The Party Is Over Chicago’s once-vaunted dining scene has lo

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/January-2019/The-Party-Is-Over/

Quite an article from John Kessler on how the Chicago Dining Scene lost its mojo.

I expected to see some spirited discussion here since the article does a good job of laying out some specific complaints and thoughts on how to improve.

I no longer live in Chicago but feel the tone of the article would suit my current home, Seattle, very well. I hope that things are indeed not so dire in the city by the lake.

I found the article insulting. There are certainly some valid points but I think the overarching indictment of the food scene is very overblown. What is the obsession with the food media and ranking cities? Why not just celebrate what cities do well? Chicago remains a great food city and I never find myself disappointed by the range of great options both at the high end and low end.

1) We have not figured out local and seasonal cooking.

Restaurants like Bad Hunter, Publican and Elizabeth immediately jump to mind when considering locally sourced and seasonal produce. I'm sure there are many others. There are countless restaurants that source local meat to the point that it's not even noteworthy when they do.

2) We need more exciting immigrant cooking.

The key quote here is "Not that I haven’t enjoyed exploring Argyle Street, Devon Avenue, and Chinatown, but man, they all feel so tired." Give me a break. Argyle literally just underwent a huge facelift and they introduced a night market to invigorate the neighborhood. There must be at least 6 new restaurants on the block that have opened in the past year. Chinatown has never been more popular. They just built a gorgeous new library there. Most of the current board favorite restaurants have opened in the past couple years. I just don't see this argument at all.

Also, this "And sorry to twist the knife here, but Chicago also needs a major sushi overhaul." Are there large Japanese immigrant communities in Houston, Atlanta and Austin pumping out perfectly sourced fish from the Tsukiji market that I'm missing?

3) The West Loop and its corporate overlords need to chill.

This is just picking at low hanging fruit. The West Loop has a certain clientele and does extremely well as evidenced by the long waits and reservations booked months in advance. If you like cheffy food, West Loop is great at what it does. I, for one, am proud that the West Loop/Fulton Market boasts restaurants from chefs like Grant Achatz, Paul Kahan, Stephanie Izard, and Rick Bayless. If you're looking for something more subdued or inventive, there are plenty of great options throughout the city. The point about star chefs going to the coasts is valid, but I always take pride in the Chicago diaspora. There is more than enough home grown talent to keep things fresh. Recent meals at Entente, Elske, Smyth and Band of Bohemia show me there are still plenty of great new chefs coming up on the scene. If you're not eating well at chef-driven restaurants in Chicago, you aren't trying hard enough.

4) Our street food culture is stuck in the past

The fact that he is comparing Paulie Gee's (a restaurant imported from Brooklyn) to Pequod's completely discredits his argument to me. If you're evaluating Chicago's indigenous pizza style, leave the NY style pizza joints out of the discussion.

"Is there a truly great Italian beef out there?" Yes there is.

"Where are the inventive modern street food stalls? " It's been a really long time since I've had anything I thought was memorable from a street food stall. In my book, inventive street food stall is more gimmick than destination dining.

"Or, say, a hot dog stand that does its shopping at Paulina Meat Market instead of the Vienna Beef factory." I guess he hasn't been to Hot G Dogs.

This particular bullet point was very poorly researched and doesn't seem to be backed up by personal experience.

5) You have to be on Team Chicago, no questions asked.

"I love that everyone wants to join the team here, but as far as I can tell, the only requirement seems to be a Cubs jersey and a ritual initiation shot of Malört."

He clearly doesn't get Chicago. It's his adoptive home, but it seems like he needs to spend some more time here.

What Turkob said.
Plus -- food stalls? We don't have food carts and trucks in abundance like other cities, not sure that's the cure. On the other hand, the number of food halls springing up bringing cool build-a-meal-from-five-places opportunities all over downtown.
Plus -- ethnic? We've got more Korean than you can count, some of the best and varied Thai (please branch out to the suburbs, please! Talk to the Koreans, they've certainly done it), and even without Bayless our Mexican food is amazingly diverse.

He makes many good points, some off-base points.

First, he’s dead-on regarding the lack of seasonal produce on restaurant menus.

Second, I think he’s partially right about the amount of popular attention paid of international restaurant enclaves in more far-flung locations (e.g. Mexican restaurants in Berwyn). While there’s a plethora of discussion of such places here on LTH Forum, they don’t appear to be on the radar screen of urban millennial food bloggers/Instagrammers, most of whom won’t even go to the South Side other than Pilsen, Chinatown or Little Village.

Third, he’s also correct about the corporatizion of the West Loop dining scene, although I don’t think his assessment of Formento’s is correct (I think that Formento’s does a nice job of modernizing old school red sauce Italian-American cuisine).

