Photo: Martha Williams
A common initial reaction to Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck Cookbook (a new $50 version of last fall’s $250 Big Fat Duck Cookbook), is that the recipes aren’t doable. Not exactly true. They are doable—it’s just that not many home cooks would want to invest the time and energy. Blumenthal himself writes, “The recipes are complicated and I make no apologies for that…To change any part of these recipes so that they are more easily achievable would be to compromise—something this book does not to.”
He’s not kidding. To replicate the dishes served at Blumenthal’s Michelin-starred house of molecular gastronomy in Bray, England, would take immense patience, an average of six hours spare time and, for starters, a digital scale to weigh out ingredients like malic acid, isomalt and “National Starch Flogel 60” by the gram. This is not your mother’s cookbook.
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The French Pastry School should get a matchmaker award. Brooke Dailey and Gina Howie met there, and went on to open the aptly named Lovely: A Bake Shop. Howie also met Bob Hartwig at the school, and he quickly put a ring on it. Now the couple is giving Lovely a sibling when they open Bakin’ & Eggs in early November. (Dailey is also involved, and the restaurant bears the subtitle “A Lovely Idea,” but it appears to be Hartwig’s baby.) “Upscale comfort food” is how he describes the breakfast/lunch/brunch menu, and he backs it up by rattling off items like a caramelized onion, balsamic and blue cheese frittata; bacon-encrusted Gouda mac and cheese; an Alsatian onion tart; and a bacon “flight” of four-to-five types, including at least one cured in-house. The space itself is about twice the size of Lovely, with a hefty pastry case, full-service dining area and dedicated coffee bar manned by a team of what Howie calls “outstanding baristas.” Let’s hope that a love connection at the espresso machine spawns a genius coffee truck that cruises downtown doling out shots.
Slated to open the second week of November at 3120 N Lincoln Ave. Breakfast (Mon–Fri), brunch (Sat–Sun), lunch.
Lula Cafe has earned a cult following for its brunch, but even more so for its Halloween transformations. Each year for the holiday, the restaurant gets in costume by dressing up as an entirely different restaurants—one year it became Olive Garden, complete with all-you-can-eat breadsticks and servers in loud ties; another year Houlihan’s took over, bringing its tacky fake ferns and stained glass table lamps with it. We just learned that this year the Lula crew will team up with Hot Doug’s to turn Lula into “Zombie Doug’s,” with an undead Doug Sohn manning the counter in his usual order-taking mode and zombie servers delivering signature haute dogs rechristened with classic zombie names—basically Doug’s sausages and dogs topped with Lula’s product for gourmet Doug’s-style dogs. Given the typical popularity of Lula’s Halloween night festivities, we expect the line to look eerily similar to that at Hot Doug’s, so at least they’ll win points for realism.
Now if only Half Acre would deliver.
It’s not as if you can’t find Half Acre beer anywhere; it’s that the guy behind the counter of your favorite liquor store or bar doesn’t have access to the cool small-batch stuff the brewers over there whip up to fend off boredom. In a couple of weeks, Half Acre will make those beers (plus the rest of its catalog) available directly at the brewery by opening up a small retail component on-site.
“We’re going to sell our beer in every way it could possibly be sold,” Half Acre founder Gabriel Magliaro says. “From 22-ounce bombers to cans to growlers to kegs to 12-ounce six-packs.” Customers can even try before they buy, as six draft lines have been installed to dole out free samples. The constants—Lager, Over Ale and Daisy Cutter—will be joined on the taps by what Magliaro deems “specialty cool fun and funky small-batch stuff” like a limited honey beer made with nectar from some of the city’s rooftop hives or vintage Baume chocolate rye stout. A curated collection of distilled spirits from artisans like North Shore and Koval will also be for sale, alongside Half Acre shirts, hats and even soap…you know, so you can wash when you slosh.
Opening Sept. 18 at 4257 N Lincoln Ave (773-248-4038). noon–7pm Tue–Sat.
Hot on the heels of its successful “Soup and Bread” series conceived by bartender/local food writer Martha Bayne, the Hideout is launching a new weekly meet-and-eat event to fill your Wednesday dance card. Veggie bingo is not, contrary to where your imagination is heading, a typical game of bingo in which rounds of zucchini and cukes replace those squishy ink blotters to mark off each step toward victory. In fact, it is a traditional bingo game, but with farmers’ market-approved prizes ranging from jars of locally produced honey to a box of produce courtesy of Irv and Shelly’s Fresh Picks. Bingo cards go for a buck apiece, with all proceeds benefiting NeighborSpace, a local community garden organization. Also, hot dogs and Tofu Pups will be coming off the grill hot and free, and heroes of the local indie world will be standing in for the traditional Elks Lodge grand poobahs as bingo callers each week. Lawrence Peters kicks off next Wednesday’s inaugural event. Check the Soup and Bread blog for details of who will be announcing your winning “B9″ from week to week.
