NOAH SANDOVAL, Senza | BEN SHEAGREN, Hopleaf | MATT

Transcription

NOAH SANDOVAL, Senza | BEN SHEAGREN, Hopleaf | MATT
Noah Sandoval, Senza | Ben Sheagren, Hopleaf | Matt Troost, Three Aces | Jonathan Zaragoza, Masa Azul
Kristine Subido, Pecking Order | Art Jackson, Pleasant House Bakery | David Schneider, Taxim
Laura Cheng, Sun Wah BBQ | Paul Fehribach, Big Jones | Susan Goss, West Town Tavern
W
elcome to Foodservice News’ first annual Chicago
Top Chefs Book. A brief introduction: Foodservice
News is a Minneapolis, Minn.-based, award-winning
foodservice industry publication with a long history, and each year
we print a Top Chefs Book for Minnesota, the “theme” changing
each year, from, yes, top restaurant chefs to top country club or
corporate chefs. When we pick a “top chef,” it means something.
That name is culled by people with insider knowledge and
professional impact. We’re just not into popularity contests.
That mindset is displayed our inaugural Chicago Top Chefs
book, where we asked, “Which restaurant chefs are doing work
that deserves attention, but are flying a bit below the mainstream
radar?”
Our reputation is one of “boots on the ground,” and to accomplish
that in a new territory we brought in Chicago writer, photographer
and food operative Colleen Frankhart to go along with our own
connections. Foodservice News has a history in Chicago: we are
longtime exhibitors at the annual National Restaurant Association
Show and our parent company, Franchise Times Corp., is an NRA
partner—FT Corp. develops the Franchise Pavilion at the show. We
know the city (FSN’s humble editor is a former resident) and love it.
Chicago, obviously, is an international player in all things culinary.
But much of that reputation was built upon the skills of of those
outside the spotlight.
Congratulations to Foodservice News’ first Chicago Top Chefs.
table of contents
Laura Cheng
Sun Wah BBQ
4
David Schneider
Taxim14
Paul Fehribach
Big Jones
6
Ben Sheagren
Hopleaf Bar
16
Susan Goss
West Town Tavern
8
Kristine Subido
Pecking Order
18
Matt Troost
Three Acres
20
Jonathan Zaragoza
Masa Azul
22
Art Jackson
Pleasant House Bakery
10
Noah Sandoval
Senza12
Colleen Frankhart has been eating her way across Chicago since 2008. When she finds a moment to take a break from chowhounding, she
writes and edits everything from employee communications to executive speeches to marketing materials for corporate and nonprofit clients.
You can read more about her and see some of her other work at www.frankhartink.com (where you’ll also find a link to the recipe that won her
second place in the Chicago Tribune Holiday Cookie Contest).
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
foodservicenews.net 3
Laura
Cheng
Sun Wah BBQ
5039 N. Broadway | Chicago, IL 60640
773-769-1254 | sunwahbbq.com
L
aura Cheng’s mentor in the culinary
program at Kendall College had
these words of wisdom for every
class he taught: “Here’s the first rule of
working in a family business: Don’t do it.”
She didn’t listen.
As a matter of fact, Cheng was at
Kendall because she’d ignored her
father’s advice, too. “He thought I should
go to college and then to law school,”
she says. But Cheng couldn’t shake the
effects of all the childhood weekends she
spent peeling garlic and filling soy-sauce
containers at her family’s restaurant, Sun Wah BBQ.
When she decided to enter Kendall’s four-year culinary
program in 2004, the restaurant’s kitchen became her
practice lab: “I got to make family meal every day for dinner,”
she says. “When I was doing my advanced fish course,
we had fish. When I was working on eggs, that’s what we
had. I didn’t tell anyone at school that my family owned a
restaurant, but they might have figured it out because I could
peel garlic really fast.”
Eric Cheng, Laura’s father, opened Sun Wah in a small
storefront in 1987 after moving the family from New York
City to Chicago, where the restaurant built a loyal following
on Argyle Street over the next two decades. In 2009, Sun
Wah underwent a transformation and a transition: the
restaurant moved around the corner into a brand-new, airy
space that quadrupled its size, and Cheng took over the
business along with two of her three siblings. Kelly runs
the front of the house; Mike, who’s learning the art of Hong
Kong-style barbecue from Eric, is in charge of roasting the
poultry and pork that hang in the restaurant’s front windows.
Before the three took over, they had to prove themselves.
“My dad and his business partners, my uncles, gave us this
proposal: Come up with some new ideas to prove that you
can generate more business and handle it,” Cheng says.
4 foodservicenews.net
“Kelly took a trip to China and came back saying, ‘Let’s do
duck.’” Cheng put her own spin on traditional Beijing duck
service: a tableside-carved roast duck presented with a plate
of steamed bao and garnishes; duck broth with winter melon;
duck fried rice; and a dessert of tofu gelatin with ginger syrup
The first weekend that Sun Wah offered duck service, they
sold 52 orders, “and I did not want to see, smell or eat that
duck ever again,” Cheng remembers. (Today, the restaurant
routinely prepares 800 to 1,000 ducks every week.) Kelly
learned to carve ducks to take some of the pressure off
Laura, who oversees the kitchen staff—many of whom have
been at Sun Wah since the siblings were kids—and manages
the extensive menu of traditional Chinese dishes. “I’ve put
my stamp on the restaurant, but it’s the stuff customers don’t
necessarily see,” she says. “Running the kitchen, sanitation,
organization, all the paperwork that nobody wants to do but
has to get done” in a restaurant that serves more than 4,500
customers each week.
Even though she declined to take her mentor’s advice,
Cheng is clear-eyed about the complexities of working in a
family business. “The restaurant industry is very intense and
stressful, and it’s triple the stress when you’re working with
family,” she says. But family dinner was always a sacred time
for the Cheng family when the kids were young, and they still
Cheng | page 24
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Roast Duck, Sun
Wah BBQ Style
Dry Rub
3 parts sugar
1 part salt
1/4 part MSG (optional)
1/8 part Chinese five-spice powder
Glaze
1 gal. white vinegar
3 gal. water
1 whole lemon
5 oz. maltose
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
For the duck
Rinse and clean duck. Remove any excess fat and dry. Into
the duck’s cavity, place:
2 T. dry rub
1 T. bean sauce
1 T. cooking wine
Sew up the cavity, then inflate the duck to separate the skin
from the meat.
