Chicago Chef of Michelin-Starred Elizabeth Is Coming to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

https://detroit.eater.com/2019/2/18/182 ... -elizabeth

Julia Child inspo menu seriously impressed me after the Harry Potter-themed one, which was good-far-from-great.

Wine pairing was much better than what I’ve had at Elizabeth previously. On the light & sweet side, lots of natural/natural-leaning wines. Loved it.

Hard to do a ‘highlights’ that doesn’t end up being most of the meal, because this was as consistent as I’ve experienced at Elizabeth, and what that means is almost nothing stood out. I was basically happy end-to-end. Anyway, this is some of what I got:

Bouillabaisse, served cold, with a large, nice piece of fish (amberjack, I think) rolled up. Delicious. Served in the same dragon egg dish from HP menu.

Profiteroles filled (stuffed to overflowing almost!) with a warm chicken liver mousse and topped with some mushroom, idk, char, were surprisingly delicious. The mushroom on top was so good I was eating the crumbs off my plate. Came with a cute little truffle bite.

There was a green potato leek soup and I would have happily just had a big bowl of that and a loaf of bread for $25 and called it a meal. It was so good! Only complaint was that it was tasting menu-sized. I wanted so much more! Think the green color came from green onion tops? Had some wine, lots of cream.

I tend to like Eliz’s bread course and this was no different. Tasting menus without bread courses bum me out. Happily, it seems like Chef likes her bread and it won’t be going anywhere!

Two proteins: lobster thermidor and duck l’orange. Lobster was a little salty but really kind of just wonderful. Duck was served two ways (breast and confit-on-bone). Confit was forgettable (and I love duck confit!) but breast was done wonderfully. I’m not sure why, but the duck course was kind of huge, and I would have preferred less duck and a third protein, but I think its size will help to make sure no one leaves hungry.

Only two desserts, a little puff filled with apples (titled a tarte tatin, but upside down) and topped with vanilla cream and a single, small cookie. Very sadly light on dessert. Both were good, but it’s a tarte and a thumbprint cookie and this is a great restaurant, they weren’t going to mess these things up and I needed a little more dessert to end the night.

Menus, generally, are a gripe I have with Elizabeth—please print me a menu! I know maybe a lot of people don’t care for them, but I love a reminder of a great dinner. The bathrooms at Smyth have some great menus framed and I aspire to, someday, do something with some of my menus. Sadly, Elizabeth will never appear on my bathroom wall it seems.

They used to do very nice printed menus, now they email them to you after the meal.
I too love their bread course, but at least once I've felt like I'd have gone home hungry if not for the bread.

Went today for the Game of Thrones Brunch, just wonderful. Each course was named for a location in the stories (but I've forgotten dinner)

First course was Fleabottom: an oat porridge with some of the best yogurt I've ever had, and candied strawberries (I think).

Second course was Castle Black, and more lunch: kale and asparagus salad with truffle vinaigrette and picked rutabaga and pearl onion; black bread with cultured butter (her bread is always awesome), and French onion soup (really good, enough bread in the soup that it's really thick).

Third course was Winterfell: nettle and ramp pasta with pea shoots, Jonah crab, sunny side up egg and house smoked jowl bacon. Almost carbonara, great food.

Last course I can't remember the location: spice babka (made with their croissant dough but maybe a little light on filling), and a lingonberry compote.

Always delightful, not much surprising but perfect in execution and service.

Ex-Next chef Jenner Tomaska’s residency starts today in Lincoln Square

https://chicago.eater.com/2019/7/17/206 ... oln-square

At the New Yorker's website, Helen Rosner praises Iliana Regan’s memoir “Burn the Place,” the first food book to be long-listed for the National Book Award since “Julia Child and More Company,” in 1980 . . .

at newyorker.com, Helen Rosner wrote:In 2008, after nearly a decade or so fighting her way up through Chicago’s restaurant trenches, the chef Iliana Regan quit her job at Alinea—the Sistine Chapel of American culinary modernism—to open a farmers’-market stall selling homemade tortillas and from-scratch ranch dressing. One Sister, as she called the endeavor, was a hodgepodge of ambitious apartment homesteading: buttermilk fermenting on a shelf, mushrooms (the good kind) unfurling in the humidity of her bathroom. In “Burn the Place,” her brutal and luminous memoir, Regan writes, “Mom wasn’t excited about the milk curdling in the pantry or the mushrooms growing in the shower, but she was glad I wasn’t stumbling in drunk out of my goddamned mind every night. I was still drinking, of course. But this other passion, to pursue my ideas, was beginning to change me.”

