From the Ledge

There was general consensus that last year’s Chicago Gourmet, a “celebration of food and wine” which was designed to showcase the city as a vibrant culinary scene was quite the mega-train wreck, with its staggeringly high ticket prices (you had to pay to get in, to attend the wine seminars, and to partake of the Grand Cru tasting), the general lack of seating areas in Millenium Park’s Great Lawn where the event was held, and the commission of  the most heinous crime a food festival could ever commit:  making food as scarce a commodity as the black rhino in Tanzania or common sense in Glenn Beck’s head.  I was quite apprehensive, then, when I bought my one-day pass for this year’s event, scheduled to run last September 26-27 (ok, so I got a substantial discount courtesy of Groupon.com, which would have made it less of a sucker punch to an empty stomach if history repeated itself and I had to run to the Randolph street Chipotle after the event).  But there were some early signs of hope – attendance at the wine seminars didn’t require separate admission tickets anymore, and the number of Chicago restaurants and chefs increased substantially from last year.  There were still some kvetching and doubting and naysayering in the city’s foodie community but boy, did the organizers of the event, the Illinois Restaurant Association, show us all:  they picked themselves up by their bootstraps, shook off the dusty shoeprints on their back, retouched their mascara, and put on a Chicago Gourmet that was quite the thrilling celebration of a city that prided itself on being a major player in the culinary world stage.

Chicago Gourmet still isn’t the Aspen Food and Wine Classic, but I think with this year’s event, we’ve closed the gap.  The organizers really took to heart the searing (but constructive) criticism of last year’s event.  A food event should have food and there was so much, between the five Gourmet Tasting Pavilions (which had four to five chefs for each of the two three hour timeslots), the free standing Tasting Tents (such as those for Gibson’s and Morton’s), and the restaurants (such as Bon Soiree and Carnivale) integrated with the wine tasting tents, that I’m not sure anyone would be eating anything solid for at least three days.  In my best Padma Lakshmi imitation (well if Padma never went to core conditioning and was wearing a backpack), I gorged on close to thirty dishes during the more than five hours I spent at the event with my fellow food adventurers, the dazzling Melissa  and B&B (as in Brains and Brawn, ha!) Brian.   Among my favorites on Saturday:  a melt in your mouth conchinillo served on top of creamy cannellini beans from Philadelphia culinary star and Mercat ala Plantxa Executive Chef Jose Garces; a really intriguing, lusciously savory sweet corn panna cotta with crispy cilantro bits from graham elliot’s Graham Elliot Bowles; a deliciously sexy pork belly sandwich served on slaw from the Four Season’s Kevin Hickey; and a refreshing, palette-cleansing tuna poke with tabiko and seaweed from Sola’s Carol Wollack.  Since I’m the biggest chef swooner, I nearly lost consciousness with the chef star power at the event, from Top Chef Masters winner and the galaxy’s most sought after chef right now, Rick Bayless (who had to shut down his tasting early due to inadequate number of warmers, but who was so affable to everyone in the long, long, really long queue before him) to Top Chef Chicago winner Stephanie Izard to Food and Wine Best New Chef Paul Virant of Vie to Arun’s Arun Sampanthavivat, all manning their restaurants’ food stations, plus C-House’s Marcus Samuelsson, North Pond’s Bruce Sherman, Spiaggia’s Tony Mantuano, and Top Chef New York finalist Fabio Vivendi, among others, who were conducting cooking demos.  (Sunday’s chef line up included L2.0’s Laurent Gras, Avec’s Koren Grieverson, Spring’s Shawn McLain, NAHA’s Carrie Nahabedian, Table Fifty-Four’s Art Smith, and Top Chef New York finalist Radhika Desai). 

I didn’t really take good notes on the wine and spirits part of the festival (with more than 360 wineries and spirits brands participating, it was next to impossible not to have an alcoholic beverage in hand during every minute spent in Chicago Gourmet), but I had great wines, not so great wines, champagne, imitation champagne, the infamous Bandit wine which came in a tetra pak juice box (gulp!), tequila cocktails, absinthe cocktails, vodka straight up or on the rocks or with unidentified mixers, whiskey, scotch, you name it, they had it in multiple tasting tents.  And many of the larger tents were beautifully laid out, with comfortable couches you could sink into, or minimalist hi-tops you could stand-and-pose-at, or communal tables where you could speak exuberantly and passionately to fellow culinary explorers about your shared experiences during the day - of that perfect bite of perfectly cooked sturgeon or seared scallop, or that comforting glass of smooth rose which so aptly captured the transitional period between late summer and the beginning of autumn.  If there was one fond memory I took away from the weekend, it was that communal, convivial interaction, so palpable at all times during the festival, with fellow believers in the power and place of great cooking.

Here are some photos taken by the tireless B&B Brian:

A view of the Millenium Park’s Great Lawn where all the tasting tents were located

The dazzling Melissa and myself with Chef Graham Elliot Bowles and Top Chef finalist Chef Fabio Vivendi

My second-rate Padma imitation, chowing down on seared scallops and grilled pork belly (courtesy of Jack Binion’s Steakhouse)

Tags: Chicago Gourmet