Blanch the duck; roll it in the glaze mixture until the bird
is evenly coated. Allow the bird to dry for approximately 3
hours.
Roast in an oven at about 400-450 degrees F for 45
minutes or until it reaches desired internal temperature.
foodservicenews.net 5
Paul
Fehribach
Big Jones
5347 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL 60640
773-275-5725 | bigjoneschicago.com
A
sk Paul Fehribach what item
he’s particularly proud of on
the current Big Jones menu,
and you’ll wind up getting a fascinating
history lesson. The sweet fermentedrice fritters called calas, he explains,
are a kind of “poster child for Big Jones
cooking: a long-lost food that was
popular in New Orleans in the mid- to
late 19th century and then disappeared.”
Made with leftover rice and sold on
street corners by slaves, many of whom
earned enough to buy their freedom,
calas waned in popularity after Emancipation (and, not
coincidentally, when Creole restaurants began selling
beignets).
Fehribach can’t help himself: whenever he talks about
food, he also talks about history. He brings both to life in the
coastal Southern menu at Big Jones, where you’ll find items
like “Roast Duck Breast, circa 1805, with creamed Brewster
oat groats, confit rutabagas, heirloom apple and hickory nut
salad, bourbon jus.” Fehribach’s menus are so specific about
dates and ingredients “because we want to put them in a
context of time and place so people can enter the narrative
with us,” he says.
Heirloom and heritage ingredients—many of which have
been in danger of extinction as traditional dishes have waned
in popularity—play a major role at Big Jones. For instance,
Fehribach says, “there are a lot of Hoppin’ John recipes out
there. Our version uses cow peas or Sea Island peas; people
expect black-eyed peas, but that crop didn’t exist until after
6 foodservicenews.net
Reconstruction. When we tell the story, our guests can enjoy
a dish that’s familiar and also discover something new.”
As much as Fehribach looks to the past in the kitchen, he’s
firmly grounded in the present as a businessman. Big Jones
opened in 2008 at the height of the recession, so he’s always
keenly aware of how customers perceive the value of what
the restaurant offers. “The best way to give people a sense of
value and do it in a way that’s economically sustainable for
us is to go back to the idea of farmstead cooking,” he says,
which includes whole-animal butchery and preserving local
produce in high season when it’s abundant and reasonably
priced.
One customer favorite, chicken and dumplings, is prepared
according to Fehribach’s great-great-grandmother’s recipe
using a whole chicken (typically from Slagel Family Farm
in central Illinois) that costs the restaurant $9. “We get
six orders of a really satisfying meal out of that chicken,”
Fehribach says, “whereas if we bought chicken breasts for
eight dollars a pound it would cost us three or four dollars
per portion.” At a menu price of $12, customers find the
homey dish a great value, and Fehribach loves to honor his
family’s traditions by keeping the recipe alive.
It’s particularly interesting to Fehribach that his historic
cooking has found an audience in a city like Chicago, “where
Fehribach | page 24
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Calas
Ingredients
1 qt. warm water
½ c. granulated white sugar
2 T. instant yeast
6 c. leftover white rice
The next day, add to the mixture:
16 eggs, lightly beaten
12 c. all purpose flour
1 T. kosher salt
1 T. vanilla extract
1 t. nutmeg
1 t. Ceylon cinnamon
Method
Method
The night before, combine the ingredients in a container at
least 4x the volume of the recipe, since it will foam up. Cover
tightly with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place overnight
to ferment.
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Set in a warm place and allow to rise for one hour. (After
rising, the batter may be iced and refrigerated before
using.) Drop batter by tablespoonsful into 350-degree oil.
When done—about 6 minutes—drain and dust heavily with
powdered sugar. Serve hot.
foodservicenews.net 7
Susan Goss
West Town Tavern
1329 West Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60642
312-666-6175 | westtowntavern.com
S
usan Goss, executive chef/owner
of West Town Tavern, has been at
the forefront of a lot of restaurant
trends during her 30 years in the
business.
In 1983, she and her husband, Drew,
opened one of the first gourmet carryout
stores in Indianapolis, where the dining
landscape was mostly chain restaurants.
After the store metamorphosed into
a full-service restaurant with a menu
that changed weekly—common today,
unheard of in the late 1980s—the couple
discovered that guests wanted to know in advance what was
available. A dedicated phone line (“317-257-MENU,” Goss
recites without a second thought) with a recording of each
week’s menu was the perfect solution for the pre-Internet
era. And in 1993, they were among the first to bring small
plates to Indy with their bar called Snax: Not A Sports Bar.
These days, being a trendsetter doesn’t interest Goss
much. Instead, she’s cooking the contemporary comfort food
she loves, in a circa-1880 building with pressed-tin ceilings,
nestled into the neighborhood that she and Drew have called
home for years. West Town Tavern, open since 2003, is “the
little neighborhood restaurant we’d always wanted to go
to—a place to meet the neighbors and catch up on the news.
We live around the corner and feel like we’re part of people’s
lives,” she says.
The menu at West Town Tavern is built around a core of
customer favorites like a Zinfandel-braised short rib with
roasted-garlic mashed potatoes, pan-seared diver scallops
with butternut-squash risotto, and duck confit with appleparsnip mash and caramelized Brussels sprouts. “People
need their touchstone dishes,” she says. “Someone might
come in once a week for 10 years and always have the short
rib—but they trust what I’m cooking, so I’ll offer them the
chance to try something new; maybe I’ll send out a scallop or
8 foodservicenews.net
something else I think they’ll like.”
Goss loves to tinker, so she delegates the established
dishes to her well-trained team—“Am I tired of cooking
pot roast? You bet. So I let somebody else do it”—and
keeps the rest of the menu fresh with ideas like weekday
winter suppers (the Monday-night fried-chicken dinner
was particularly popular) and what she calls “weird stuff in
salads,” like a recent hit that combined broccoli, green beans,
grilled onions and roasted walnuts. She’s also having fun
putting ice into her smoker to cold-smoke scallops, trout and
shrimp.
“Are there times when I wish that I had a sexier concept,
with $14 cocktails and $30 appetizers? Sometimes,” Goss
says. “But that’s really not me. The way I can stay in this
business and keep on coming back is to be comfortable with
what I do. Of course I stay current—that’s important. But
I’m not going to put in a sushi bar or start cooking fusion.
Consistency isn’t particularly sexy, but it’s what drives me.”
