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The 2nd City's Triumverate - GQ Magazine June 2006


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...If there's ever a reason to pick up GQ Magazine, now's the time to check it out. In the latest issue (June 2006), Alan Richman does a great write-up of Chicago's leading young chefs, G.E. Bowles, G. Achatz, and H. Cantu.

Nice pictures, Elliot! Now that's what I call "tasting" the blue cheese fondant! :raz:

u.e.

Edited by ulterior epicure (log)

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Thanks, UE, for the heads up -- and I'm happy anytime our local chefs receive positive ink -- but this story has been done to death already. I'm pretty sure that Chicago Magazine did it a year and half ago. Also, after that shameful Best Burger article Richman wrote a few years back, I find his opinions largely dismissible. When he and I are in agreement, it usually means he got lucky. :wink:

=R=

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ronnie_suburban 'at' yahoo.com

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Nice pictures, Elliot!  Now that's what I call "tasting" the blue cheese fondant:raz:

u.e.

What pictures? :huh::blink:

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

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Nice pictures, Elliot!  Now that's what I call "tasting" the blue cheese fondant!   :raz:

u.e.

What pictures? :huh::blink:

The article features a picture of Cantu, Achatz with in his kitchen with a bevy of chefs, and two B&W of Bowles - one shows him nursing a cradling a bowl of blue cheese fondant and licking a huge wisk covered in the yummy stuff.

u.e.

“Watermelon - it’s a good fruit. You eat, you drink, you wash your face.”

Italian tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921)

ulteriorepicure.com

My flickr account

ulteriorepicure@gmail.com

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Question: the article says that guests at moto have to sign a waiver? I have to admit, I skimmed the article very quickly at a bookstore yesterday, so I may be getting things wrong... but, I don't remember having to sign anything when I went last summer. Of course, things could have changed, or I could totally be making it up... I'll have to go back and read the article.

u.e.

“Watermelon - it’s a good fruit. You eat, you drink, you wash your face.”

Italian tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921)

ulteriorepicure.com

My flickr account

ulteriorepicure@gmail.com

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Question: the article says that guests at moto have to sign a waiver?  I have to admit, I skimmed the article very quickly at a bookstore yesterday, so I may be getting things wrong... but, I don't remember having to sign anything when I went last summer.  Of course, things could have changed, or I could totally be making it up... I'll have to go back and read the article.

u.e.

Could it be guests entering the kitchen? I don't have the article so I am only guessing.

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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I don't think my answer is a secret. Avenues.

... and yes, this article topic, as ronnie notes, has been done... but it's always nice to see the Chicago three getting praise and press.

In other news, Shawn McClain's Custom House was featured as a "Hot 10" in this past (May, 2006) issue of Bon Appetit.

u.e.

Edited by ulterior epicure (log)

“Watermelon - it’s a good fruit. You eat, you drink, you wash your face.”

Italian tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921)

ulteriorepicure.com

My flickr account

ulteriorepicure@gmail.com

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I don't have the article so I am only guessing.

Now you do. 2nd City No More

“We’re the three amigos,” says Graham Elliot Bowles ...

Thanks, YT.

Cantu is so secretive that other Chicago chefs call his food-preparation area the “Al Qaeda kitchen,” and all who enter must sign a nondisclosure form.

I think this quote answers the question raised above and is as I thought except there is no mention of doing this with guests.

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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I read the article and I thought it was just . . . meh. The praise given is muted and very conditional -- and the criticisms are nitpicky and falsely-premised in some cases. Honestly, after reading the following paragraph, which appears very early in the piece, it was actually difficult for me to read further:

An orderly succession, or even a revolution, is greatly overdue, and it’s finally happening in a doughy midwestern metropolis long recognized as home to steak houses without memorable meat and to deep-dish, cornmeal-laced pizzas that evoke the American South more than southern Italy. Chicago does have virtues, primarily first-rate architecture and comedy, but its best restaurants have often been derivative. Some other city was always doing the same cuisine, only a little better.

=R=

"Hey, hey, careful man! There's a beverage here!" --The Dude, The Big Lebowski

LTHForum.com -- The definitive Chicago-based culinary chat site

ronnie_suburban 'at' yahoo.com

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I agree, Ronnie...especially when Trotter's and Tru have been doing great, inventive cuisine before this, and in Trotter's case for, what 16 or 17 years?

Make no mistake, I'm glad that Chicago and these chefs are getting the positive recognition now, but the assertion that these guys sprang up from nowhere, out of a bland landscape of bad pizza joints and steakhouses is off base...

Great timing for the article, though...going to Alinea tomorrow night for the first time... :smile:

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I read the article and I thought it was just . . . meh. The praise given is muted and very conditional -- and the criticisms are nitpicky and falsely-premised in some cases. Honestly, after reading the following paragraph, which appears very early in the piece, it was actually difficult for me to read further:

An orderly succession, or even a revolution, is greatly overdue, and it’s finally happening in a doughy midwestern metropolis long recognized as home to steak houses without memorable meat and to deep-dish, cornmeal-laced pizzas that evoke the American South more than southern Italy. Chicago does have virtues, primarily first-rate architecture and comedy, but its best restaurants have often been derivative. Some other city was always doing the same cuisine, only a little better.

=R=

:laugh::laugh::laugh:

How do you think we feel!!!

“Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own." - Sydney J. Harris

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:laugh:  :laugh:  :laugh:

How do you think we feel!!!

So, you're not that "some other city" mentioned in the passage above? :biggrin:

=R=

LOL! I know Ronnie I just could'nt resist!!!!

“Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own." - Sydney J. Harris

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