If nothing else, the events of 2016 have proven that vast numbers of our countrymen are all too happy to eat shit. In Chicago, of course, we have a higher standard—at least when it comes to restaurants. So even as the rest of the world obediently trundles toward oblivion, at least the city’s restaurateurs have been good enough to provide plenty of estimable places to eat and drink the dread under the table. So here, as the incoming overgrown Oompa-Loompa in chief might say, are the best!
Hanbun, another suburban Korean restaurant, makes the list this year—and in my view, it’s the most important and exciting of the lot. Inside a dim food court in far-flung Westmont, David Park and his fiance, Jennifer Tran, both graduates of the Culinary Institute of America, present a daily lunchtime menu of extraordinarily refined Korean classics at budget-friendly prices. And on the weekends they offer a lavish multicourse modernist tasting menu “so different from what any Korean restaurant in the region does that it’s worth a pilgrimage or two (or more) from wherever you are on the map.” And at $63 it’s a steal.
In somewhat the same way, the never-ending tide of unimaginative Italian spots was brightened by the opening of Spiaggia alum Sarah Grueneberg’s Monteverde, focusing on handmade pasta, its production on full display on an elevated platform behind the bar. “In these bloated times, nobody but restaurateurs seems to think we need more Italian spots. Now that Monteverde has proven to be the city’s most essential pasta destination, maybe they’ll come around to the idea.” On the other hand, the folks behind the great Osteria Langhe proved there’s room for originality with the opening of their sophomore spot, the fast-casual Animale, featuring plenty of outstanding offal and chef Cameron Grant’s own extraordinary pasta. “Guts to go never tasted so good.”