Another driver for Goss is her fascination with the role
food plays in culture and vice versa. “Everybody eats,” Goss
says. “Food is one of the few things that ties every culture
together. How you grow food, how you distribute it, how you
come together to share it is the basis for every civilization
Goss | page 24
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Aged CheddarCorn
Spoonbread
Serves 16
Ingredients
5 c. water
1 T. kosher salt
2 t. ground black pepper
¼ c. sliced flat-leaf parsley
2 t. minced rosemary
1 ½ c. yellow cornmeal
8 oz. unsalted butter
2 c. buttermilk
2 c. corn kernels
1 c. thinly sliced green onion
1 qt. grated aged cheddar cheese
16 large eggs, separated
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Method
In a 3-quart saucepan over high heat, bring water, salt,
pepper and herbs to a boil. Whisk cornmeal in a steady
stream into water and stir over low heat until thick and
smooth and a whisk or spoon leaves tracks in the bottom of
the pan. Add butter and stir to melt.
Transfer cornmeal into a large bowl and whisk in the egg
yolks, 2 at a time, whisking well after each addition. Whisk
in the buttermilk. Stir in corn kernels, green onion and
cheese. Reserve.
In a stand mixer with a whip attachment, beat the egg
whites until stiff but not dry. Fold ¼ of the whites into the
cornmeal base. Gently fold remaining whites into the base.
Spray a 2” deep hotel pan with pan primer and scrape
batter gently into pan, smoothing the top.
Bake in 325 degree convection oven for 30–40 minutes, Let
cool and cut into squares. Can also be made in 16 four-inch
SS ring molds; bake ring molds on a sheet pan for 20-30
minutes.
foodservicenews.net 9
Art Jackson
Pleasant House Bakery
964 West 31st Street
Chicago, IL 60608
773-523-PIES
pleasanthousebakery.com
A
rt Jackson is a chef and a
restaurant owner. He’s also a
farmer, a food-truck driver, a
restaurant rehabber, and a maker of
artisanal sodas and sausages. He’s soon
to be a microbrewer.
Perhaps most of all, he’s a communitybuilder. With his wife, Chelsea, Jackson
opened Pleasant House Bakery in 2011,
remaking a former hot-dog stand in the
south-side Bridgeport neighborhood
that’s home to the White Sox and is
also blossoming into a haven for artists. The bakery is next
door to Maria’s Packaged Goods and Community Bar—the
Pleasant House team will deliver your food right to your
barstool, if you like—and down the block from one of several
urban plots that are part of Pleasant Farms, managed by
Chelsea’s brother Morgan Kalberloh to grow many of the
ingredients that go into Pleasant House’s salads and specials.
The bakery’s menu is built around specialty savory pies
(e.g., steak-and-ale pies, Cornish pasties, and mushroomand-kale pies that have been known to drive dedicated
carnivores to thoughts of full-time vegetarianism) and
daily specials that range from Wednesday’s house-made
bangers and mash to Friday’s fish and chips. “Food, to us,
is not just about deliciousness,” Jackson says. “It’s about
people hanging out and bouncing ideas off each other. The
restaurant is a perfect platform for that, and so are the
gardens: Our neighbors walk by and want to know what
we’re doing, and before we know it we’re engaged in an
ongoing conversation.”
A onetime executive chef at high-end restaurants in
Chicago and San Francisco, Jackson says Pleasant House
Bakery’s simple-seeming fare is anything but. “It only seems
simple when you compare it to someplace that’s putting 32
items on a plate with tweezers,” he points out. “I spent a lot
of time doing that kind of meticulous cooking; there was
Jackson | page 24
10 foodservicenews.net
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Pleasant
House Bakery’s
Mushroom &
Kale Pie
Serves 4–6
Ingredients
8 oz. Russian or black kale (or a combination)
2 oz. plus 1 oz. unsalted butter
5 oz. thinly sliced shallots
8 oz. sliced cremini mushrooms
8 oz. sliced shiitake mushrooms
1 head roasted garlic
2 oz. flour
4 oz. white wine
1 qt. milk
3 oz. grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper
Pie dough or puff pastry for a 9-inch double-crust pie
1 egg beaten with 1 T. milk
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Method
Remove the stems from the kale and tear the leaves into
1-inch pieces. Cook the kale in a large pot of rapidly boiling
salted water until tender, usually in about 5 minutes.
Remove the kale to a strainer and set aside. Gently squeeze
the kale in its strainer with the back of a spoon to remove
most of the liquid.
Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add 1 oz. of butter. Add shallots and fry until they begin to soften, for about
5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and fry until they release all
of their water to become dry.
Add the remaining 2 oz. butter and the roasted garlic, then
stir in the kale, followed by the flour. Stir in the wine and
cook the mixture for 5 minutes.
Blend the milk into the kale mixture and cook everything,
stirring, for another 5 minutes.
Stir in the cheese, season the mixture with salt and pepper,
then let it cool.
To assemble, roll out half of the pie dough and line a 9-inch
pie pan. Fill with the mushroom mixture. Roll the remaining
dough and cover the filling, crimping the edge. Beat the egg
in a small bowl and beat in the milk. Brush the egg mixture
over the top crust. Bake at 350degrees F until the crust
turns golden brown, 45 minutes to 1 hour.
foodservicenews.net 11
Noah Sandoval
Senza
2873 N. Broadway | Chicago, IL 60657
773-770-3527 | www.senzachicago.com
I
n Italian, senza means “without.” An odd name for
a restaurant, where gratification is supposed to be
the goal? Not when you consider that Senza’s menu
is entirely gluten-free—a fact that was the restaurant’s
main selling point when it opened in the fall of 2012. But
executive chef Noah Sandoval, a veteran of innovative
Chicago fine-dining spots like Schwa and Spring, says
that in the ensuing months, something interesting has
happened: “We realized that more than half of our
customers weren’t people who had to eat gluten-free,” he
says. “They were just here for good food.”
For example, Sandoval’s tagliatelle was dubbed “pasta
of the gods” by one local critic who’s an avowed fan of all
things gluten-y. Sandoval is justifiably proud of it: “It’s like
a super-pasta: really delicate and flavorful, but it will stay
around as long as you want it to without oxidizing or losing
color.”
Besides gluten, there are a few other things that
Sandoval’s Senza lacks. For example: pretensiousness.
Yes, Sandoval is deeply attached to his ISI canister and
his Cryovac bags. But he also mixes his pasta dough on
the counter the old-fashioned way, with a fork, and loves
to do traditional braises. He’s big on experimenting, even
when the results don’t quite work out; he and his crew took
multiple runs at a pate à choux variation using mashed
potatoes and gluten-free flour, “but the flour retained too
much moisture and oil. The thing was great for 10 seconds
after you took it out of the fryer, and then got totally soggy.”
