Tru

It's impossible for me to view Paris Club, the hip French bistro that opened in River North five months ago, without feeling a sense of loss. Paris Club, you see, replaced Brasserie Jo, and I've loved that restaurant ever since it opened in 1995...

Here's something you may not know about Open Table, the predominant online restaurant reservations system: When you book a table through the Open Table website, the restaurant is charged $1 per seated guest — so if you show up as a foursome, that'...

Everyone knows Charlie Trotter as the chef of Charlie Trotter's. It's his name, his restaurant, and he's the boss. But that title “chef” has many meanings, and Trotter has embodied just about all of them during his 25 years at Charlie Trotter'...

When Charlie Trotter announced, just past the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day, that he would be closing his eponymous Chicago restaurant at the end of August, quite a few people vowed to get to Charlie Trotter's, one last time or even for the very...

Graham Elliot was an aspiring young cook in the late '90s carrying steaks to a party of 20 in the Charlie Trotter's Studio Kitchen when the restaurant's brilliant, mercurial owner stopped him in the hallway and grabbed one of the pieces of meat. "He...

Taste, as a jazz musician once noted, is manifested in the notes one declines to play. In that regard, Danny Grant is a taste master. The original chef de cuisine and now executive chef at Ria, the magnificent dining room within the Elysian hotel and...

Time once again for my annual exercise in humiliation, as I try to predict the star recipients in the 2013 Michelin Chicago Guide, which hits bookstores Wednesday. This is the third year that Michelin has published a Chicago guide, and if there's one...

Rodrick Markus reached for the top shelf of a metal cabinet at the back of his office. "I know, I know, I know," he said to himself. His fingers worked across a row of jars and stopped at a tall glass cylinder. I had asked him about rare ingredients. Rare...

I have this problem. I made more New Year's Eve reservations than I can use. More than 100 of them, actually. Which is why, for the 12th straight year (and the 17th time in the past 19 years), I'll be giving them away to nimble-fingered readers who ask....

The only thing everyone seems to agree on is this: Matt Gudgeon walked into Honky Tonk BBQ in Pilsen on Sept. 8 wearing a perfectly clean J. Crew shirt. He walked out wearing a mustard-stained mess. Almost every detail of how his shirt got stained is...

Charlie Trotter says he first thought of closing his namesake restaurant after his plane sat on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. “I realized really how fragile the world is,” he reflects. “I love what...

What is to become Restaurant R'evolution is still under construction; there are gaping spaces for equipment yet to arrive and rubble yet to be removed. But chefs John Folse and Rick Tramonto can look through the dust and see their vision coming to life....