If you don’t end up liking Danny Espinoza, aka @dannythecook on Instagram, when you meet him, you probably don’t have a heart. Few people I’ve ever spoken to are as curious, gregarious, and full of candor like Espinoza. Because of this, and also because of his rise and grind mentality (literally - he gets up at 4 am in the morning to grind meat and make his sausages before doing his day job as a corporate chef), the founder of Santo Chorizo, along with his business partner Yamandu Perez, has been blazing ever since he started the brand. In a very short time Santo Chorizo chorizo verde has s ..read more

It took only 6 months and 22 days for Daisies restaurant in Chicago to suck. Read more ..read more

A true friend is a person who lets you flap your trap whether they agree with you or not. The true friend might respond. They might disagree. They may even ultimately judge you crazy. But, they do listen. Read more ..read more

What happens when you meet your gods and they reveal as mortals?   In that moment you are given the most extraordinary gift, nothing less than the secret of life. That’s what happened to me when I spent ten hours observing one of Chicago’s most legendary restaurants about three weeks ago. And that’s all we’re really doing here anyway, searching for the answer. When I write of food, it is only as a conduit for identifying meaning.   One of the reasons I ended up choosing restaurants as my prism for understanding the world was because of the appealing mythology of the unbridled creativ ..read more

You walk in through hidden sliding doors, saunter up a floating staircase, and sidle into comfy microsuede upholstered barrel back chairs. A champagne and liqueur-infused aperitif from the sommelier arrives at your table. The kitchen lobs a culinary grenade at you, an amuse bouche of butterscotch drizzled bacon swinging on a stainless steel trapeze or peanut butter and grape swaddled in a brioche coat nestled snugly inside a “squid”.  Photo: Lara Kastner In this controlled context, working your way through unfamiliar flavor combinations like chocolate with dandelion or raspberry with re ..read more

There are no hidden gems anymore. Because of the internet everyone knows everything. It turns out that this is utter bullshit. I know because I just ate one of the best pizzas in Chicago last Friday night and it’s not on a single “best of” list1. Read more ..read more

Everyone knows you go to Manny’s for the history, the celebrity-watch, the matzoh ball soup, the pastrami, the kind and generous customer service of the Raskin family, and maybe most of all, the deep cutting observations of Gino Gambarota, the old school counter-man, lord of the (meat) slice.  __r_o_u_x__ A post shared by @__r_o_u_x__ (I love Gino so much, one of my prized possessions is this slap of Gino done by the artist Roux, aka chef Cecilio Rodriguez) When I brought my toddler son, now 17 as of this very day on which I write, to sample his first Manny’s latke, Gino took one look ..read more

De Nooch don’t give a fuck. Well, that’s not entirely true. He has a passion for a few things. Tight perms. The cool feel of a rayon and poly butterfly collar flopped open to reveal his man cleavage. There’s also a fondness for a tumbler of Hennessey or the occasional highball of Seagrams 7 & 7 chased with the flatulent smoke of a Garcia y Vega elegante. Depending on how he’s feeling, consumption of one or both of these things may or may not happen behind the wheel of the object he reveres most in this world, his 1975 black Dodge Charger special edition with the angled pillar window and th ..read more

Tomorrow may seem like forever, but it’ll be here sooner than you know, and you might not even recognize it when it comes. I know. I sound like a fortune cookie. But, I finally understood my past, and for the first time in a long time, saw my present joyfully and clearly while dining out last weekend. Read more ..read more

It’s no surprise to anyone who reads me that I’m team TayTay. But, also, like the basic workaday human I am who has been trained to sit on my couch and be skeptical of those who are more insanely wealthy, talented, and attractive than I am, sometimes I get where the criticism is coming from. Maybe I even buy in a little at times. Read more ..read more