Did you try Proxi yet? I know you're a Sepia guy. It's VERY good. The fish collar is incredible. Also, Proxi is not the restaurant I'm ranting about above re flip flops. During our visit, Proxi was a flip-flop free zone.Michael wrote:I remember going to Next during their 2nd season and seeing a guy walk in with shorts on.
We praise Blackbird because Blackbird was the first place to do Serious Food in a casual enough environment. You didn't need to wear a tie, or even a jacket, and the atmosphere was lively and didn't take itself too seriously. It led to the wave we have now with all these upscale neighborhood places like Fat Rice and TDS and Entente and Publican Proper/Anker, and Giant and Longman where you can just kind of come as you are and they food is Michelin Bib Gourmand grade or better. 20 years ago we had fancy restaurants with fancy food for special occasions and casual restaurants serving casual food for everyday but now we have casual restaurants with fancy food and casual environments for everyday. And we should praise Blackbird for that but they also need some blame because they got the ball rolling to get us to the point where a guy will walk into a fine dining restaurant in shower shoes.
Also Blackbird is the restaurant that started Chicago toward becoming what is now and has been for about 5-6 years the best food and drink city in the US, but also a city oversaturated with those upscale neighborhood restaurants. It's been unsustainable for a long time and the bubble is starting to pop. In the last couple months we lost both Yushos, Paramount Room, Bar Marta, Dixie, 42 Grams, Sink Swim, The Pump Room (being reconcepted by LEYE because there's a reason the 7 owners of The Pump Room in the last 12 years have failed), an outpost of Bangers & Lace, Intro, Vera, Karyn's, Bar Deville (this was personally heartbreaking I have I don't know how many yardstick memories at Deville), Smalls BBQ (which I've raved about on here), MK and a whole bunch of other places.
We're the best restaurant town in America. But our restaurant industry is completely [expletive] and about to collapse under its own weight.