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As Incite did an excellent job visually summarizing Iliana's summer tasting menu, I'll try to add some nuance and perspective to the nearly identical--save for a different ingredient or plating or two--meal I had here on 7/1:
1) Chef Regan's cooking synthesizes the three major foci of the current era of fine dining--molecular, naturalism, farm-to-table--in ways that are clever and mostly sensible, and at points quite delicious; it was interesting to see, however, that the most successful dishes were very much in the Curtis Duffy vein, using great ingredients and technique to produce layers/waves of flavors, and the least were the sort of Carlson-esque deconstructions (e.g., elotes, a mirepoix dessert) that were more theoretical than tasty. Mind you, she's doing 12-16 courses out of a typical early 20th century Chicago apartment and kitchen--wild, I'd say.
2) I found the Chef exceptionally adept at sauces and flavorings in a variety of states of matter (e.g., gels, cubes, purees--but no foams), most especially her ice creams and sorbets--and most especially the sunflower and bacon ones--even if they were overplayed throughout the meal. Where I think she's really going to turn heads, however, is with her use of herbs: they were exquisitely selected and presented, and in several cases they either elevated an excellent dish to a new level (e.g., the sponge, the carpaccio) or salvaged an otherwise pedestrian offering (e.g., the Mexican hot chocolate). If this is the future of "foraged" cuisine, I'm all in: more nasturtium, please!
3) The herb whispering is also crucial to balancing out the sweet element that pervades some of the dishes, some to better effect (e.g., the morel mushroom ice cream cookie) than others (e.g., the rillette/carrot/coconut sorbet). One of the "interesting"--which I say because I suppose one would be critical of it in a fine dining establishment, but we were in the dining room of the chef's apartment--things about the sequence was the sweetness of some of the transition dishes, including a fantastic but somewhat incongruous oatmeal-dashi palate cleanser before the main proteins--constant surprises, I suppose, but the string of caramels, gels, butterscotches, and ice creams might have also deflated dessert.
4) Iliana apparently already has a signature, the "This pill.." sequence, which transcends its conceptual cleverness to be quite brilliant: the tea is earthy, summoning taste memories connected to not only hot tea for a sore throat but winter bowls of miso and/or french onion soup, yet also has a faint but rich sweetness from the cocoa nibs; the chamomile gelee that came in the subsequent round is one of the better things I've eaten this year, just a perfect bite of herbal sweetness with an ethereal texture to match.
5) I'm sure many will talk up the bacon ice cream as the best dish of the night--loved the sugar cone!--but for me it was the tartare, here with shrimp in the stead of the scallop shown in Incite's photo, that really shows the breadth and range of Chef Regan's talents. Here was a lovely, refined play on texture and flavor complexity, something you'd expect to find at Manresa or Avenues, with a fantastic interplay occurring between the elements of smoke (the mussels, the almonds), sea (shrimp, mussels), and earth (herbs, peaches in a sort of mousse)--just a really well thought-out and elegant course. I hope she sticks with this one, whatever form it might take.
6) Two things I don't get about the new fine dining, Part A: the "mac n' cheese" course--you know, when they do the big rich pasta dish that you figure only people in Vegas or the Upper East Side would order? The tagliatelle here is pro, with that fantastic mouth-feel that only hand-cut can give you, but I find the usual trappings of the quail egg, the fontina cheese, the copious butter to be excess without delivering matching flavor; much better was the previous course, a deconstructed scampi, with the shrimp serving as the noodles and the swiss chard and Parmesan atop it delivering all the nutty, salty, and buttery love in a single bite.
7) Two things I don't get about the new fine dining, Part B: dessert. Ever since having a mind-blowing dessert at Schwa in the spring of 2009, I've found dessert at nearly all of the modernist cuisine restaurants I've been to--including a bunch at Schwa that I can't even remember--to be lacking in significant pleasure; the same was true here. The mirepoix dessert, as seen above, was very clever, and the celery component reminded me some of Japanese mochi (maybe it was the green tea-like color?); on the other hand, the combination of white chocolate and onion caramel was, to be charitable, challenging, and I found the tiny mound of carrot ice cream not enough to salvage a somewhat dense and dry cupcake of sorts. The sorghum and basil added complexity to an otherwise vanilla study in the ancho-chocolate one-note connection--I hope Iliana doesn't feel mandated to do the typical chocolate dish here, as it's not necessary.
8. Eating Chef Regan's food reminded me of my chance (fate? accident?) meals at Trio in '03, Schwa in '05, and Avenues in '09--moments when the genius of a chef (Achatz, Carlson, Duffy, respectively) was emerging and coalescing into something revelatory; I suspect that within five years, if and when she gets her own digs, we may well be speaking of her in similar ways. One of the other guests at the table said it was his tenth or so dinner at One Sister, and noted how quickly her style and talent were evolving--I'll say!
And she is much too bashful and self-effacing for someone with this much talent.
(Note: Iliana did say that much of the menu will stay the same for the remainder of the summer, though 5 or so new dishes will be subbed in as new produce comes in and out of season.)
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....your photos and feedback is lovely. You were awsome diners and can't wait to have you back. Definitely come back mid-summer to experience some of the refinements and some new dishes.