“Burn the Place” Is a Thrilling, Disquieting Memoir of Addiction and Coming of Age

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Thanks for sharing this review Ronnie:

“Burn the Place” Is a Thrilling, Disquieting Memoir of Addiction and Coming of Age

My library will have this book Nov. 18 and I''m fourth in line...

Elizabeth continues to astound and delight with their '80s Nintendo menu. Lately they've been emailing the full menu after the dinner, but I haven't received it yet.

Not every dish was earth-shattering, and we had a weird long pause in the courses halfway through (for which they comped our drinks), but with a combination of great food, drink and company (SueF), I smiled the whole time. To the delight of the staff, Sue wore the skirt from a costume she'd made a few years ago titled "Pixilated Pixie" which had two-inch-square quilt-like pixels creating sprites from Mario, Link, Joust and Space Invaders with a Pac Man belt (sorry, I don't have a picture of that at hand).

Yoshi Eggs: cocoa butter shell with apple juice and horseradish inside, verbena leaf (the rocks are rocks). A fresh, tasty start.


Power Star: Carrot custard (which I swear was carrot butter) and carrot broth. Osetra caviar and finger lime. Outstanding, my second favorite of the night.


Mushroom coins - I don't remember what was in this, but it didn't have a lot of flavor either. One of the few misfires.


Fire Flower: Rye and caraway tuile over chestnut puree and fresh curd. Really nice flavors on the tuile, fantastically creamy chestnut puree that worked nicely with the dairy.


Mushroom Tea (not pictured) - one of Iliana Regan's staples, perfect levels of salt and umami, and I'd be happy to have a big cup of this, it's kind of sad to get only a 2-ounce tasting portion.

Here's where there was a long pause where nothing came out for a while... but what did was amazing. Lobster (not exactly sure how this fits the Nintendo theme), poached in lobster juice, with celery and black bean. This was like the Plato's cave version of the Shrimp with Lobster Sauce I had as a kid and haven't had matched since. Perfectly cooked pieces of lobster, delicate slivers of water chestnut and celery, black beans. This was a pretty substantial dish compared to the mostly-one-bite items above.


Pumpkin: Roasted pumpkin with the slices re-cooked with pumpkin ash and pumpkin puree. Perfect.


Duck Hunt: Sliced roasted duck breast glazed with honey, topped with fried squash "flowers" and potato "butterflies", and a duck confit brioche bun. The flowers and butterflies were delightfully crispy, the duck really tasty, and the bun showed off Regan's bread skills (but didn't contain any duck meat that I could see, it may have just been made with duck fat). For a last savory course, a little more duck would have been nice, but I didn't go away hungry.


8-Beet Heart: Ruby chocolate, toasted black rice and flower petals. Very rich. Coffee in one of their signature owl mugs behind.


Sesame cake with buttercream and raspberry (the strawberry is raspberry gel), and vanilla malt which perfectly recreated childhood milkshake memories.


Mignardise: a (?) box from the Mario games contained a pair of gold-wrapped shortbreads. Sorry, forgot the picture.

After Culinary and Literary Acclaim, She's Moving to the Woods

The NY Times story linked by Matt is also carried by the Chicago Tribune, which now uses many NY Times stories: https://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/c ... story.html
For those who are blocked by both papers' paywalls, Eater has some information:
https://chicago.eater.com/2020/1/22/210 ... e-ny-times

From Eater
The Lincoln Square restaurant’s many, many fans needn’t go into full apoplectic shock: reached by email on Wednesday morning, the chef wrote that she doesn’t have a closing timeline and plans to keep the restaurant open for the next few years, describing the process as “uncertain.”

