Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/786768
clockwise from left: In an urban-chic West Lake Street space, Oriole snagged two quick stars with dishes like Alaskan King Crab with compressed watermelon; a mile further west, Smyth serves up unexpected desserts like salted-licorice cured egg yolk. PHOTOGRAPHY BY CARA SANDOVAL (INTERIOR; ALASKAN KING CRAB); © 2016 GALDONES PHOTOGRAPHY (EGG DESSERT) In this age of grab-and-go eats, there's something to be said for a multi-course culinary journey that can captivate even the most restless of foodies. At several ambi- tious new Chicago restaurants, chefs are embracing the challenge of presenting diners with a dozen or more courses, throwing down the gauntlet to anyone who thinks of Chicago as merely steak joints and gastropubs. But tasting menus today are more passion than pretension: Show up in jeans, sit back, and let these maestros show you what they've got. PERMANENT POP-UP Twenty-seat Temporis has all the intimacy of a pop-up minus the communal tables. Co-chefs Evan Fullerton and Sam Plotnick make an unlikely pair, but the veteran and creative upstart strike a refined balance with their food. "I'm rooted more in the tradition of technique because I had to go to culinary school," Fullerton explains. Plotnick, on the other hand, began cooking in his college dorm room and has only worked at one restaurant, Les Nomades, where he met Fullerton. "I'm a little more scientific method-y," Plotnick says. "I want to try a bunch of things I've never tried." That includes an interactive microgreens centerpiece, and a foie gras ice cream FORGET FAST-CASUAL DINING—CHICAGO'S HOTTEST RESTAURANTS ARE DOUBLING DOWN ON THE TASTING-MENU ONLY MODEL, WITH IMPRESSIVELY DELICIOUS (AND MICHELIN STAR-STUDDED) RESULTS. BY AMBER GIBSON TASTING MENU TITANS 50 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM "OUR GOAL IS TO LET THE FARM DICTATE WHAT WE DO." — john shields SCENE BUZZ