Although it’s been open less than a year, River North’s Bohemian House, or BoHo,  continues to buzz and has recently launched a weekend brunch menu. We all know there are so many Chicago brunch options to choose from, but BoHo is certainly worth considering. Executive Chef Jimmy Papadopoulos and his team created a brunch menu with a twist on traditional European fare. As with the dinner menu, brunch features influences from the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, and Austria.

BoHo brunch beverages include a custom Bow Truss Coffee blend with notes of plum, fig, bourbon, and cocoa, as well as boozy drinks. The signature morning drink is “The Pick Me Up,” a spiked iced Bow Truss coffee cocktail with rye whiskey, maple and fernet cream. Trust me, this drink packs a punch. Other options include the “Pulaski Smash” with whiskey, lemon, passion fruit, green bell pepper, and mint, classic mimosas, and more.

Bow Truss Coffee

The Pick Me Up

Pulaski Smash

Mimosa

When it comes to brunch food options, there’s no shortage of variety.  If it’s sweet you’re looking for, there are Bavarian Apple Pancakes with apples, cider, pecans, farmer’s cheese, and powdered sugar. These aren’t your typical fluffy flapjacks, they are more crepe-like (and are incredible!).

Grilled Asparagus

If you’re up for something heartier, try the smoked beef tongue with poached egg, mustard hollandaise, and sweet & sour cabbage, or the as-big-as-your-head open face pork schnitzel sandwich topped with horseradish cream, sauerkraut, ementaler cheese, and a fried egg. There’s also skirt steak & eggs with mushroom and pepper spatzle, sweet onions and aged gouda. (I recommend the schnitzel sandwich!).

Smoked Beef Tongue Hash

Pork Schnitzel Sandwich

Skirt Steak & Eggs

Don’t forget about enjoying fresh pastries with your coffee or for dessert! BoHo offers several options including their signature apricot kolacky, almond poppyseed cake, a chocolate-cinnamon scone, and doughnut holes with bavarian creme and raspberry jam.

BoHo is located at 11 W. Illinois St. and is open daily for dinner beginning at 5pm, and for brunch on Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 2pm. Reservations are recommended but walk-ins also are welcome.

On Sunday, April 26th, the 7th annual Cochon 555 took over the Windy City with five chefs cooking five pigs in a friendly competition. Chicago was the 10th and final stop on the Cochon US tour which also included NYC, Houston, Boston, Minneapolis, Denver, DC, LA, San Francisco, and Miami. It was a fantastic evening filled with notable chefs, butchers, winemakers, and distillers, at the West Loop’s Morgan Manufacturing.

This year’s competing chefs included Nathan Sears of The Radler, Nicole Pederson of Found Kitchen, John Manion of La Sirena Clandestina, Chris Marchino of Spiaggia Restaurant & Lounge and Thomas Rice and Kurt Guzowski of TÊTE Charcuterie. The five chefs, champions of whole hog utilization, prepared a maximum of six dishes with hopes to win votes from a crowd of hungry gourmands and celebrated judges. They prepared heritage breed pigs raised on local farms including Faith’s Farm, Inc., Triple S Farms, Catalpa Grove, LaPryor Farms and Slagel Family Farm.

Ultimately, Nicole Pederson was crowned the “Princess of Porc” and will go on to compete against the other nine US winners for the title of “King or Queen of Porc” at the tour finale, Grand Cochon at Snowmass/Aspen in June.

Check out the photo recap from the main event and head on over to Cochon555.com to learn more!

What do you get when you put together two fun girls, about 100 random Chicagoans, a bar in Bucktown, beer, sausage, a potluck, and jars & jars of giardiniera on a cold March night? The first official Giardiniera-Off, of course!


Organized by Meaghan Thomas and Dana Roeske, both of Chicago, not only because they love giardiniera, but they are also committed to getting this condiment to be as common as ketchup. Their strategy is simple; spread the giardiniera gospel, which will increase everybody’s usage. They say they will not rest until every household has a bite of this funky condiment.


