Comfort Food Cravings on Chicago Menus
The onset of December means comfort food intake must escalate drastically in order to endure another overwrought Chicago winter. But there’s much more to wintry comfort food than egg nog and second servings of pie. Comfort food takes on a variety of shapes and flavors in Chicago restaurants, from porcine cazuelas and red wine-braised short ribs to outre pot pies and lots more.
Pumpkin, pork, red wine, and brown butter form the A-Team of comfort food ingredients in a particularly soulful dish on the menu at Filini Bar & Restaurant. Chef de cuisine Carolina Diaz serves up spiced pumpkin gnocchi with braised pork belly, red wine, and brown butter reduction, warming souls with each mouthful. “The spiced pumpkin gnocchi is so rich and creamy” says the chef. “Serving the gnocchi with a piece of perfectly braised pork belly, it’s just unbeatable.”
Pie practically has a monopoly on comfort food cravings during the fall and winter months, and you won’t hear Hearty’s Dan Smith debating that. One half of the Hearty Boys duo and head chef at the Americana nostalgia-inspired restaurant, Smith states pie as his quintessential comfort food. And he doesn’t play favorites in the sweet vs. savory debate either, spreading the love equally between chicken pot pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate-pecan pie, and so forth. One stunner currently on the menu is “chowdah” pot pie, an amalgam of seafood chowder and pot pie in one convenient, belt-buckling bowl. A medley of Prince Edward Island mussels, bay scallops, and rock shrimp are bathed in sauce Americaine, then ensconced in a puff pastry lattice crust.
Carrie Nahabedian of NAHA and Brindille has a fondness for succulent meats this time of year, particularly items such as pork chops, venison, game birds, and prime rib of beef. Her dinner menu at NAHA pays dutiful homage to those comfort urges with the likes of braised beef short ribs with a cannelloni of Swiss chard and mascarpone; New Zealand venison with parsnips and slow-cooked bacon; Scottish wood pigeon with foie gras, sweet potatoes, wild rice, and orzo; and wood-grilled rib-eye of beef with Russian fingerling potatoes, spigarello, and bone marrow.
In case you haven’t had enough pork, it’s pretty hard to beat braised pork belly swimming in Serrano broth. The cazuela de puerko is a favorite menu item for Mercat a la Planxa’s Cory Morris, who braises pork belly and white beans for three hours and serves it in mini cast-iron pans along with that heady, unctuous broth and celery root.
Red wine-braised short ribs get a boost of spice at Mercadito, the mod Mexican restaurant with a knack for contemporary comfort concoctions. Chef/partner Patricio Sandoval honors the tradition of taquiza parties for this salacious dish, made with red wine-braised short ribs, chipotle reduction, roasted turnips, and a side of cauliflower casserole. “Taquiza parties are celebrations of the ultimate Mexican comfort food, the taco,” says Sandoval. “So we brought that to Mercadito’s menu with this fun and interactive dish.” And there’s nothing more fun than shoveling fork-tender meat into your mouth.
Finally, who can forget sweet potato casserole? Maybe you’d try to forget, considering the marshmallow-y, treacly dish is one of the most polarizing of the comfort food bunch. But when places like Eddie Merlot’s give sweet potato casserole the diligent treatment it deserves, then it’s a casserole worth eating. Chef Anthony Dee serves the casserole as a side, hand-mashing sweet potatoes and bedecking them with spiced pecans and brown sugar.
Filini Bar & Restaurant
221 N. Columbus Drive, Chicago
(312) 477-0234
Website
Hearty
3819 N. Broadway, Chicago
(773) 868-9866
Website
NAHA
500 N. Clark Street, Chicago
(312) 321-6242
Website
Mercat a la Planxa
638 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago
(312) 765-0524
Website
Mercadito
108 W. Kinzie Street, Chicago
(312) 329-9555
Website
Eddie Merlot’s
201 Bridewell Drive, Burr Ridge
(630) 468-2098
Website