“No timeline. Won’t be closed for a while still. Maybe 2021 or 2022,” she wrote to Eater.

This is all from memory so might be a little rough, but in her book she mentions that she intends to do Milkweed for a longer run than before and could be away from the restaurant for up to 6 months and the restaurant could close during that time or could be run by her cdc. She also says that she does not want to be running a restaurant every day forever (and, I think, especially while raising a family). It sounded clear in the book that the restaurant would be closed in the next few years.

It brought an extra layer of elegy to the Star Wars menu that the cinematic saga has concluded and that we may be nearing the end of the current-phase Elizabeth in Chicago. I heard another table muse the same. The 13 galaxy-far-away-themed courses had both more Stormtrooper misses and higher Skywalking heights than others in memory. Most memorable were the porg course - truly one of the best shawarma-profile fowls I or Chewbacca have ever enjoyed - and the "quarter portion" Jakku bread course with a concha-like scored melon roll and some doubly on-the-nose X-wing cultured butter molds. The Mon Calamari chowder could have been proudly served without pun anyplace in New England. The musty (spirulina) green Yoda dessert with wobbly tapioca and earthy crunchies was hilarious as it was delicious.

It was the ramp up - Prequels, perhaps? - that didn't ascend; too many cold bites in a row with smoke as the overly repetitive dominating flavor. My mind went to Big Boss Nass unbidden at the one-note liver and onions bite (instead of Dexter Jettster, from whom one would expect a more multidimensional touch), and the cracker texture for the seafood bites was gritty, calling to mind sand - I hate sand, it's coarse and rough - or poorly shucked oysters when in fact the scallops were of course pristine. Blue milk was not to be seen, but the Cloud City confection was ephemeral with just a hint of double-dealing at its core best left unspoiled. Elizabeth, even in a week of change and without all ion engines firing, remains stellar. One could even say that, with the dark and light in balance, it rhymes.

From Elizabeth Restaurant:

In and effort to help our kitchen staff as best we can, they'll be launching a delivery and curbside service in the next few days. So, if you're local think about helping them out a bit. We're still working out the details, but we'll send an email with details soon. Menus will be announced on our Instagram.

This is a great way to support a small, local business and their employees that are undoubtedly struggling. I was a huge fan of Kitsune's carry-out ramen kits. So I'm sure that whatever they come up with will be great.

For anyone trapped in their home with $5k burning a hole in their pocket, this sounds like an exceptional way to put that fire out . . .

Host Your Event At Elizabeth

in an email, Elizabeth Restaurant wrote:At some point in the future. You know, when things are back to normal. (Or as normal as they're going to get.)

Have the restaurant to yourself for the night.

Whether it’s for a milestone birthday or anniversary, a holiday party, a bat mitzvah for a kid with a surprisingly advanced palate, or one HELL of a promposal.

$5000

Host up to 25 people at Elizabeth on a night TBD. (Once we’re back to some semblance of normality we’ll work with you to set a date, but expect fall or winter.)

10 courses + beverage pairings (wine or zero proof). Tax and service included.

Only 4 of these are available at this price.

Visit HERE to purchase

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Elizabeth is doing weekend-only carry-out dinners that seem to sell out every week. Based on my meal last night, that's for good reason.


Chilled tumeric corn soup with pickled charred corn, peppers and preserved lemon oil was my favorite savory course of the meal. So simple, so good.

When I lifted the container with the summer tomato salad, I was a little annoyed at how light it was and joked that you get a more substantial salad as pho accoutrements. Silly ignorant me. The salad of tatsoi, peeled and roasted tomatoes, fennel pollen idyll cheese and white balsamic vinegar was excellent and appropriately sized for a salad course after all.

Listed as whole wheat buttermilk biscuits, but more like rolls in biscuit shape, I was a fan of the bread, but loved the anise hyssop butter and blackberry mostarda that came with it. The pickled beets were fine, but I ate them separately and couldn't recomment putting them on the bread.