He’s currently mulling the idea of creating a beef-tongue
dashi, but is also adding more simple, delicate raw fish
dishes to the menu (a hamachi crudo amuse-bouche has
been a recent hit).
Sandoval’s Senza is also without monotony; in fact, it’s
ever-evolving. Senza’s owners, Susan McMillan and Amelia
Fonti, originally envisioned a counter-service, grab-and-go
restaurant—a far cry from today’s full-service, informally
elegant 42-seat room. The white lacquered picnic-style
tables and chalkboard cocktail list that were centerpieces
12 foodservicenews.net
on opening day have given
way to sleeker furniture and
a beverage menu printed on
luxuriously thick paper.
At opening, Sandoval
offered nine-course and fivecourse tasting menus, along
with a vegetarian option and
an à la carte menu, a variety
that proved unsustainable as
the restaurant got busy. “Our
kitchen is incredibly small,” he
explains; “we don’t even have
a walk-in. It was really hard to
juggle all the possible combinations on our opening menu.”
Today, Senza offers two tasting menus—a four-course and
a nine-course—along with wine pairings, craft cocktails and
gluten-free beer.
No matter what else changes at Senza, the menu will
always be without gluten, even as Sandoval and crew work
to appeal to the broadest possible audience. “We do have
a lot of people who can’t eat gluten who get emotional
when they come to Senza and have really delicious pasta
or bread,” he says, “and it’s worth it to see that kind of
reaction.” But there’s a difference between being a great
restaurant for gluten-free diners and simply being a great
restaurant, he says. “Our food can stand on its own. People
might come to Senza because they’re gluten-free, but the
friends they bring who don’t have that restriction come
back because the food is great.”
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Tagliatelle with Sous-Vide
Artichokes, Pickled Tomatoes,
Hedgehog Mushrooms, Manzanilla
Olives, Shaved Black Truffle, and
Grilled Bread Foam
For the tagliatelle
1 qt. gluten-free all-purpose
flour mix (Senza uses a
house-made blend)
4 whole eggs
Method
13 egg yolks
1 T. olive oil
3 T. water
Method
Combine all ingredients and knead until dough forms. Roll
out into sheets. Cut into ½-inch noodles.
For the artichokes
24 cleaned artichoke hearts
1 onion, diced
3 bay leaves
2 T. red pepper flakes
2 T. black peppercorns
1 c. diced fennel
6 c. chicken stock
1 c. olive oil
Salt
Lemon juice
Combine all ingredients and steep. Strain through chinois.
Add to ISI canister and charge.
Additional ingredients
Cleaned hedgehog
mushrooms
Pitted and sliced Manzanilla
olives
Vegetable stock
Baby arugula
Butter
Sherry vinegar
Parmesan cheese
Truffle oil
Shaved black truffle
Micro-basil
For service:
Method
Sauté mushrooms, artichokes, tomatoes, and olives in hot
pan. Add vegetable stock and reduce slowly. Cook pasta for
2 minutes. Add pasta to sauté pan. Add baby arugula, butter,
sherry vinegar, Parmesan, and truffle oil. Season with salt.
Plate pasta with meat fork.
Combine all ingredients and bring to a boil. Fill Cryovac bags
with mixture. Cook sous-vide at 84 degrees for one hour.
Shock and cut into large dice.
Insert ISI nozzle into pasta mound and release 1/2 c. foam.
Finish with shaved black truffle and micro-basil.
For the pickled tomatoes:
1 lb. halved cherry tomatoes
1 c. pickling liquid (white balsamic vinegar, sugar, salt)
Method
Cryovac on high.
For the grilled bread foam
1 gluten-free grilled
baguette
4 cloves garlic
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
2 T. black peppercorns
3 sprigs thyme
Salt
foodservicenews.net 13
David
Schneider
Taxim
1558 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622
773-252-1558 | taximchicago.com
P
laster Doric columns? Platters
of flaming cheese? Pastitsio
drowning in béchamel? Not at
Taxim, David Schneider’s Wicker Park
restaurant that’s devoted to “regional
Greek cuisine and wine from the
mountains, the islands, the cities and the
villages of greater Greece.”
“Greater Greece” is a simple way to
sum up the complexities of the history
and culture that fascinate Schneider and
explain the menu of the restaurant he
opened in 2009. In fact, the restaurant’s namesake Taxim
Square is actually the central district of Istanbul, where that
Turkish city’s remaining Greek community continues to
reside. Half the population of today’s
Greece, Schneider points out, is there
because of forced migration from the
part of the world that became Turkey
after the post–World War I partition of
the Ottoman Empire.
“I’m fascinated by how quickly a
food culture can change over just a few
generations,” Schneider says, “and by
all that has been lost.” He reels off the
regional cuisines that declined when
refugees found themselves living far
from the ingredients and markets they
knew. “Greeks in Cappadocia used a
lot of cumin and dried chilies; Pontian
Greeks cooked anchovies and mussel pilaf. My goal is to
provide a counterpoint to what many people now think of
as Greek food and culture, and look at what Greek people
from all regions cooked and ate.” Another factor in the
changing food culture: a strong push toward postwar cultural
homogenization, exemplified by the best-selling cookbooks
14 foodservicenews.net
of a European-trained Greek chef who introduced French
techniques and sauces to Greek home cooks and gave rise to
the food now familiar in Greek restaurants across the U.S.
Schneider’s information about traditional Greek foodways
comes from the source: His mother is from Greece and he
spent childhood summers there, living in the countryside
outside of Athens and on the island of Evia off the east
coast of the mainland. A civil engineer by training, he always
felt a pull toward the food business; in his mid-20s, after
applying to what he says was “about a million restaurant
jobs” with the goal of learning the business from all angles,
Schneider became a busboy/food runner at the high-end,
contemporary vegetarian restaurant Green Zebra. He spent
three years working a number of positions in the front and
back of the house—and also, crucially, took extended trips to
Greece, Turkey and Asia Minor, where he ate his way through
regional cuisines and bought a library’s worth of antique
cookbooks.
