NOAH SANDOVAL, Senza | BEN SHEAGREN, Hopleaf | MATT
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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