2018 Chicago Kitchen Notebook
An in-depth look at some of our favorite dishes and cocktails from our time on the ground in Chicago.
Swordfish Swims To Porky Depths
At Publican Anker, Chef AJ Walker “hot dogs” (that’s a verb) his swordfish. “Seafood and pork pair so well. I thought it would work,” says Walker of his irresistible swordfish cotechino. With a 1:1 ratio of fish loin to pork skin-bacon-guanciale, the proteins (minus the skin) pull an all-nighter in a cotechino spice blend of cumin, nutmeg, coriander, garlic, onion, dashi powder, and burnt chile de árbol. Walker grinds the mixture and incorporates the pork skin before paddling, emulsifying, and shaping the land-and-sea sausage into 6-ounce torpedoes. The links never see the inside of a pig leg. Instead, Walker sears them inside a 600°F to 650°F charcoal oven. The accoutrements say swordfish in southern Italy with tangerine, endive, salsa verde, and lemon—and the pork is all Chicago with flavor and heft.
MACAU IN A COUPE
Beverage Director Annie Beebe-Tron’s bar program at The Ladies’ Room at Fat Rice is truly progressive. In the spirit of Macau, she makes a house pandan liqueur for her Bamboo Pandamonium, crafts Chinese herb-based Chartreuse, and embraces Feni. “Feni is a spirit that, once you’ve acquired a taste for it, is fun to play with. It has no cocktail history, which means I get to invent one,” says Beebe-Tron. Th e 500-year-old liquor distilled from the fruit (not the nut) of the cashew tree made its way from Goa, India, to Macau via the Portuguese—and got onto back bars in the States in the last few years. “It made sense when I thought about Feni as maraschino, providing backbone, structure, and funk to Dangerous Summer, a very distant play on the Hemingway daiquiri.”
BUBBLY BLT OYSTERS
Son of the Chesapeake Gabe Freeman grew up eating a lot of oysters. “It’s not a fancy thing. You get a pitcher of beer, shuck, and eat. When you get tired of eating them raw, throw them on the grill or in the oven. I wanted to bring that sort of experience to Chicago,” says Freeman. As chef of Scofflaw, he introduced his beloved bivalve to a different type of simple pleasure: the BLT. For his broiled BLT oysters, Freeman makes three compound butters with dehydrated tomatoes, butter-poached butter lettuce, and bacon, respectively. He layers the butters like Neapolitan ice cream to slice and stack atop a half shell. Sprinkled with breadcrumbs and straight into the oven, they baste in the BLT butter until bubbly. Fill up a pitcher and knock back a few (dozen).
SIPPING SINGLE VARIETAL CODA DI VOLPE
Sommelier Jon McDaniel built the wine program at Coda di Volpe around its oft-blended namesake grape. “It tastes like Pinot Grigio on steroids,” says McDaniel. The weighty, mineral-forward, intensely aromatic (like a dry tropical breeze) white grapes grow in foxtail-shaped clusters in the foothills of Mount Vesuvius and nowhere else on earth. It’s rarely poured in its single varietal incarnation—unless you’re dining with McDaniel and Chef Chris Thompson. “We’re serious about Southern Italy. We have a great partnership [with Cantina del Taburno], and we’re changing how the winery works. They’re starting to make more Coda di Volpe, and we’re bringing it back to the U.S. market.” You can get in on the grape for $12 a glass.