The menu at Taxim reflects Schneider’s travels as well as his
flair for combining signature flavors of different regions into
a single modern dish. His duck gyro, for example, contains
meat that’s rubbed with spices traditionally used to dry-cure
beef or camel in the pastourma of Anatolia, then roasted in
Schneider | page 25
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Lahanodolmades (Pork Dolmades
with Barley Pilaf and Yogurt)
Yield: 18 servings
Ingredients
4 Taiwanese or red cabbages
5 lbs. ground pork
Zest of 3 oranges
1 head garlic, minced
2 large red onions, minced
1 bunch parsley, minced
1 bunch coriander, finely
chopped
½ t. ground cinnamon
2 t. ground allspice
1 t. bukovo or hot red chili
flakes (plus more as needed)
1 ½ T. salt
1 t. freshly ground black
pepper
1 c. extra-fine bulgur or
trahana*
1 c. rendered pork fat or
butter
Juice of 6 oranges
½ c. sherry vinegar
2 lbs. pork belly, smoked and
sliced (can substitute ham
hocks or pork ribs)
1 gal. chicken stock
36 c. barley pilaf (see recipe
below)
1 pt. Greek-style yogurt
Lemon wedges
Orange wedges
For the dolmades:
Fill a deep, large pot with water and bring to a boil. Cut
cabbages around base stem and toward core, then cut leaf
bases but do not separate from cabbage head. Plunge knife
into cabbage core; using knife as handle, submerge cabbage
in boiling water. As leaves soften, remove each and reserve
to cool. Remove center rib from large leaves; reserve small
leaves separately, intact.
In a very large bowl, combine ground pork, orange zest,
onion, garlic, parsley, coriander, spices, salt and pepper.
Knead well. Fry small sample and adjust seasonings as
needed. Knead in bulgur or trahana*.
Place cabbage leaf on work surface with stem end at bottom.
Leaf should curve upward. Form 1½—2 oz. filling into oblong
shape and place at stem end of leaf. Roll leaf around filling,
folding in sides, and continue rolling into tight cylinder.
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Repeat with remaining leaves and filling.
Transfer dolmades into heavy-bottomed rondeau or
casserole lined with small cabbage leaves, placing dolmades
in a single layer, seam side down. Top with rendered pork
fat, then layer with slices of smoked pork belly. Season with
salt. Repeat, layering to build 3–4 layers of dolmades. Pour
orange juice and sherry vinegar over all, then add chicken
stock just to cover. Cover dolmades with a small lid to keep
them submerged in the liquid. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to
low and braise for 3 hours, adding additional chicken stock if
necessary to keep top layer moist.
Transfer dolmades to platter and reserve. Remove pork belly
from pot, chop and sauté, and reserve. Adjust seasoning
and acidity of braising liquid as needed; reduce slightly and
reserve.
To serve
Plate 3 dolmades atop 2 c. barley pilaf dressed with braising
liquid. Garnish with sautéed pork. Serve with ½ c. yogurt and
lemon and orange wedges.
For the barley pilaf
2 qts. hulled barley
1 lb. butter
2 gal. chicken stock
2 T. salt
In a large, heavy-bottomed rondeau, toast barley in butter.
Bring chicken stock and salt to boil. Pour 1 gal. stock over
barley and stir while boiling vigorously. Reduce heat to
medium-low and simmer, adding stock in increments, until
barley softens. Reduce heat to low, cover and steam until
cooked through. Reserve and keep warm.
*Trahana is a Greek pasta made with sour milk, eggs, and
bulgur. If using, reduce salt by half and season to taste.
foodservicenews.net 15
Ben
Sheagren
Hopleaf Bar
5148 N. Clark St. | Chicago, IL 60640
773-334-9851 | hopleaf.com
W
hen Ben Sheagren took
over the kitchen of the
Hopleaf Bar in 2005, he
knew that he was coming into a place
where beer was the indisputable star.
Hallowed ground for beer geeks since
1992, the Andersonville bar boasted
45 tap lines—including Chicago’s best
collection of Belgian beers—and more
than 250 bottled selections. Food wasn’t
an afterthought, exactly, but it certainly
wasn’t the draw. “In a lot of ways, it was
an amazing situation to come into,” he
says, in spite of the bar’s minuscule kitchen.
One of those ways: The Hopleaf was already successful,
in contrast to Sheagren’s first job running a kitchen, which
was reopening a struggling French bistro that had closed
to retool. It was “an experience I will never forget, where I
learned many things, including the fact that I will never again
work 90-hour weeks for less than minimum wage,” Sheagren
recalls. Another thing he learned there: “I really did know
how to cook.”
At the Hopleaf, owners
Michael and Louise Roper
gave Sheagren complete
autonomy in the kitchen,
and the partnership he
developed with them has
kept Sheagren at the bar
for what he terms “an
eternity in chef years.” He
oversaw the Hopleaf’s
2012 expansion, which
more than doubled the
number of seats to
320, added 20 more
tap lines and included
16 foodservicenews.net
a completely new kitchen with a wood-burning grill. In the
works for nearly three years, the expansion happened to
open the very same week the Hopleaf was featured on the
Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Drives…which was also
the week Sheagren’s first child was born. “Overwhelming” is
Sheagren’s understated way of summing up the moment.
While about half of the Belgian-influenced Hopleaf menu is
devoted to longtime customer favorites like steamed mussels
with frites and a Montreal-style brisket sandwich, Sheagren
has carte blanche to develop specials and new items. In
early 2013, he hired a full-time butcher to strengthen the
charcuterie program and focus on whole-animal butchery.
The result: a neighborhood favorite that is both a beloved
tavern and a higher-end restaurant, depending on what a
customer wants on any given night. “You can stop in here
on your way home from work, sit at the bar with a book
and have a sandwich,” Sheagren says, “or you can bring
a first date here and have an awesome meal that’s the
equal of anything you’d find at a downtown restaurant. Our
customers know the range of what we offer, which is what
gives me the confidence to put a $28 loin of venison or wild
boar on the menu and know that it’s going to sell.”
Post-expansion, Sheagren is more of a manager than
Sheagren | page 25
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Onion Tart
Ingredients
Method
18 qts. yellow onion sliced, cooked down and caramelized
(result should be approx. 8 qts.)
2 qts. cream
24 eggs
6 c. goat cheese
½ c. chopped rosemary
4 c. golden raisins
Salt and pepper to taste
Par-bake pâte brisée pie shells until golden brown.
Whisk together cream and eggs to make the royale. Combine
the royale, caramelized onions, goat cheese, herbs and raisins.
Mix using your hands. Check the seasoning.