The honey brined chicken and herb dumplings with pickled cauliflower, miso butter potatoes, and tropes onions was a fantastic mix of flavors and textures. I should have saved some biscuit to sop up the extra umami-laden broth.

I'm partial to desserts so take with a grain of salt (sugar?), but the s'more brownie was the highlight of the night for me. The spiced dark chocolate brownie with a brown sugar gingersnap crust had a fantastic bite to it that paired wonderfully with the homemade marshmallow fluff and sea buckthorn berries. I forced myself to slow down so I could savor every bite of this one.

At $50 plus tax and tip for food of this quality, it's no wonder these meals keep selling out. Another plus: other than heating up the biscuits for a few minutes, no at-home work required at all to enjoy the feast. Menu changes from week to week. Price seems to stay the same but I can't vouch for the ease of at-home preparation.

I already forget the menu of last week's offering, but that's less because it wasn't memorable and more because we ate it so quickly. It was excellent and felt like a good value. The exception might have been a hearty pasta with short rib, root vegetables and mushrooms, iirc, which was still great but seemed better suited to 40 degree weather than 80 degree weather.

Vitesse98 wrote:The exception might have been a hearty pasta with short rib, root vegetables and mushrooms, iirc, which was still great but seemed better suited to 40 degree weather than 80 degree weather.

If you were a true foodie you would have adjusted your home AC to match the meal.

I particularly loved the Corn and Turmeric Soup which was one of the finest soups I have had. But I confess that it is not the same as eating in the restaurant. I miss dining at Elizabeth's so much.

at deadline.com Peter White wrote:Iliana Regan’s Burn The Place, which was described by the New York Times as “perhaps the definitive Midwest drunken-lesbian food memoir” is being adapted for television after Annapurna optioned the rights.

The company, which recently produced David Simon and Ed Burn’s HBO limited drama The Plot Against America from, is developing the book, which was published by Agate Midway in July 2019, as a series.

Annapurna Developing TV Adaptation Of Iliana Regan’s Wild Food Memoir ‘Burn The Place’

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I was a little surprised to see that this wasn't mentioned yet; maybe it's because so many people are on the restaurant email list. Elizabeth is offering some amazing deals on gift certificates right now. Just wanted to give a head's up if anyone is looking for a holiday gift.
From the website:

GIFT CERTIFICATES PLUS
Just in time for the holidays.

Purchase a gift certificate and also receive a little something extra. Give away both, keep one, whatever. We won’t tell.

$50 Gift Certificate + 1 Pastry Box (pickup date TBD)

$150 Gift Certificate + Wine Flight (1 bottle each of hand curated white, red and sparkling)

$200 Gift Certificate + Virtual Pastry Class with our Chef de Cuisine/Pastry Chef Extraordinaire, Kristi Isn’t For the whole family! (January 17th. Class: 2:00-4:00 Ingredient Pickup 10:00-noon).

$300 Gift Certificate + Takeout Subscription (5 dinners for pickup or delivery)

$400 Gift Certificate + Dinner for 2 Actually in the Restaurant (when it’s safe for us to reopen for indoor service)

$1000 Gift Certificate + Curated Dinner for 4 (5 Courses + Wine Pairings. We prepare everything, you pick up and serve in your home. Some simple reheating likely. 3 weeks’ notice required. Please understand we are unable to accommodate gluten free or vegan menus.)

Lured by the pastry box bonus, we took advantage of the gift certificate plus offer. This was a delicious assortment. The cake itself was a little dry, but as a whole, it ws a lovely dessert. We were sad there were only two gougeres. Heck, we were sad there were only 9 pieces in this box.



thumbprint cookie with cherry preserves


chocolate chip + sea salt caramel


everything spice + whipped smoked cream cheese gougeres served with dill and pickled onion


buttermilk biscuit / house preserves / cultured butter (not pictured: honeycomb)


orange + e.v.o.o. cake / candied cocoa nib / rose hip butter cream

Reopening August 4th - https://chicago.eater.com/2021/5/13/224 ... gan-august

Dave148 wrote:Reopening August 4th - https://chicago.eater.com/2021/5/13/224 ... gan-august

They're already taking reservations, still at 50% capacity (14). A bunch of college friends are coming to town, and I'd looked into taking the whole 50% one night, but it was a little rich for their blood.

