Photo: Maggie Faircloth
Photo: Maggie Faircloth
Now I’m no Anthony Bourdain, about which frankly I’m thankful for many reasons, but I’ll leave that for another venue. Even though I’m not a leather jacket- wearing, self-professed culinary bad girl who travels the world shocking my audience with exotic culinary frights, I do consider myself relatively food curious. I’ve tried fish eyes in Norway and miniature dried fish “candy” from China. I’m fairly certain that I would be open to any food that didn’t have the opportunity to poison or paralyze me…so I’ll leave fugu to you sky-diving swim-with-the-sharks types.
That being said, I remember the first time that I sat in a restaurant and looked down at my salad plate to find fiddlehead ferns. They were curled up like very large garden worms and seemed to stare back at me, mocking my shock. The initial surprise in finding these obscure and amusing plants among my salad greens caused me to take a moment to reflect on my steadfast desire to experience food from all over the globe. After the initial shock wore off and I was coaxed into trying them, however, I was pleasantly surprised. Fiddlehead ferns are quite tasty and their deep flavor is similar to that of asparagus. These special plants are harvested before the fern opens up, which is only during a two-week period each year. They are named for their similarity to the scroll at the end of a fiddle.
So why would David Byers and Mark Amodeo choose to name their first restaurant after such an obscure plant? Because the fiddlehead fern exemplifies the care they have taken in building a restaurant with a mindful purpose—sharing organic, local and sustainable ingredients with their clientele. Situated on the bustling corner of Wilson and Lincoln in Lincoln Square, Chicago’s restaurant Shangri-La, Fiddlehead is a fun American food spot with a bit of swank but more down-home neighborhood feel than Cosmos and Martinis. They offer a fantastic wine list and the kitchen is led by local chef Robert Levitt. Chef Levitt makes trips to the farmer’s market everyday it’s open, where he searches for additions to the menu. He offers daily treasures from some of his favorite local farmers including Harrison’s Farm, Nichol’s Farm and Seedlings; the flower selection reflects what the market offers that week.
Some of the favorite menu offerings include grilled flatbread of truffled ricotta and baby arugula ($8); seared sea scallops, chanterelle mushrooms, roasted pumpkin sage brown butter ($9); sautéed lake Superior whitefish, Nichol’s Farm broccoli with almonds, garlic, caper-raisin vinaigrette ($17); roasted portobello panini, tomato conserve, zucchini pickles and gorgonzola ($9) and slow-roasted Berkshire pork shank, bacon-braised lentils, pear mostarda, pork jus ($21). We tried the scallops, which were my favorite dish, and the pork shank, which will be a keeper on the menu for some time.
The wine list offers about 30 choices by the glass, half-glass and flight and bottles. The creatively designed list is an original approach to educating the diner about wine; however, the list is confusing and too detailed. The wine descriptors include: simple, complex, fruity, oaky, light-bodied, full-bodied, dry, buttery, citrus, herbal…just to name a few. Each descriptor includes a small drawing intended to more clearly describe the taste: “light bodied” is accompanied by a drawing of a feather, presumably slowly descending to the ground. However, we debated what exactly that drawing reflected, with guesses from a fish to a banana peel. The idea is fun, but it doesn’t make it easier on the diner when choosing the wine. Unfortunately, it makes the process somewhat perplexing. Wine lists are intimidating enough to most people, and adding tiny hand-sketched icons to describe the aromas and tastes turns out to be more overwhelming than fun and educational. However, diners need never mind how the list has been created since the selections are fantastic and include excellent, obscure wines. We even found a bottle of Sassicaia, which I haven’t found often.
Fiddlehead Cafe, 4600 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago. Open Sunday-Thursday 5-10pm. Friday-Saturday 5-11pm (bar open until midnight Friday-Saturday). Saturday-Sunday Brunch, 9:30am-2:30pm. Average entrée price is $15-$20. 773-751-1500.
Chef Levitt is offering a tasting menu for Valentine’s Day and sharing it will undoubtedly be a lovely way to spend the evening.
Tanya Fritz is a professionally trained chef, oenophile, slow-food fanatic and yoga enthusiast. She has covered the restaurant scene in her former hometowns of New York, San Francisco, Dallas and Lyon, France.