Chefs, Distilleries Come Together For Palmer House Speakeasy

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Jul 27, 2010 7:20PM

Lockwood chef Phillip Foss is on a roll this year in attracting media attention, and almost always for noble or worthy causes. His advocacy for viewing Asian carp as a food source and not an invasive species has been a road filled with potholes, but he's taken his cause celebre to the Today show and left no local media outlet stone unturned. along with Gaztro-Wagon's Matt Maroni, Foss has also led the charge for food trucks in Chicago, and his blog is still as entertaining as ever. It could be argued that Foss's visibility in the media is second to Graham Elliot Bowles; Foss also weighed in on the GEB/Chicago magazine dustup.

Foss is now spearheading an event that, on paper, sounds pretty damn amazing next Thursday, August 5. He and a host of other chefs and cocktailers have teamed up to pay homage to the history the Palmer House's Empire Room and transform it into a speakeasy. The featured distilleries for this "speakeasy throwback" are nearly all local - North Shore, Koval, Death's Door and Templeton Rye are on board, along with Hum spirits and Rare Tea cellar.

The room will be divided into separate beverage stations, with cocktails paired by food from chefs including Kith & Kin's David Carrier, Stepahnie Izard of Girl & the Goat, Avenues' Curtis Duffy, Mike Sheerin of Blackbird, Sepia's Andrew Zimmerman and Jerome Landrieu of Callebaut Chocaolate Academy. To make sure you lay a solid foundation for all the cocktails, appetizers will be provided by avec's Koren Grieveson, Perennial's Ryan Poli, John des Rosiers of Inovasi and Big Jones' Paul Fehribach.

All proceeds for this event will go to the medical bills of Paramount Room beverage manager Shawn Koch, who has been fighting brain cancer. So it's a cool event for a cool cause.

Tickets to the Speakeasy Throwback are $95 and can be purchased online or by calling Lockwood at 312-917-4962.