Poutine is having a moment in Chicago—a long one that doesn’t appear to be waning. Dozens of restaurants offer some amalgamation of fries, cheese curds, and gravy, Poutine Fest celebrated its third anniversary earlier this year, and we’ve seen three restaurants dedicated to poutine appear—and two of them disappear. BadHappy Poutine Shop, which was around for nearly two years before it closed in early 2014, seemed plenty popular; the owner told Eater Chicago at the time that the closing was due to a dispute with his landlord and he was considering reopening in another location. Not long after BadHappy closed, the Big Cheese Poutinerie, a Canadian chain, opened an outpost in Wrigleyville offering 30 varieties of poutine; the restaurant lasted just six months before closing its doors.
As for the poutine—now would probably be a good time to note that while I’m not as fervently anti-poutine as my colleague Mike Sula, I’m not a poutine fanatic either. I’ve enjoyed a couple of good renditions, but all the other times I’ve tried it, the gravy has quickly made the fries soggy, at which point I’ve lost interest. Q-Tine’s Q Classic Poutine is slightly better than the average, but not among the best I’ve had: while the cheese curds were fresh and squeaky, the barely-crisp fries couldn’t stand up to the gravy, turning into a pile of mush in the bottom of the paper tray.