Fourth, I do see a bit of a slam at LTH Forum in his discussion of ethnic restaurants, such as his dismissal of Italian beef sandwiches and Jim shoes (I disagree with his take on former and I think that the latter is of more sociological than culinary interest). Since Hot Doug’s closed, there aren’t many places where people are willing to wait for a long time to get in, other than Chicago Culinary Kitchen. I don’t think many people would wait and wait to get into, say, Vito & Nick’s. While I do see some second generation updating of international or “ethnic” restaurants, this does not appear to be widespread.

Finally, his last topic was a direct shot across the bow at Phil Vettel, who is the worst restaurant critic at any major newspaper (he’s really a restaurant reporter/cheerleader/shill more than an actual critic). He thinks that this audience are naive suburbanites who go out to dinner three times a year rather than sophisticated diners. Furthermore, he doesn’t review “ethnic” restaurants - he’d rather review award two stars to some unexciting, mediocre American place in Lakeview or Lincoln Park.

I read it yesterday and was honestly hoping no one would even post it here because it barely warrants discussion. The piece is massively uninformed. The author really should have done some homework before spouting off like that publicly. He should be embarrassed.

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It was a pretty silly article dangled out like bait and designed to do just what it is doing. The city is huge and constantly shifting/changing, which means if you think Chicago's doing something wrong then more likely you're doing something wrong.

What turkob said, and what Joel said too, especially about 'branching out to the suburbs' for ethnic fare.

I cut my bones 40 years ago as a young diner on trying as many of the restaurants on the back pages of Chicago Magazine as possible, but even then the publication was way skewed towards the city. Forayed down to Tulpe in Marquette Park and the South Side's Army & Lou's, in search only for something different.

It's so different now. I see the Asian enclaves in Morton Grove, Mt. Prospect, Schaumburg, Indian in Naperville, with area establishments serving solid, nuanced regional food from a specific country. Hell, even up here in Mundelein, where rumor has it God lost his shoes trying to find a banh mi sandwich (not any more), I recently stumbled upon a fabulous little Kerala place in Libertyville called Curry Leaf that I haven't even mentioned to the Lunch Group yet. Fifteen years ago this place wouldn't have happened. Can't vouch that it will stay open very long, but here's hoping.

Author needs to take the blinders off.

I try not to let stuff like this get my panties in a bunch, but I took the bait on this one (my wife & kid are out of town.)

I think his view point is largely from that of the mainstream media and its audience. And the larger conversation is about media representation.

That said, I'm not really the audience of a piece like this. I don't fine dine, I can't afford it and I am rarely as impressed with the food as I am at small mom and pops.

So, point #3 about our lacking immigrant food scene particularly stung. I don't need to point everyone to the GNR list around here to say that there is an audience for traveling out of one's comfort zone to experience culture. But typical Chicago Magazine & Eater audiences likely don't leave their north side comfort zones.

The point that no one is covering the immigrant food scene is just lazy. Let's start with us, maybe a fringe group. But, look at what Titus does on a weekly basis (purely out of love, no $$$) Stories about spots like Morena's, Minna's, and Xocome Antojeria that you see in legacy media are all Titus's discoveries. Mike Gebert too. Then as we go up the food chain, Louisa Chu has certainly been covering immigrant food stories for a long time. And Mike m'th'fkk'n Sula!!! Even guys like Nick Kindelsperger and Steve Dolinsky, who get blamed for cribbing their material, are out there representing mom and pop businesses all over the city to mass audiences. So clearly these stories are getting out there. Whether or not the public acts on them is a bigger question.

And to suggest there aren't exciting first and second generation chefs that work traditionally and creatively in their respective cuisines overlooks so many, Jonathan Zaragoza, Dave Park, Jennifer Kim, the folks at IMM, to name a very few.

And yeah there's something kinda racist about dismissing entire immigrant neighborhoods as "tired".

Also racist/classist is the idea that nobody eats Jim Shoes and jibaritos in his dismissal of our street food scene. You can say that these foods are objectively "not good" if you are someone who can afford to buy organic, local, blah, blah food. And maybe we should all be thinking about food accessibility and justice more.

But in the neighborhoods where these dishes were invented, this was the product they had on hand. Inventive eaters and cooks made the best out of something that some might call bad (those that have access to better) and created unique culture. To say nobody eats this stuff is to deny this culture. You can subjectively not like these dishes, fine. But, duh, places serve this stuff so someone is buying it!

Again, he's speaking to his audience who likely won't travel down to 84th and Stony Island. In my worldview, folks should experience other cultures. And I think altruistically this community and the journalists I mentioned are working to champion all culture all over the city.