Bake at 300 degree F convection for two 10-minute rotations,
then do 5-minute rotations until done. When the tarts are
done they will be golden brown/mahogany in color.
50 4” pâte brisée pie shells, unbaked
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
foodservicenews.net 17
Kristine
Subido
Pecking Order
4416 N. Clark | Chicago, IL 60640
773-907-9900 | peckingorderchicago.com
A
s she built her culinary career,
Kristine Subido knew one
thing for sure: She wasn’t very
interested in cooking the Filipino food
she grew up with. “There’s no mystery
in cooking the food you eat at home,”
she says. Instead, she worked in Israeli,
Italian and French restaurants (including
a trek to France itself to stage at a Paul
Bocuse restaurant) and developed an
international small-plates menu for
WAVE, the W Chicago Lakeshore Hotel’s
flagship restaurant.
The rest of the story, of course, is that Subido left the
W to open a Filipino restaurant, Pecking Order, in 2012. “I
had to see what was out there in order to come home,” she
says. “And when I look back, some of my best memories
are around the food my mom and grandfather taught me to
make.”
In one of Subido’s most vivid memories of her early
experience in the kitchen, she has a phone clamped between
her shoulder and her ear. “I was a latchkey kid,” she explains,
“and when my sister and I got home from school I’d call my
mom to see what she wanted me to do. I remember her
talking me through this soup called sinigang: dice tomatoes,
onions and garlic and put it in the pot; add the water you
used to rinse the rice; add diced pork loin and simmer it.
When she got home, we’d finish the dish together with
tamarind and vegetables. I remember being so proud of that
dish!”
Subido chose to keep Pecking Order’s menu simple, with
a focus on chicken that’s marinated in vinegar, tamari, sugar,
garlic and bay leaves for a distinctly Filipino flavor profile.
Customers can order a number of preparations—rotisserieroasted, twice-fried or grilled chicken on its own, on a
sandwich or in a curry. Sides include fried plantains, Mom’s
pickles, garlic-fried rice and braised greens, plus house-made
sauces like banana ketchup, garlic-chili vinegar, and P.O.
Sauce (Subido’s own riff on lechon sauce, which contains soy
sauce, vinegar, bread crumbs and liver).
“Laying the foundation for my business meant stripping
the menu to the basics,” Subido explains, adding that she
wants to build a loyal following for Pecking Order by focusing
on making the best chicken in town. “You can go to a lot of
Subido | page 25
18 foodservicenews.net
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Coconut Adobo
Rice Arancini
Yield: 25–30 arancini
For the chicken
1 whole bone-in chicken, cut into 8–10 pieces
2 c. white vinegar
¼ c. soy sauce
1 can coconut milk
1 T. fish sauce
1 t. chili flakes
2 bay leaves
8 cloves peeled garlic, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Method
Twenty-four hours before serving, prepare the chicken:
Rinse bird and place in a heavy-bottomed pot. Add vinegar,
soy sauce, fish sauce, chili flakes, garlic and bay leaves. Cover
and simmer on medium heat for 20 minutes. Remove cover,
turn heat up to medium-high and add coconut milk. Season
with salt and pepper to taste. Cook for another 20 minutes
until chicken is falling off the bone. Remove chicken from pot
and strain sauce—should have a consistency that would coat
the back of a spoon. Cool chicken, remove and discard skin,
and shred meat into small pieces. Add back to sauce and chill
overnight.
For the garlic rice
Remove from heat and strain immediately to avoid further
cooking. Set aside and combine with the rice when cooked.
2. Rinse rice in cold water twice and drain through a strainer.
If a rice cooker is being used, place in the rice cooker with
tap water and follow cooker’s directions. If not, bring rice
and water to a boil in a saucepan, then simmer on low heat,
covered for 20 minutes. Remove cooked rice from pot and
cool in a large bowl. Combine with toasted garlic and season
with salt and pepper.
To assemble
Take 1 oz. rice mixture and flatten to line the inside of a
2-inch ice-cream scoop. Fill the hollow with approximately
1 oz. of chicken mixture. Top with another 1 oz. of garlic rice,
and squeeze the filled rice ball to ensure that there are no
air pockets inside. Continue until all filling and rice are used.
Place arancini on a tray to be breaded with panko bread
crumbs.
Breading
3 c. Japanese-style (panko) bread crumbs
2 c. all-purpose flour
6 eggs, beaten with 2 c. water
Place flour, egg wash and bread crumbs in shallow pans. Drop
arancini in flour and roll. Shake off excess flour and roll in egg
wash until fully coated. Drop into bread crumbs and shake off
excess. Repeat until all arancini are breaded.
To cook
5 c. short-grain Japanese rice (Nishiki brand or other)
9 c. tap water
1 c. minced fresh garlic
2 c. canola oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Heat canola oil to 350 degrees in a heavy-bottomed pot.
When oil is hot, slowly drop in 4–5 arancini. Be careful not to
crowd the pot: Overcrowding will cool the oil and make for
greasy arancini. Cook for 5 minutes or until golden brown all
over. Remove and drain on paper towels. Serve immediately.
Method
Note
1. Combine canola oil and fresh garlic in a sauté pan. Cook on
medium-high until garlic is light golden, about 5–7 minutes.
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Arancini can be made days in advance and thawed overnight
for next-day cooking.
foodservicenews.net 19
Matt
Troost
Three Aces
1321 W Taylor | Chicago, Illinois 60607
312-243-1577 | threeaceschicago.com
T
aylor Street on Chicago’s Near
West Side has been a synonym
for “homey, red-sauce Italian
food” since the early 1900s when the
strip thrived as the heart of the city’s
Little Italy. In 2010, Matt Troost brought
a rock ‘n’ roll vibe to the street with
Three Aces, a joint that describes itself
as “the American farmhouse meets the
Italian countryside…in Keith Richards’
basement bar.” Translation? You’re likely
to find yourself savoring house-cured
Slagel Family Farms pork belly in a
traditional Tuscan ribollita…and washing it down with a shot
of Old Crow.
Troost got the Three Aces gig in a truly 21st-century
way: when the restaurant where he’d been working closed
suddenly, he tweeted that he was job-hunting and got a
reply almost immediately from Anthony Potenzo, one of the
partners looking to come up with a new concept for Taylor
Street. “Kind of a rowdy place with good food” is how Troost
says the partners pitched their idea; he loved their energy,
went off to write some
menus, and “wound
up with four pages
of stuff in this tiny
font: different ideas
for each season, all
fresh and sustainable,
handmade pastas.
