Carriage House
Fried Chicken Thigh with malted waffles, maple hot sauce
Shrimp, grits, hunter gravy, tasso
Johnnycake with apple preserve and maple syrup
Mushrooms, grits, truffle vinaigrette, soft egg, grilled chicory
Pullman French Toast with caramelized bananas, sorghum whipped cream
Beignets with coffee hot fudge, coffee froth
Skillet Cornbread
Biscuit with shopped honey butter
Located in Wicker Park and helmed by Mark Steuer, whose food I first experienced while he was at The Gage, it did not take much convincing to get my family to join me for the chef’s take on Lowcountry cuisine during Saturday brunch. Featuring a menu of both authentic and reinterpreted southern classics and served by a well trained staff led by a young man named Phil who, whether from the south or not, put on a show of true southern charm while presenting plate after plate of truly exquisite cuisine from the bustling, open kitchen.
Moving well past ‘traditional’ technique with immersion circulators and ISI-canisters evident amongst the stoves, ovens, and fryers the meal began with three appetizers – the cornbread moist and dense, the beignets perfect little pillows of sweetness, and the biscuit flaky and rife with butter even before adding more – before moving into a quintet of larger plates, each featuring excellent ingredients gussied up with modern technique to produce results well beyond what anyone would typically expect from the genre.
From the sous vide chicken thighs with subtly heated syrup to the toothsome Johnny cake bespeckled with not only apples, but toasted corn resembling the texture of corn nuts and onward to snappy shrimp over soft grits with a complex, smoky gravy the ‘deep south’ items I expected to be good were indeed excellent and looking at the items less traditionally ascribed to South Carolina both the custardy French Toast and (most of all) the aromatic mushrooms melded with a soft egg over bitter, charred chicory also proved to be impressive – all in all a great meal from start to finish and whether ‘authentic’ or not, a strong entry into the Windy City brunch scene.