I'm almost done, but to suggest no one lines up for street food tells me that you've never been to Johnnie's, which is a credibility breaker from the start. Yes the beef scene needs some young blood though (I know a guy)

And I think there's a handful of guys that are doing some of the most creative stuff (at my price point at least) riffing on Chicago classics at Kimski, the Delta, & Old Habits.

/end rant

Jefe wrote:I don't need to point everyone to the GNR list around here to say that there is an audience for traveling out of one's comfort zone to experience culture. But typical Chicago Magazine & Eater audiences likely don't leave their north side comfort zones.

Ironically, more folks will click from LTH to the piece at their site than from their site to LTH, even though it's clear that the maximum benefit to their readers -- and the poor, ignorant author, who really needs to step away from the press releases and get out more -- would be if the flow went the other direction.

Jefe wrote:And Mike m'th'fkk'n Sula!!!

Amen, brother!

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As soon as i read this article, i knew the portion regarding ethnic/international cuisine would strike the biggest nerve. I think we all would agree that there are numerous great ethnic restaurants here and to say otherwise is incorrect. And i hate his last point about too many people defaulting to "Team Chicago". It might be true, but also plays like an easy excuse to use when critics do take issue with some of his points.

But at the same time, some of Kessler's points do ring very true for me. Korean food in general is pretty average in the area and it drives me nuts. Its my favorite cuisine and any Korean meal makes me happy, but there's few places that I can objectively say are very good.

And forget sushi, I wish there were better bowls of ramen and good izakayas in the area. Those are few and far between as well.

ronnie_suburban wrote:Ironically, more folks will click from LTH to the piece at their site than from their site to LTH, even though it's clear that the maximum benefit to their readers -- and the poor, ignorant author, who really needs to step away from the press releases and get out more -- would be if the flow went the other direction.
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This is a fantastic take.

bobbywal wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Ironically, more folks will click from LTH to the piece at their site than from their site to LTH, even though it's clear that the maximum benefit to their readers -- and the poor, ignorant author, who really needs to step away from the press releases and get out more -- would be if the flow went the other direction.
=R=

This is a fantastic take.

Hear, hear.

Nick Kindelsperger's perspective on the Chicago Mag article.....

Is Chicago's food scene over? Of course not.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/c ... story.html

Crain's perspective...

Chicago's restaurant scene has lost its mojo? We beg to differ.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/opinion ... beg-differ

WhyBeeSea wrote:But at the same time, some of Kessler's points do ring very true for me. Korean food in general is pretty average in the area and it drives me nuts. Its my favorite cuisine and any Korean meal makes me happy, but there's few places that I can objectively say are very good.

And forget sushi, I wish there were better bowls of ramen and good izakayas in the area. Those are few and far between as well.

I agree on the Korean and I have tried most of the places accessible from the city. I eat at Joong Boo more than anywhere else and was sad at the loss of Moccozy's jjigae. However, I think the ramen here was comparable to NYC or Singapore.

As for the article, I kind of agree that the very mainstream food scene in Chicago has been very boring to me for the last few years. However, that might be due to changing food tastes than the scene. I just roll my eyes now at the generic Italian, Japanese and umpteenth burger restaurant opened by a corporate group and the menus at more chef oriented places always put me to sleep too.

botd wrote:I kind of agree that the very mainstream food scene in Chicago has been very boring to me for the last few years.

I think it's the nature of the beast. Many of these places, the shiny new toys of the restaurant universe, are almost never interesting for long, even when the "scene" is at its best. They may be relevant to some writers, voters of certain awards and Chicago Magazine's core readership but they lack soul, and are hardly reflective of Chicago's deep and broad culinary culture, or what's lastingly delicious around town. Unlike the writer of the piece and his jaded, myopic brethren, I rarely go more than a week or two without eating something that really revs me up. I guess I'm just lucky.

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ronnie_suburban wrote:I rarely go more than a week or two without eating something that really revs me up. I guess I'm just lucky.

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I'd suggest it is a matter of persistence.

Anytime I see articles built around theses like this — "Is Music Dead?", "Are Millennials the Worst Generation," "Did Mother Theresa Set Back the Poor?" — I run the other way. It's just clickbait masquerading as journalism. The people who write these things are so zeroed in on living up to the promise of a provocative headline and igniting outrage there's no potential for discovery or nuance in the final product. Yuck, sez I.

One more counterpoint: Proxi opened this year, and served me one of the best meals I had outside of Spain.

His basic assertion is that Chicago does not have the kind of national and international “buzz” that a place like L.A. has. He’s partially correct insofar as Instagrammers and other internet foodie influencers (who are almost exclusively millennials) appear to be focused on the West Loop, River North and Lincoln Park. I don’t see urban millennials going to a lot of the mom-and-pop joints mentioned around these parts.

