Chicago's Classic Restaurants: Past, Present and Future - Softcover

Neal Samors; Eric Bronsky

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0985273313 ISBN 13: 9780985273316

Publisher: Chicago's Books Press, 2011

Synopsis

This book explores Chicago's classic restaurants from pre-1900 until the present including classics like Henrici's, Fritzels, Shangri-La, The Bakery, Le Perroquet, The Berghoff, The Pump Room, The Cape Cod Room, and The Walnut Room among many others. Then, post-1970, Richard Melman and Lawrence Levy introduced a new type of fun restaurant atmosphere in Chicago restaurants that ranged from RJ Grunts, DB Kaplan, and Fritz That's It to Lawrence of Oregano. then there were the more upscale, traditional classic restaurants that included Ambria and Le Francais which preceded Everest, