chefs who can and preserve their own fruits and vegetables, Vie's Paul Virant is usually the first name to be dropped. And with good reason, as Virant's canning prowess is second to none. more ›

Chef Paul Virant is packing up his knives and his bounty of locally farmed ingredient. No, he’s not leaving Vie. He wants to bring a food revolution to your kitchen and teach you and your best buds how to apply his skills for creating impeccable contemporary American cuisine. 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 ›

Although it happened in February, Hot Chocolate's fourth anniversary dinner still stood as my favorite overall dining experience last year. It was a seven-course marathon that increased in intensity and flavor with every dish, paired with some heavy duty beers and a music soundtrack that ranged from early Black Sabbath to pre-"Black Album" Metallica to the Twilight Singers. The proceeds from the dinner went to Share Our Strength, the DC-based non-profit dedicated to eliminating hunger in America by 2015. Quite simply, I was exhausted at the end of the meal. more ›

The Magalitsa pig, also known as the "curly haired hog," is a breed of pig that originated from Hungary and the Balkans known for its thick wooly coat. The meat from a Mangalitsa pig is also rich in fat and is reputed to have a flavor and texture similar to Wagyu beef. In gourmet circles Mangalitsas have eclipsed mulefoots as the new trendy pork. more ›

Hellur, food lovers. We decided to watch and recap the action as Chicago's Paul Virant competes on Iron Chef America. After the standard opening montage in which we meet the Chairman, we are introduced to Bobby Flay (*coughdouchecouch*), Masaharu Morimoto, Mario Batali (Croc lovah!), Cat Cora, and Michael Symon (gigglehead). Then we get to meet the challenger, Chef Virant. Alton Brown tells us that Chef Virant grew up in Missouri where his grandmothers took him to the local smokehouse and farmer's market and taught him how to preserve fruit and pickle vegetables. He went to the CIA and worked in NYC and now owns Vie here in our very own Chicago. Chef virant reiterates his midwest style and says he concentrates on fresh ingredients. more ›

Mike Gebert's latest Sky Full of Bacon video podcast continues his look into fishing and sustainability by turning his camera to Great Lakes whitefish. With some assistance from Carl Galvan of Supreme Lobster, Gebert went on a fishing run with a Wisconsin family that has been trolling Lake Michigan for whitefish for 130 years. more ›

Last night we attended the sold out mulefoot pig dinner at Blackbird sponsored by the Chicago Reader. Reader food critic Mike Sula has been chronicling the progress Dee Dee since he persuaded the paper to buy her last year, bringing attention to this rare endangered breed of swine in the process. more ›

After nearly two years, the Reader is ready to serve up some of that mulefoot pig it adopted to some hungry folks. And they're doing it in style, with a six-course dinner starting 6 p.m. October 19 at Blackbird to benefit Slow Food Chicago. more ›

A couple weeks back we attended the Green City Market farmer's dinner at Goose Island's Clybourn brewpub. That was the one that featured dishes from a host of chefs including Dean Zanella of 312 Chicago; Brian Huston of Paul Kahan's the Publican (opening in mid-autumn); Elissa Narow of Custom House and Paul Virant of Vie in Western Springs. Virant's dish was easily the most ambitious of the courses, utilizing lamb in unexpected ways. Virant sourced the lamb from Mint Creek Farm in downstate Stelle. more ›

There are a couple of really interesting beer dinners of note in the coming weeks that could wind up being hard reservations, if you're the type to wait until the last minute to get reservations. more ›