On the other hand, as Nick Kindlesperger correctly points out, the whole spectrum of dining in Chicago is not lacking for attention from the national food media, e.g. Bon Apetite, Eater, TV (including Marcus Samuelsson’s show). The one exception is The New York Times, which hasn’t done a decent feature on Chicago dining in more than a decade.

Can't eat buzz.

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I know, but that’s what his piece is all about.

ld111134 wrote:I know, but that’s what his piece is all about.

Oh yeah. I get it. He wasn't even writing about our food scene. He was complaining that there's no longer enough buzz to guide his lazy ass to any worthy places. Boo fucking hoo.

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I think the writer makes valid points not about Chicago's food or restaurants but Chicago's food "scene" and especially our food media. Chicago food isn't causing the dulling of the West Loop. Food writers and influencers focusing exclusively on that neighborhood are. Chicago isn't devoid of immigrant restaurants. Our food coverage (beyond LTH) is.

I was just in NYC last weekend and I asked my host, so, what is everyone lining up for these days? And he said "I don't know." So maybe NYC is suffering, too!

Vitesse98 wrote:I was just in NYC last weekend and I asked my host, so, what is everyone lining up for these days? And he said "I don't know." So maybe NYC is suffering, too!

Yeah, I thought this was the most asinine point in this entire piece.

If no one is willing to wait in line for sausages and duck fat fries, your food scene is pretty much on life support. [/paraphrase]

Frankly, the piece was only tangentially about Chicago's food scene. Seems more like the writer is lamenting about the the waning attention of the national media and its ooh-ing and ahh-ing over Chicago's food scene.

I would not dismiss buzz, Ron. Buzz drives business, which creates jobs. Millennials are the one’s driving the growth of the food scene, not oldsters like us. They are the ones who need to discover (and frequent) the small independent restaurants discussed here. Plus, buzz drives gastrotourism, which is indeed a “thing”. That’s how we are probably different than NY or LA: Hipsters patronize little family-run restaurants that are off the beaten path.

ld111134 wrote:I would not dismiss buzz, Ron. Buzz drives business, which creates jobs. Millennials are the one’s driving the growth of the food scene, not oldsters like us. They are the ones who need to discover (and frequent) the small independent restaurants discussed here. Plus, buzz drives gastrotourism, which is indeed a “thing”. That’s how we are probably different than NY or LA: Hipsters patronize little family-run restaurants that are off the beaten path.

I don't believe that buzz drives lasting or meaningful business. It is, by its very nature, unsustainable. Perhaps it is somehow connected to the well-being of the kinds of places that really matter to me these days -- mainly small, independently-owned, ethnic -- but I think to say so is a stretch.

From my perspective, mainstream buzz and quality, worthwhile eats are, far more often than not, mutually exclusive. But I think gastro gnome has it right. The piece was more about the "...waning attention of the national media and its ooh-ing and ahh-ing over Chicago's food scene" than it was about what one can actually eat here. Stunningly, the writer of the piece doesn't seem to understand that he's the one failing in his professional responsibilities by complaining about the situation as he perceives it rather than getting out there and turning over some stones that haven't just been conveniently dropped on his desk.

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I respect what you’re saying, Ron, but people like us aren’t going to keep these beloved places in business. Instagramming millennials are.

Example: South Side aquarium barbecue is dying. The reason is that their customer base is dwindling and younger, affluent (read: white) millennials don’t know about it or value it, while they go crazy over Memphis and Carolina barbecue (much of it mediocre) purveyed by numerous Northside joints. If the national food media paid attention to these places, maybe they would develop a new audience that would allow them to carry on.

Basically every successful restaurant that has existed prior to 2008-ish has done so without a social media presence. I'll make a wild-ass guess that about 2% of current restaurants are "making it" because of social media. Will that grow? Sure. Will social media completely overtake other criteria necessary for a restaurant to thrive? That's pretty hard to believe. The notion that the populace at large will be so seduced by a shared picture as to disregard location, food quality, consistency, concept, marketing, service, pricing, and overall business savvy seems pretty far-fetched to me. Most restaurants already fail due to mismanaging or misunderstanding a couple of these concepts. An appealing shared picture might get certain people in the door at a hot spot. It will not keep everyone coming back.

I agree that the membership of this board does not necessarily have a huge Venn diagram overlap with influencers. I don't sign on to the idea that just about everything we know about the restaurant business has gone out the window with the popularity of Instagram within a particular demographic.

People have been saying that orchestral and symphonic music is dying due to lack of a young audience. I can understand these concerns because the audience numbers may be similar (or declining) but the audience is graying. People of all stripes are eating out more and more and nothing about social media seems to be changing that. I would argue that fewer diners overall could actually threaten the future of restaurants as we know it. But that' not what we are talking about.

I could be old. I could also be wrong. But I'll believe it when I see it.