For the Giardiniera-Off they organized 30 volunteers (including myself) to blind taste test 20 jars. It took about an hour and then the votes were tabulated. From best to worst this is how the jars stacked up:

1 Potbelly
2 Freddy’s Pizza
3 Ditka’s
4 Fiore’s
5 Kelsey D’s
6 Enrico Formella
7 Soluri & Sons
8 Tenuta’s
9 Marconi
10 Gio’s
11 That Pickle Guy
12 Alpino
13 Vito & Nick’s
14 J.P. Graziano’s
15 Joseph’s Finest Meats
16 Bunyon’s
17 Pete’s Fresh Market
18 Chicago Johnny’s
19 Bari
20 Al’s Beef

Surprisingly, Potbelly’s took #1, while Al’s Beef ending up at #20, although the organizers did reassure the crowd that #20 was not bad, as they had vetted hundreds of jars prior.


So is the thought of giardiniera tantalizing your taste buds? Meghan and Dana have set up a website eatgiardiniera.com where you can find recommendations, recipes, and more, or join their Facebook page for some additional tasty tips!

Photo courtesy of eatgiardiniera.com

I was thrilled to attend Baconfest, held on Saturday, April 18, at UIC Forum. I went to the Saturday lunch session with a few of my friends, and quickly decided that I wanted to focus on the dessert options. It’s no secret that I have a massive sweet tooth (I did go to Donut Fest, after all), and the combination of sweet and salty is always a favorite of mine. While I certainly sampled virtually all of the 70ish bacon dishes at my session, I decided to rank my top  five favorite dessert options. The list (in no particular order) is as follows:

1. Chocolate Chip and Bacon Cookie – Mindy’s Hot Chocolate

When I saw Mindy’s Hot Chocolate listed as a vendor, I knew magic would happen. Mindy Segal, the namesake of Mindy’s Hot Chocolate, recently published an entire cookbook dedicated to cookies, called Cookie Love. My favorite desserts are cookies in any form, and I knew Mindy’s would likely nail it. Despite the fact that this was one of the last desserts I tried, I was not about to let my bacon-coma stop me from trying it.

And, they were amazing. They were giving away bite-sized portions of the cookies, and I probably had about five. When I decided that wasn’t enough, I started sending my friends over to grab me more cookies. I love crunchy cookies with a soft center, and these were perfect. I am already in the process of adding Segal’s cookbook to my Amazon shopping cart, as I am fairly convinced she can do no wrong when it comes to desserts.

*Quick note: this was not even the featured dish from Mindy’s, it just stole the show for me! I love cookies!

2. Bacon, Dark Chocolate, Vanilla, and Salted Pistachio Parfait – Bacaro

I love dark chocolate, and I love pistachios. To take those two ingredients and add in a hint of bacon bits as well as a rich vanilla mousse was a wonderful combination. Again, I had about three of these. This is exactly why I loved BaconFest- none of the chefs were judging you if you kept coming back for more. This dish was sweet but not overwhelming, meaning it didn’t set you further into a Bacon Daze. It was light enough to really enjoy the flavors and how well they blended together.

3. Bacon S’mores – Kaiser Tiger

This dessert option was quite straightforward, but it was incredibly delicious. I didn’t see a campfire by the chef’s table, but the bacon marshmallow was perfectly roasted. S’mores are already an amazingly underrated dessert option to begin with, and adding bacon to the mix knocked it out of the park. I think this would be easy to replicate over your traditional campfire, but the chefs at Kaiser Tiger made it into a delicious art form. Like many of the dishes I sampled, it was almost too adorable to eat. Almost.

4. Maple Glazed Pineapple and Bacon Donut – Firecakes

Firecakes has a very special place in my heart. They were my top pick at this year’s Donut Fest, and their pineapple and bacon donut at this event was incredible as well. I think Firecakes makes some of the best donuts in the city, and their quality is always consistent no matter what flavor you get. The combination of maple, pineapple, and bacon was delicious in this doughnut. Bonus points: the portion was pretty close to a regular-sized doughnut. Yes, please.

