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?
Sep 05
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