The menu for Logan Square’s upcoming Young American will feature “Goth” bread, blackened with activated charcoal and leek ash, along with hummus stained with black sesame tahini. There will be “nighttime sisig,” the porky Filipino pig face skillet, stir-fried with squid ink. And there will be a fermented Chinese black bean brandade, garnished with dulse, the umami-rich sea vegetable that looks like something that would wrap around your limbs and pull you under the water.
“So much of what I’ve been doing over the past five or six years has been interacting with people I know who have these weird, different eating habits and wanting to empathize with that in some way. I’m just playing with these ingredients and trying to use them in a way that is more culinarily focused.” In other words: not diet food.
Young American comes from Leisure Activities, the group fronted by Wade McElroy and Jeff Donahue, known for Sportsman’s Club, Estereo, and Larry’s before they lured Jirasek back from the Mendocino County cannabis farm he was cooking at to open Ludlow Liquors.
2545 N. Kedzie Opens in 2019
