Pork belly tho. nom nom nom

I haven't been. Will look into it.

Thanks. I've been to a couple of these and will research the others. I will only be in town one night this trip and I'm burned out on NYC steakhouses so I haven't been to one in several months. That's what made me lean steakhouse.

Agree with all of this, especially the hilarious Club Lucky drop-in.

However, I will say I was incredibly underwhelmed with Bayan-Ko. They were out of the two main things we were interested in (short rib and ropa vieja-- basically the two premium main dishes) which seemed preposterous, and the other things we got were just ok. I thought the wings were the best item we had, which is fairly telling. Thought about giving them a pass for the newness, but it was like a month in or something.

p.s. Bavette's is goat steakhouse in Chicago imo. Bring your own bottles and share a glass with another table to waive corkage

Really want to go try Passerotto.

Parachute has consistently been my favorite Chicago restaurant the last 2-3 years.

I've only been to Bayan-ko once, but I was super impressed. I was there like a month ago, so maybe I gave a ton into the moment. I'll happily go back though for "market research."


If you go to Passerotto, I'd say give it a few weeks. I was there this past wednesday and it felt like they are in the middle of a menu change and it was a thinner menu than the last time I was there.



also, I hope Tony posting that question re-energizes the thread somewhat. It's cool to see people posting about restaurants again

So I went to Omakase Yume (alone while wife was out of town late last year) and had an unbelievable meal for what I thought was an incredibly reasonable price. Had a great time and everyone else was super personable. Got sandwiched between another single dude with a special unlabeled bottle of mezcal and an older guy with a lady friend who was offering really nice reisling to the restaurant. Down the way were a Korean couple who had flown in specifically to try Chef Park's new spot.

Just an 8-seater in a tiny little hole in the wall in West Loop. Between 17 and 20 courses when all said and done for $125, and obviously it is byob.

Looking to try Kyoten I guess, because it was recommended? Has anybody had a good experience at Kai Zan's sort of out of the box omakase?

I liked Kai Zan's omakase (been there twice). It's a little fast, dishes come out pretty quickly, but for the price point it's a really solid meal.

if you make your reservation for the second turn at Kai Zan, it will slow down the speed of the food. That first turn they're trying to get you in and out in around 100 minutes due to their small size.

I've heard great things about Kyoten. I've never had sushi at that high-end of quality and haven't visited yet, but those that I trust have spoken extremely highly about it. From what I understand, he's aiming for 2* in the fall.

I was a regular at Kyoten when Otto was in Austin. The quality is comparable to Japan though slightly behind the top echelon. In Austin, it was a fantastic value at 150pp but I hear the 225 pp menu in Chicago has more luxury ingredients.

Going to Omakase Yume Friday. Very excited, but it's not longer BYOB.

do they charge corkage?

Wine is on the menu as well.

Got a chance to eat at Cabra this past weekend and was mostly very happy. The food and service were great but I found myself thinking the space itself is kind of a mess. There are only a few tables but a MASSIVE bar in the center of the restaurant that people were milling around and made everything seem cramped if you didnt get a table near the windows (we did, luckily). People watching --incredible on a Saturday with the old guy and sugar baby crowd in full effect.

There is an outdoor space with a decent amount of seating to have drinks (or food I think?) but literally nowhere to comfortably wait inside the restaurant unless you want to stand 4 deep at the bar.

Actually ended up with a comped round of drinks and two dips that were on the house because our table wasnt ready at our reservation time and one of the managers heard us getting antsy.

Everything we had was wonderful but the standouts for me were the Hamachi tiradito (basically sashimi) and the fatty pork shank which was stupid amazing.

Went with two couples and the bill was 240 before tip, add in the stuff we got for the wait and realistically ~300 is probably the true number. Maybe we'd get a bit less next time but not by much so it's probably about right. For sure recommend.

Ate at Aba. Space was beautiful. Food was average.

Ok, I am DETERMINED to not let this thread die!

Anybody got a hard opening date on Wherewithal--the new Parachute offering? It's like a block from my house and all anybody can get is 'July'

I'm excited for it, but haven't heard anything more precise than what you've heard. I doubt that it'll yield anything better, but I'd think your best shot would be going to Parachute early on a weekday for dinner, and chatting with the owners about the new place, seeing if they can give you something more precise.

Given there's only 3 weeks left in the month, why do you have such a pressing need of an opening date

That said, it appears I'm on their mailing list:

"We are pleased to announce the opening of our new restaurant, Wherewithall, on July 16th."

I was just about to post this. Parachute put this up on their IG feed

Got a reservation on August 3rd. Pretty pumped for it.

Went to Galit last night. It was good, but not anything super special IMO. The mains were all just all right. Probably prefer Ema/Aba to Galit for Mediterranean food.

Will report back. I actually found the same thing and they 'lied'....reservations were open at 1:45 instead of the 2pm they said, so when I opened the page and just jokingly searched for a time it was completely open and I had my pick of time and date.

Ended up with 7pm reservations: next Wednesday for 2, then the following Saturday for 4 just in case. Will report back.

Going to a bachelor this weekend. Doing Wrigley on Fri. Any other suggestions while in town?

yea, way more info is needed. Like, what are you into, will you be with the whole group all the time, how many dudes, etc............

20 dudes. Sports, drinking, looking at girls (since vast majority now all married. Maybe 2 single guys coming)

I was lucky enough to visit Chicago a couple months ago and would say this is pretty spot on. Kyoten was an incredibly enjoyable meal and did not disappoint. Otto is known for his rice preparation, and it is identical to what you had in Austin. Ingredients are not that much different, but the pricing is higher due to the difficulty of sourcing premium sushi ingredients in Chicago. Sounds a bit crazy, but it is so much easier getting quality sushi ingredients in most of Texas than Chicago.