Restaurant News: Rick Bayless Nominated For Daytime Emmy

By Amy Cavanaugh in Food on May 13, 2012 8:00PM

• Rick Bayless was nominated for a Daytime Emmy this week in the category outstanding lifestyle/culinary host for his PBS show Mexico - One Plate at a Time. The show is June 23, and Bayless is up against Giada De Laurentiis, Nate Berkus, Paula Deen, and Sandra Lee.

• Mindy Segal's Bucktown restaurant Hot Chocolate re-opened this week after the chef reconfigured her menu and dining room. Via Grubstreet:

A more rustic-industrial room has been reconfigured to include a 12-person chef's table, and will be host to a menu broken up into "Jars," "Plates," "Bowls," "Salads" and "Sandwiches." Desserts will be less composed and "precious" and more direct, with a wider variety of ways to experience them: a retail area up front, assembled-to-your-specs ice cream sandwiches from the coffee bar and a roving cookie cart selling cookies to tables, dim-sum style.

• Tony Mantuano is opening a new concept at the Art Institute on May 25. Time Out Chicago reports that the North Garden will become Piano Terra, an extension of Terzo Piano. It will offer an al fresco salad bar, a vegetable sandwich, sides, dessert, and coffee.