They said, ‘great, man.
Go for it. No creative
limits.’”
The casual feel
of Three Aces
belies Troost’s selfconfessed control20 foodservicenews.net
freak tendencies, shaped in part by his work in luxury
resort and hotel kitchens. His culinary-school externship
at the flagship Montagna restaurant in the five-star Little
Nell resort in Aspen, Colo., turned into nearly four years of
working just about every position in the kitchen—including
learning the arts of charcuterie and cheesemaking.
“Part of my job as sous was to make 20 pounds of goat
cheese every week” using milk produced on the 10-acre
farm that the Little Nell operated under Executive Chef
Ryan Hardy. “(Hardy) was one of those people who truly
believe you have to have complete control over everything
you produce in your kitchen,” Troost says. “Why would I
serve Heinz ketchup if I can make something that’s better,
something more specific to the taste I want to achieve? He
made me understand that control is key.” Troost’s menu
at Three Aces features his own takes on charcuterie (that
sublime pork belly, as well as house-made porchetta di testa
and pâté), pickles (inspired by his current favorite read, The
Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz), hand-rolled pasta and,
yes, ketchup.
Troost also learned an immutable philosophy of customer
service during his stints at high-end hotels, including the
Peninsula in Chicago: “I constantly tell our staff that you
Troost | page 25
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Winter Garlic Soup
1 head garlic, cleaned and roughly chopped
1 leek, white part only, washed and chopped
1 Idaho potato, peeled and chopped
1 head garlic, roasted
1 qt. heavy cream
1 pt. milk
Sachet of 1/2 head garlic, halved, 1 t. black peppercorns, 5
sprigs thyme and 2 bay leaves
Butter
Salt and pepper
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Method
Season your food at every step!
Cut top off of one head of garlic and toss in oil, salt and
pepper. Wrap in tinfoil and roast in a 300-degree oven for 35
minutes or until golden. Let cool and squeeze the garlic out
of the bulb.
On medium/medium-low heat sauté (without browning)
garlic and leeks in butter. When soft, add potato, cream, milk
and sachet. Simmer until potatoes are cooked. Add roasted
garlic and purée in a blender. Adjust seasoning with salt and
pepper. Adjust consistency with heavy cream.
foodservicenews.net 21
Jonathan
Zaragoza
Masa Azul
2901 W. Diversey Avenue
Chicago, IL 60647
773-687-0300 | masaazul.com
W
hen Jonathan Zaragoza
reopened Masa Azul after
taking over the kitchen last
fall, there was no goat on the menu.
In most restaurants, this would not
be notable. But in Chicago, “Zaragoza”
is shorthand for Birrieria Zaragoza,
the Archer Heights restaurant where
Jonathan’s parents serve one dish: the
city’s most lauded version of birria
tatemada, Jalisco-style braised goat.
His early relationship with birria was complicated, partly
because he was irked that on weekends his dad put him in
charge of the special roasting oven at the family’s suburban
home. “What 12-year-old wants to be waiting for the
oven to get hot at midnight and then getting up at 6 a.m.
Saturday to check the meat?” he asks with a laugh.
He worked the front of the house when Birrieria Zaragoza
opened in 2007 but couldn’t stay out of the kitchen. A
couple of runs at culinary programs convinced Zaragoza
that he’d learn more working on the line, so he spent a year
on overnight room service at the Trump Tower (including
a nightmarish New Year’s Eve where he was the only
cook on duty and had to turn out 80 covers) and another
year cooking modern American food under Chef Andrew
Zimmerman at Sepia.
Back at the family restaurant, Zaragoza managed to
convince his dad to let him create occasional weekend
specials. “He was dead set against doing anything beyond
the one dish the restaurant is built around,” he says, “so
I’d pay 50 bucks out of my own pocket for the special
ingredients. Then when I made the money back I’d be really
smug about giving him a cut—like, ‘see, it worked.’”
Zaragoza carried those original ideas to Masa Azul,
a Diversey Avenue spot whose owners hired him in the
22 foodservicenews.net
fall of 2012 to create a menu whose quality would match
the restaurant’s sophisticated list of craft cocktails and
rare tequilas. “We have a steak dish with ancho mashed
potatoes,” he says in answer to a question about how he
elevates contemporary Mexican. “Mashed potatoes: simple,
right? Well, no.”
“We do the potatoes using Heston Blumenthal’s
technique: sous-vide uniform pieces at 72 degrees Celsius
for 30 minutes to trap the starches, shock them in cold
water, boil them until tender. Through the ricer and then
through the tamis. We cook the skins in heavy cream with
garlic and anchos, strain it. And then comes the part my
cooks hate me for. We shake it in the pan with butter to
emulsify it properly—no stirring with metal. It’s totally
tedious. It’s also the only way to do it. I learned that from
Andrew Zimmerman.”
One menu item Zaragoza particularly loves these days:
a torta featuring pork belly Milanesa, black beans, limemarinated onion and a side of consommé that incorporates
smoked Chihuahua cheese. “I had a customer from Texas
last week tell me, ‘this sandwich is everything that chickenfried steak wants to be.’” Zaragoza also gets a kick out of
telling his dad about his latest brainstorms for specials,
like a plate of chicken wings served with a combination of
Zaragoza | page 25
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Crema de Elote
(Creamy Corn Soup)
Ingredients
¼ c. oil
1/2 lb. bacon, finely diced
4 white onions, chopped
1 T. ground cumin
1 c. all-purpose flour
2 qts. heavy cream
1 gal. roasted chicken stock
4 sprigs epazote
4 qts. roasted corn kernels
12 poblano chiles, roasted and seeded
Salt to taste
Apple cider vinegar to taste
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Method
Cook bacon in oil until all of the fat is rendered. Reserve
bacon for garnish. Cook onions with cumin in the remaining
fat until caramelized. Add flour to the onions and fat; cook
roux for 6 minutes. Whisk in cream and stock. Add corn,
chiles and epazote. Reduce by 1/3. Purée, pass through a
chinois and season with salt and vinegar. foodservicenews.net 23
Cheng | from page 4
Jackson | from page 10
make a point of getting together weekly. The rules: Mom
and Dad can’t pay, no fast food, and reservations are a must.
“We’re 12 people, but we always order for 30. Restaurants
love us,” Cheng says with a laugh.
certainly a lot to appreciate there, but when I worked in San
Francisco I had my eyes opened to another way of cooking
that amazed me.”
