Chicago Has The 2nd-Best New Restaurant In The Country, Bon Appetit Says
By Stephen Gossett in Food on Aug 15, 2017 7:22PM
The Chicago love just keeps a-comin' from Bon Appetit. A week after the tastemakers crowned Chicago the "Restaurant City of the Year," the magazine has come out with its ranked Top 10 list of Best New Restaurants in America—which sports two Chicago spots, including the No. 2 overall pick.
The silver medal, as it were, went to Danish-influenced West Loop critical favorite Elske—no big surprise.
Bon Appetit joined the chorus of appreciation:
"In the kitchen are David and Anna Posey: he the former chef of Chicago’s iconic Blackbird; she the one-time pastry chef of the Publican. Their food aesthetic is hard to describe. Perfect execution is the baseline, as it is at fine-dining restaurants of this caliber around the country. You know, for instance, that the grilled wagyu will be a gorgeously rosy pink from edge to edge, with a slim, deep-mahogany jaggedy crust."
The other Chicago restaurant to make the Top 10 was Jason Vincent's Logan Square small-plate storefront Giant (No. 6), another favorite of ours, too. Bon Appetit celebrates it thusly:
"Like Vincent himself, Giant is pretty difficult to dislike. The menu’s set up for maximal pleasure and fun. Call it stoner food or comfort food, but at the end of the day, it’s the type of stuff you don’t just respect but crave. And that’s true not just of the chef-ified bar snacks—the shatteringly crisp onion rings, the labor-intensive waffle fries—but of vegetable-focused dishes like corn salad or sweet-and-sour eggplant."
Chicago was the only city to place multiple entries on "the Hot 10," as Bon Appetit dubs it. As befits the "Restaurant City of the Year," we'd say. The Top Ten was whittled down from a broader selection of 50 Best New Restaurants. Along with Elske and Giant, Chicago's Mi Tocaya AntojerÃa and Smyth & The Loyalist each made that cut.
By the way, Turkey and the Wolf in New Orleans took top honors. Because New Orleans needs more great restaurants., although you could obviously make the same dig about Chicago right about now. Happy dining.
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West Loop's New Scandinavian-Inspired Restaurant Elske Will Charm You