Exploring Food In The Windy City

I came to Chicago with one thing in mind: my stomach.

In April, I had learned that I had been nominated for a James Beard Award, the equivalent, in the field of food writing, of the Oscar. Following a one-year hiatus, the James Beard Foundation announced that the Awards would be held in Chicago, this June.

My mission, as I saw it, was this: to spend three days in the Windy City doing my very best to eat my way through the newest, coolest and most esteemed restaurants.

Chicago’s influence comes from all angles, and so eating through it felt like a challenge. My husband, sons and I checked into the Pendry, on Michigan Avenue, a 364-room boutique hotel that was once the Carbide & Carbon Building. The 1929 Art Deco-era hotel underwent an extensive renovation in 2020, and now boasts a charming sitting area with a roaring fireplace; a bar, where I found myself, late one night, indulging in a spicy helping of after-hours tuna tartare; and two dining venues: Venteux, a brasserie overlooking the Magnificent Mile, and Château Carbide, a seasonal rooftop restaurant with a Japanese-inspired menu.

But for our first true stomach-expanding adventure, we headed to José Andrés’s shiny new Chicago outpost, also within the neighborhood known as the Loop, Bazaar Meat. Andrés’s concept is actually two-for-one. On the main floor, where glass windows overlook the turquoise Chicago River, Bar Mar offers guests a seafood-centric experience, complete with the requisite décor; an ersatz octopus hangs from the ceiling, much to a toddler’s delight, we discovered.

Upstairs, the mood is something else entirely. The room is seeped in crimson, with red glass fixtures embedded in the ceiling, the view of the water impeccable, even from the center of the dining room. Bazaar Meat bills itself as a steakhouse, but it’s anything but. Actually, it’s more or less an el bulli-style tapas bar that happens to serve Wagyu-quality beef, too. We were wise enough to listen to our server, who herded us through a labyrinthine menu with ease.

Here, a plate of olives two ways (stuffed with anchovies and morphed into Ferran Adrià-esque balls); there, a puff of cotton candy wound about a bonbon of foie gras. Molten cheese exploded from Andres’s famous “air” bread, which was covered in a coat of carpaccio-thin beef. Head-on prawns in garlic oil, jamon with eggs and tomatoes, live sea scallops with tigre de leche and sweet potato purée — we ate them all, as my children devoured a hanger steak and watched the sun slip below tall buildings.

By the time the Wagyu arrived, sliced into square pucks, it practically functioned as dessert, the punctuation to a woozy meal that felt as if it had taken place somewhere in the hills of Spain.

Full stomachs did not prevent us from waking with the sun the next day and formulating a plan of attack. We wanted donuts, the chewy ones, but 2d Restaurant, in Lakeview, where our next adventure lay, did not open until 10. So we wandered over to Cloud Gate, the official name for the sculpture more colloquially termed “The Bean.” In the fine tradition of tourists everywhere, we made squinted faces in the glinting sun and took photographs of our own reflections.

2d Restaurant, co-owned by Kevin Yu and Vanessa Thanh Vu, boasts mochi donuts, made-to-order coffees, and a strange, two-dimensional setting that feels like you’re in the middle of someone else’s drawing — a Parisian café, only in black and white. Technicolor donuts, texturally complex from the addition of mochi flour, pop twice as much. We ate six, with flavors ranging in breadth from Thai iced tea to strawberry to peanut butter to churro, before going back for two more.

A strawberry milk included whole, fresh strawberries, pulverized at the bottom of a cup, and topped with the thickest, grandest milk you can imagine — dessert in a cup.

And we waited a whole hour, until 11, when the kitchen began serving the superlative, cracker-crisp fried chicken sandwiches, just so that we could order two for the road.

I won’t go into the awards themselves, where I left not exactly a winner, although, as my family will say, there are no true losers. But the next morning, I was rewarded with brunch at Adorn, the restaurant within the newly renovated and ceaselessly sublime, 347-key Four Seasons Chicago, where I would spend my final night in the city. The 30-year-old property, redesigned last year, now includes sophisticated spaces for gathering, as well as a restaurant, Adorn, helmed by James Beard Award-winning chef Jonathon Sawyer.

My family joined me for one final bittersweet meal before leaving me to bask in the hotel alone. Cold glasses of Laurent Perrier arrived at our table, unbidden. And while we needed those, surely, I also did not know how badly I needed the restaurant’s shrimp and grits, a remarkable achievement of savory breakfast-meets-lunch: three perfect semi-circles suspended over a plank of polenta in a brown gravy that truly required a spoon for slurping.

It was hard to pry myself from my fog-licked city view in the executive suite, where room service delivered a cheese board and platters of pristine fruit. But I did, and for good reason. In Ukrainian Village, I had a reservation to make, at Kasama, the Michelin-starred Filipino restaurant that opened in 2020, from chefs Genie Kwon and Timothy Flores.

There, a miraculous night unfolded. Four nights a week, Kasama becomes more than the sum of its parts. By day, the restaurant operates as a casual breakfast, lunch and pastry joint. By night, it swings to a different soothing rhythm, delivering 13 perfect courses to the table in handmade pottery vessels made by local ceramicist David T. Kim. (As it happens, Kim’s work was also on display at Bazaar Meat.)

How is perfection achieved? It was telescoped, at Kasama, through a violet nonalcoholic ube fizz, to a dish of Hamachi, golden Kaluga caviar and coconut, to an adobo of maitake mushroom served with scallop and a mussel emulsion, to dessert’s pièce de résistance: a croissant, stuffed with Délice de Bourgogne cheese and topped with black truffle, shaved tableside.

Before we left, my guest and I were each gifted a box with a pastry inside, a blackberry-filled tart that I ate the next morning with gusto, while clacking away at the computer at O’Hare. Stomach finally — defiantly — full, my mission was accomplished.

If You Go

Located in the former Carbide & Carbon building, this 364-room property offers multiple dining venues, a bar, and sophisticated service in the heart of downtown Chicago. 230 Michigan Avenue

Renovated last year, Chicago’s grand Four Seasons boasts a new dining restaurant, as well as a pool, spa, and 347 rooms and suites. 120 E Delaware Place

Perched overlooking the Chicago River, José Andrés’s inventive tapas steakhouse concept is a glamorous masterpiece. 120 N Wacker Drive

In Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, owners Kevin Yu and Vanessa Thanh Vu serve chewy mochi donuts, tooth-shatteringly crisp fried chicken, and made-to order coffees in a unique backdrop. 3155 N Halsted Street

James Beard Award-winning chef Jonathon Sawyer heads this global concept, which highlights the bounty of the Midwest. Within the Four Seasons

Genie Kwon and Timothy Flores’s Michelin-starred Filipino restaurant offers a 13-course tasting menu on select evenings, as well as a much-coveted first-come, first-served daytime casual counter service menu for breakfast and lunch. Pastries are also available. 1001 N Winchester Avenue