5.  Fried Chicken French Toast – Honey Butter Fried Chicken

The great thing about this dish is that it could be a breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert dish. It’s a well-known fact that Honey Butter has some of the best fried chicken in the city, and their french toast is quite phenomenal as well. It was served with a maple bourbon syrup and bacon honey butter. I somehow managed to eat the entire thing in one bite, and the flavors were perfect together. The honey butter, which is good on its own, was insanely delicious with the addition of bacon. I think that’s actually true for everything on this list – the desserts would be good on their own, but the addition of bacon is what sets it apart.

And that, fellow Chicagoans, is exactly why we all need to continue going to Baconfest year after year. As someone who doesn’t eat bacon too much (I’m thinking I should change that), this event is well-worth the rising cholesterol. ‘Murica.

Photos by Ben Collins-Sussman and Anne Petersen for Baconfest, used with permission.

I met Homaro Cantu in 2008 at the Museum of Natural History. He was setting fire to a baked Alaska with a flamethrower. Actually his pastry chef, at that time Ben Roche, was setting the fire and Omar was mugging for the crowd as they chanted – “Fire! It’s BURNING!” Needless to say he made an impression.

If there’s one thing you can say about the man or his restaurants, Moto/ING/Berrista, it is that they made an impression. He had a whimsical way of looking at food that was always pushing a concept or a new technique. He was at the forefront of the molecular gastronomy movement, incorporating technology and science not only into his menu but also into his restaurant supply chain and management.

The first time I had a conversation with Omar was shortly after I came up with The Unique Dinner Series. The goal of the series was to give chefs a night to do something really different. The first chef I called on was Cantu. He’s already doing something really different. I wanted to push him. My idea was to do a Wednesday night tasting menu of dishes that went too far. Thinking that after several years of pushing boundaries, Cantu might really have some out-there courses. He looked at me like I was crazy and said that there weren’t that many dishes he could think of that turned off diners. I realized how foolish that question must have seemed.

But he didn’t shut me down. He considered it and mentioned one dish where everything was dyed black. He said the color confused people, that they didn’t know what something was going to taste like, and it wasn’t pleasant to watch someone chew mouthfuls of black food. I jumped at that, “How about we do a tasting menu of all black food?” He looked at me like I was crazy again and cautioned, “We don’t do discounts.”  I reassured him, “We don’t either.”

That’s how 16-Courses of Black started. I was really inspired by his accessibility, indulgence and willingness to do something different. He was so positive and interested. Most importantly, he was collaborative. I spent one afternoon ideating with his staff on possible courses and saw how well they all worked together. This left an impression.

Over the following years I’ve had the pleasure of working with Cantu on a reprise of the Black dinner, with 13 Courses of White last year with Richie Farina at the helm, and at ING working with Trevor Rose Hamblin and David McGowan on new cocktails and Nate Park on his Lifetime of Guilty Pleasures. Trevor, Richie and Nate are examples of many people that share Cantu’s enthusiasm and understanding of the need for a sense of earnestness and humor, both in the process and on the plate. I can see his influence very clearly.

We’ve worked with Moto on a collaboration dinner with Chef Aduriz from Mugaritz. I watched Cantu engaging people at the launch of his Future Food TV show and even attended his staff holiday party one year where he had a pile of pizza and a gigantic black truffle that he would shave over everything. His curiosity, excitement and intensity had an infectious affect on everyone: his audience, his peers and his employees.

Most importantly, Cantu was always a big-picture guy. He’s lauded for his enthusiasm around miracle berries (they trick your tongue into tasting bitter as sweet). He once handed me a doughnut and said, “Taste that. We’re going to eliminate diabetes.”

He’ll be missed.