Graham Elliot

Graham Elliot Bowles appeared on Top Chef Masters last season.  He has a restaurant called Graham Elliot in downtown Chicago.  Rumor has it this spring he is opening a restaurant called Grahamwich downtown too.  As a good sandwich is hands down my favorite food, I eagerly look forward to trying Grahamwich. 

This may have been Nick's favorite dinner...possibly ever.  And I will admit that we liked it better than our last two forays into fine dining, including Top Chef Masters winner Rick Bayless's Topolobampo.

There are two tasting menus available - a 5 course and a 10 course.  Or you can go a la carte which is what it looked like most patrons were doing.

Instead of bread, they bring out popcorn with truffle oil, parmesan, and chives.  This is something you can easily replicate at home but was delicious!  Only downside was it was a little messy. 

We ordered three appetizers off the hot menu because everything sounded so good. 

First was the potato bisque with chive marshmallow, crispy pancetta, wisconsin cheddar, and sour cream.  When ordering I thought, "how exciting can potato bisque be?"  Very.  This was delicious.  The whole soup had a slightly bacon-y flavor and the chive marshmallow added a great flavor.

The second was the macaroni with strozzapreti pasta, trumpet mushroom, roasted garlic, and truffle bubbles.  Nick doesn't eat mushrooms.  These were apparently special mushrooms.  He ate all of them!   The dish was so light which is so atypical of macaroni and cheese dishes.

The third was the risotto with bouchot mussel, fennel ratatouille, crispy calamari, and lemon aioli.  We thought the risotto was just okay but the calamari was excellent.  Another thing that Nick liked that he's never liked before.  Very light and crispy instead of heavy and weighed down in bread.

For dinner Nick had the wagyu beef with potato confit, root vegetable, and foie consomme.  This meat was so tender there was no need to use a knife.  And the consomme on top was excellent.

I had the scallop almondine with haricot vert, blood orange, marcona almond, and brown butter.  Who knew blood oranges paired so well with scallops?  And the brown butter sauce was very well done.

For dessert Nick had the chocolate with Guinness stout, malted milk, cocoa crumble, and chocolate ganache.  This was an assault of chocolate.  Are you a chocolate lover?  If so, you'll love it.

If you're not a chocolate lover (or even if you are) you should get what I had for dessert, poached pear with gorgonzola gelato, petite frisee, walnut streusel, and port reduction.  When this first arrived at my plate I wondered why anyone would make a dessert with lettuce.  I mainly ordered it as cheese is one of the main loves in my life.  To quote Nick, "It's like a party in my mouth!"  Seriously, this was the most complex dish either of us have probably ever tasted.  The flavors mixed and mingled and the taste was so different if you left any of the ingredients on the plate out of your spoonful.  I think my brain was confused because the gorgonzola gelato looked like mozzarella cheese, felt like ice cream, but tasted like gorgonzola in my mouth. 

I tried two different drinks.  One was called Wine and Roses which had a rose liqueur along with white wine and champagne.  The other was a passionfruit flavor with horseradish infused vodka.  Both were excellent and I love trying drinks made by mixologists.  Nick had Ebel Weiss by Two Brothers, a beer from Illinois that he really liked.

We hope to get back to try the spring menu which is debuting this week.