The sort of habitual restaurant-going folk who rarely venture out of the comfortable eating enclaves of River North or Randolph Street—those who wouldn’t dream of visiting dirty old Uptown for a steaming bowl of pho, a pile of spicy minchet abish on injera, or a whiskey at the Green Mill—have faced a lot of challenges lately, with celebrated fine-dining restaurants like Goosefoot, El Ideas, and Elizabeth opening in unfashionable neighborhoods at an alarming rate.
The menu follows a coherent narrative. Among the early courses is a potato soup bordered by a shoreline of caviar, peas, pea shoots, potato chips, and dehydrated tomato. Next up, a salad dominated by a beet-flavored purple macaroon, its accompanying quail-egg yolk mounted on a dollop of fromage blanc. One-bite intermezzos arrive between the more substantial courses; the introduction to a pair of seafood courses, for example, is a mouthful of coconut-water noodles sprinkled with finger lime citrus pods and spooled around a liquid core of coconut milk.
4662 N. Broadway42gramschicago.com
