From the Ledge

I have a lot of friends who think watching a reality TV show is like getting a botched dermabrasion, but who are, nevertheless, out and proud fanatics of Top Chef.  With its well-thought out competitive matches, its highly qualified contestants, and its superior production values, Top Chef is in a class of its own, towering above, and incomparable to, those other reality shows where people eat reptiles, or where real housewives scream at each other in an Italian restaurant by the New Jersey turnpike, or where non-suburban floozies scream at each other to become Flavor Flav’s own real housewife.  Of course, for this Chicagoan, the most exciting Top Chef season had to be the season set  in Chicago, not just because it showed off our wonderful, food-centric city and innovative, talented chefs, but also because it was won by the only female Top Chef so far, our city’s very own Stephanie Izard.  I was a big fan of Stephanie’s now-shuttered Bucktown seafood restaurant, Scylla, so I was very thrilled when she was crowned Top Chef, since I knew it was so well-deserved.  So when I had the opportunity to attend the underground supper club she was doing monthly as a lead-in to the early 2009 debut of her new restaurant, The Drunken Goat, so appropriately called The Wandering Goat dinners, I jumped at the chance (plus, this particular dinner would be devoted to the lusciousness, deliciousness, bungee-jumping-worthiness of all things bacon).  As devoted readers of the blog know, I’ve written quite a bit about the underground dining scene in Chicago, so I was curious, what would a Top Chef winner’s underground supper club be like?

Well, the first adjective that came to mind was:  big.  Everything seemed to be much more on a larger-scale than the supper clubs I’m accustomed to, such as Sunday Dinner and X-Marx Chicago where intimacy is worn as a badge of honor, from the number of diners (80) to the location (Kitchen Chicago’s new loft space in West Town, with it’s cathedral ceilings, picture windows, long communal tables, and tri-level layout) to the number of courses (11, including the minargdise), to the visible trappings of success, such as photographers, a journalist from the Trib covering the event, and people running around with boom mikes (whose purpose, both people and mikes, I never figured out).  This “supersizing” of the underground dining concept probably comes with the territory of being a celebrity chef in a town full of starving foodies, both legitimate and self-styled (the tickets for the event sold out in a mere ninety seconds, yes, ninety seconds!), but I think if there was one disappointment from the night, it would be the downplaying of  what attracted me to underground dining – a convivial communal vibe that could only be achieved through the energy generated by a small group of people in a cramped space all passionate and articulate about food, cooking, and life.

But ultimately underground restaurants, as is Top Chef, should be all about the food.  And Stephanie absolutely succeeds, as expected, on this score.  With eleven courses, there would be hits, misses, favorites, constructive criticisms, but the overall culinary experience was fantastic.   There were three passed appetizers, two of which were just extraordinary:  the fried kumamoto oyster served in its shell with a bacon vinaigrette, was delirious, perfectly breaded, with a robust, masculine flavor brought about by the intermingling of mollusk fleshiness and porcine fattiness; while the light, delicately creamy, but still earthy sunchoke soup, served at room temperature, was its polar complement, and was a perfect small dish for a brisk, late summer evening.  I thought the third passed appetizer, a puff pastry with smoked salmon, tomato, and mascarpone was good, but emanated a too-familiar feel.

I loved the decision to serve the five main dishes family style, instead of in individual portions, because it helped reclaim some of that sense of community which I felt was somewhat missing from the dinner.  The addition of nectarine and bacon to the reliable eggplant caponata made the dish modern, idiosyncratic, the sweet-sourness of the fruit mingling with the saltiness of the pork and the bitterness of the eggplant in a fresh manner.  I thought the pasta with littleneck clams, crème fraiche, sausage, and bacon, the most sought after dish at the table, was hearty but not overwhelming, luxurious but not self-indulgent, comfortably familiar but not predictable.  The hands-down winner for me, though, for the night was the beautifully-grilled, heart-stoppingly sweet and tender baby barramundi, served intact with its gloriously meaty head, and served atop an eye- and palate-dazzling summer salad of heirloom tomatoes, sweet corn, and grilled peaches.  This was the cooking that made my jaw drop at Scylla all those years ago, where seafood was served simply but memorably and magnificently.  I liked Stephanie’s pork belly dish, but after The Publican’s ethereal, unmatchable bourbon-braised pork belly with apples and grits that I scarfed down a couple of weekends ago, I really didn’t think I’d be impressed with just any pork belly dish at this point.  The last of the main dishes was probably the most startling, the most confident, the most reflective of a Top Chef’s risk-taking, but was probably also, in my view, the least successful one of the night- tofu, shredded cabbage, lamb and bacon in a barbecue sauce, which came off almost incoherent.  As one of my dining companions, cute twink Jonathan, said, it’s so difficult to do anything with tofu, that the fact that Stephanie was able to pull off a dish that was conversation-worthy was an achievement in itself.  I agree, but my main problem with the dish was that it looked, felt, and tasted too busy, too overburdened.  I wasn’t really sure how all those components harmonized with one another- why pair gamey lamb with silky, bland tofu, and cover it all up with sweetish shredded cabbage? And what was the sweetish-sourish barbecue sauce (more of a glaze actually) doing in the midst of all of this?  It was a vital and intriguing dish, without a doubt; but a dish in need of editing and clarification too as well.

The dessert courses were also very surprising:  two of them were savory desserts, and not the usual bacon ice cream type of hoohah you see on Iron Chef.  The bread pudding was tossed with blue cheese, apple, and bacon bits, and tasted more like stuffing side dish than dessert.  I preferred the other savory dessert, a fabulously relaxing combo of caramelized figs, ricotta, tomatoes, and bacon, although, to be honest, it would have been a showstopper, and less perplexing, as a salad course than as a dessert course.  The third dessert was the best one for me, and maybe because I just prefer to end a meal this exceptional with something sweet- sexy, refreshing, cleansing gelato ice cream sandwich lollipops that proved without a doubt that there was a Top Chef in the house.  And that Chicago’s underground dining scene had become more extraordinary because of it.

Here’s yours truly with Top Chef Steph, and two of my dining companions cute twink Jonathan, and Lean Cuisine gal Nina, in a photo snapped by blog mentor Tom:

Here is the fabulous barramundi dish:

Follow Stephanie on Twitter (www.twitter.com/stephanieizard) to find out when the next Wandering Goat dinner will be.

Tags: Top Chef, Wandering Goat supperclub