Wednesdays 6–8pm, July 8 through September 9 (1354 W Wabansia Ave, 773-227-4433).
MenuPages Chicago editor Helen Rosner just directed readers to a YumSugar spoiler on the winner of Bravo’s new series Top Chef Masters. If you don’t want to know, don’t go.
It’s not exactly bikini weather outside, but you gotta admit it’s a lot better than the crap-hand we’ve been dealt the last couple of weeks. So get out from behind your computer and get over to Wow Bao like I just did and you too will be pleasantly surprised when your order of frozen yogurt is met by “Okay, thanks, your number is 62″ instead of “pay up.” Turns out Wow Bao is giving away fro-yo for free today until 4pm, and when I asked why, a manager told me that the stuff doesn’t sell well at the downtown Financial Plaza store so they’re moving the machine to the Water Tower location instead. You mean shoppers eat more frozen yogurt than disguntled, cigarette-sucking traders? No way. Anyhow, get the stuff (for free!) before it’s gone.
Calling all Carries, Samanthas, the prissy ones and the bitchy butchy ones: Potter’s Lounge is throwing a “Beauty and the Bottle” promotion July 1, in which gaggles of gals in groups of four or more will score free bottles of Champagne for simply showing up and sitting pretty. The only catch is that you need to reserve a table now, and the free bottles are going to the first 24 reservations.
A trio of heavy-hitters is teaming up for what’s sure to be fall’s biggest restaurant opening: Jimmy Bannos (Heaven on Seven), Scott Harris (Mia Francesca) and a yet-to-be-officially-named third party will unveil the Purple Pig in mid-September, smack-dab on the Mag Mile at 500 North Michigan Avenue. Mediterranean is the best umbrella to encompass the menu, which all three chefs will have some input on. Overseeing the project at close-hand is Bannos’s son Jimmy Jr., but before you go thinking that good old-fashioned Chicago-style nepotism landed the gig for Junior (or “Uncle Jun” as his Pops calls him), you should know that the younger Bannos has some serious culinary chops: After nabbing a culinary degree from Johnson & Wales and an externship at Emeril’s, he went on to Providence’s Al Forno, spent six months cooking across Italy, then landed in New York as part of the opening kitchen crew for Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich’s Del Posto and followed that up with a year at Dave Pasternack’s impeccable seafood spot Esca. So what will he do in Chicago now that he’s teaming up with Dad and friends? “The best stuff you’ve eaten in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece,” says Bannos Sr. “We just want to have a wine bar with no pretension, incredible cheeses, beautiful panini, sausages like Spanish morcilla and cured meats like pata negra, seafood cooked a la plancha, stuff like this Sicilian dessert where they split brioche and stuff gelato in it, great wines under $40 with everything by the glass, the quartino or the bottle…. It’s gonna be the real deal.”
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You might not recognize brothers Marwan and Maher Chebaro as celebrity chefs, but the Lebanon natives have quite the culinary resume. Maher’s clubby restaurant Otium in Beirut was the talk of the town when it opened in 2000, and he had similar success with hotspot nightclub Strange Fruit, casual eatery Foodyard and the Nuevo Latino Campo Ceviche. He also was at the helm of D.C.’s beloved Yazuzu, and here in Chicago, was the original owner of Wicker Park’s Souk and Tribal Grill. More recently, the duo collaborated for a small station in Under 55 called Caravan, which won us over with its fantastic array of toppings for falafel and shawarma sandwiches—in fact, its fluffy garlic toum won a spot on the 100 Best Things We Ate and Drank list. Now the brothers are launching the first of what they hope will be many shops specializing in crispy disks of fried chickpea. Falafill is a partnership between the Chebaros and Ziyad Brothers Inc, the Chicago-based Middle Eastern foods importers whose canned eggplant, harissa and tahini are found in nearly every grocery store around. Located at the corner of Broadway and Belmont, Falafill will be a (duh) falafel shop, with counter-service and a DIY toppings bar to load up your sandwich or bowl with tabouli, roasted potatoes, sumac-dusted cauliflower, fresh hummus, baba ghanoush, bissara (fava bean dip), a dozen more options and, of course, that amazing toum, all for under $6.
Falafill is slated to open at 3202 N Broadway in late May.