Michelin-starred restaurant Elizabeth will reopen for indoor service on July 7 in Lincoln Square for the first time since the pandemic began, according to its newsletter.

https://chicago.eater.com/2021/6/9/2252 ... -grazianos

Per an email blast that just went out, Elizabeth is changing hands. It's one of my favorite restaurants and I look forward to its future.

It’s no secret that Chef Regan has been busy running Milkweed with her wife Anna, working on her second book and on her MFA.

In order to focus on all of this, Chef Regan has decided it’s time to pass the torch.

It’s staying in the family, though. Tim Lacey has taken ownership, and the kitchen will be run by Ian Jones. As many of you know, Tim and Chef Jones ran Kitsune for Chef Regan.

Tim has been with Elizabeth since Kitsune closed, but first met Chef Regan over 15 years ago when they were both working at Trio.

Chef Jones came back to the fold in February. If you’ve been in to visit since we reopened in July you’ve seen the extraordinary food coming out of the kitchen under Chef Jones and his team, and know the kitchen is in very good hands.

Rounding out the management staff, we were joined in June by George Kovach (Bearcat, Band of Bohemia, Acadia) as our Pastry Chef/Chef de Cuisine and Ali Martin (Blackbird, Mother Hubbard’s. Yes. That Mother Hubbard’s) as our Beverage Director.

We hope we’ll be able to do Chef Regan’s legacy justice, and send her a tremendous thank you for trusting us to carry the restaurant on.

Stay tuned for a personal note from Chef Regan.

(If you’ve signed up for our upcoming classes, never fear, Chef Regan and Anna are still teaching those. And probably will teach more down the road.)

And please note: the elizabethrestaurant_and_co Instagram account is now Chef Regan’s personal account. Please follow the restaurant at elizabeth.chicago.

Sounds like it's in good hands, but Chef Regan will be missed.

Had a fantastic meal here a few weeks back and the place was firing on all cylinders. My desire to eat at high end, tasting menu type joints has decreased tremendously, but Elizabeth is an exception and I could see myself going in a couple times a year.

WhyBeeSea wrote:My desire to eat at high end, tasting menu type joints has decreased tremendously, but Elizabeth is an exception and I could see myself going in a couple times a year.

Exactly this.
We've hit Michelin-starred places in Athens, Lisbon and elsewhere, and been unimpressed: there are modernist/molecular gastronomy tricks done just to show technique, not to enhance the dining experience. Even in the goofiest of Elizabeth's menus (Nintendo, for instance), the food comes first, it's always something wonderful.

If any one would care to post a review of the post-Regan era Elizabeth, it would be appreciated. One imagines that since the food was so personal, there would be some changes. Does the restaurant have the same feel, the same decor, the same style.

So I have been much delayed in posting about my most recent meal at Elizabeth. I will say I think the restaurant is in good hands with the new team.

First some comments about the overall hospitality. Back in 2020, I purchased a $50 gift card. I realized, much too late, that it had a year expiration date. My wife and I planned to go for our anniversary this year, and when I emailed about the gift card they were extremely gracious and let us use it. Additionally, as I have mentioned before, Elizabeth is one of the most accommodating tasting menu type restaurants to vegetarians (they were able to do veg for me and omnivore for my wife). Then, we contracted mild covid a week before our tickets and they were very gracious in letting us move our reservation. At dinner they both remembered the anniversary (both verbally and with a card at the end) and asked how we were feeling. Top notch.

The food continues to be outstanding, with some gorgeous baked goods still and some very well composed opening bites. The menu was quite refined and had a bit of an Asian influence. I will say there was one very odd course, with a sandwich (bologna for her, grilled cheese for me) served in a classic lunch box that felt very out of step with the rest of the meal. That misstep aside (my wife pointed out that it felt like they were trying something out from a different menu), it was a memorable way to spend our tenth anniversary.