He remembers in particular a dinner at Delfina, where
the informally plated food was a revelation. “Every single
thing about this humble-looking plate, from the beans to
the arugula to the olive oil, was amazing. That was when it
clicked: impeccable ingredients and flavors are what it’s all
about. It was funny how sheltered I was from the idea of that
kind of simple restaurant food.”
While the menu at Pleasant House remains small, the
business is diversified by design. The Jacksons sell their
pies at several retail outlets and farmers’ markets. Their
food truck, devoted mainly to catering these days, is an
efficient way to promote the brand all over the city. Plans
are underway to bottle the bakery’s popular ginger and
hibiscus sodas. This spring, the Jacksons will double their
farm’s output by growing greens, tomatoes, cucumbers,
beans, peas and more year-round at The Plant, a vertical
farm housed inside a former meatpacking plant on the South
Side. And this summer will bring the biggest milestone
in two years, when the Jacksons open a restaurant and
microbrewery in downtown Three Oaks, Mich., about 70
miles east of Chicago.
The obvious “hey, you have a lot on your plate” joke
begs to be made (especially when you know that Chelsea
also maintains her full-time job as a university director of
editorial services) but Jackson says that the rewards of the
enormous workload are soul-satisfying. “I can be completely
worn out from working a 16-hour day but I’ll pause as I
turn out the lights and say ‘we did this.’ Everything from
the countertop to the floor to the product in the case—
everything you look at, we made. It was a lot of work. It’s
totally worth it.”
Fehribach | from page 6
we’ve long been at the forefront of avant-garde cooking at
places like Charlie Trotter’s and Moto and Alinea,” he says,
“and chefs in this market have often felt pressure to pursue
novelty and push the envelope.” His bible, The Taste of
Country Cooking by Edna Lewis, inspired him to do his own
thing. “Miss Lewis’s food, and the way she writes about it, is
so confident—she’s not trying to elevate anything. It’s okay
for a pot of peas to be a pot of peas. It’s just wonderful food.”
Of course Fehribach’s mission is to feed people wonderful
food; he’s a restaurant guy through and through, with
experience cooking in kitchens as varied as a fast-food joint,
a bar & grill, and a Southeast Asian noodle shop. But it’s not
a stretch to say that this passionate member of the Southern
Foodways Alliance, who believes that food is “a way to study
our past and ponder our future together,” is also on a mission
to feed souls. “I feel honored to cook familiar, comforting
food that evokes home and family, with that same kind of
love and care put into its production and cooking,” he says.
Goss | from page 8
in the world.” Spoken like a true anthropologist, which is
what Goss intended to be until she realized that her parents
weren’t going to subsidize graduate school. “If I ever get the
chance, I’d love to go back to school and get my doctorate in
the ethnology of food,” she says. Until then, she’ll keep her
eye on what she says matters most: “being true and focused
and cooking from my heart.”
24 foodservicenews.net
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
Schneider | from page 14
the manner of Istanbul street food. Instead of being tucked
into a pita, Schneider’s gyro is wrapped in stretchy, paperthin satz bread that’s cooked to blistering over a hot iron
dome, a method used by the Pontian Greeks who lived on the
southern coast of the Black Sea. “That bread predates even
Greek civilization,” Schneider says; he learned to make it from
Pontians now living in Thessaloniki.
Hybrid dishes like the gyro are all over the Taxim menu,
which has sections devoted to vegetables cooked in olive oil
(laderá), strongly flavored small plates (mezédes) and main
dishes (kýria piáta) that lean heavily toward grilled, roasted
and braised meats. In Schneider’s estimation, it all adds up
to what “Greektown USA” food might look like if the cultural
upheavals of the past century had never happened. “What
interests me most is what Greeks would be eating today
if there hadn’t been forced migration,” he says. “I look at
traditional cooking methods from Greeks’ villages of origin
and try to take them forward: if I were in a Greek community
in Smyrna today, running a fancy restaurant, what would that
look like?”
Sheagren | from page 16
a day-to-day cook, overseeing a kitchen staff that now
numbers nearly three dozen people. “Yeah, I do miss coming
in and having a prep list, banging out specials, and having
a well-formed knife callus,” he says. “But, you know, I was
ready. Now I get to set the vision and the tone, create the
standards and put everybody on the team to work in the
area of their greatest strength. I’d been at the point of
thinking about what my next adventure in the kitchen might
be, and how lucky am I that it happened right here?”
Subido | from page 18
Being in charge of her own business after a decade
working in a corporate restaurant group has been
exhilarating for Subido. “I love the fact that I have full control
over everything that happens here,” she says. “For 10 years I
had to focus on numbers and systems. Here, I’ve been able
to make my own adjustments,” such as trying new menu
items (customers love the Pinoy egg, a Scotch egg variation
that substitutes longanisa for the traditional sausage layer)
and adding a weekend brunch. Subido has also expanded the
Pecking Order beverage program to include cocktails made
with local spirits and craft beers.
A pop-up booth at this year’s Taste of Chicago and
collaborations with other Chicago chefs will help Subido
raise Pecking Order’s profile over the next few months, she
hopes. Whatever she does, it all comes back to that moment
of cooking sinigang for her family. “I remember thinking, ‘I
did this for you.’ Looking at everyone’s faces, I wanted to
know: Is it good? Do you like it? I’m still doing that all these
years later.”
Troost | from page 20
don’t ever say no to a guest. The minute you say no, they
walk down the street and find somebody who says yes. The
way the economy has been, I don’t understand how ego can
be a factor in anybody’s kitchen: you make it work for the
guest, and that’s it. Once you’ve learned that lesson, I think
you can never shake it.”
Zaragoza | from page 22
30-ingredient Oaxacan mole and Carolina barbecue sauce.
“We sold the hell out of that one,” he says.
And there’s a birria taco on the menu now, too, braised
according to the family recipe and served in the same
hand-pressed corn tortillas. “People kept asking for it,” he
says.
chicken restaurants and not find food like mine. I’m buying
high-quality chicken”—her birds come from FreeBird, an
Earthwise-certified producer of humanely raised, antibioticfree, vegetarian-fed chickens—“and turning it into a
comforting, home-style food. It has a unique regional flavor
profile, but people get it. Chicken is one of those things that’s
eaten in most every culture.”
Top Chefs 2013 | Chicago
foodservicenews.net 25
FOODSERVICENEWS
2808 Anthony Lane South | Minneapolis, MN 55418
612-767-3200 | www.foodservicenews.net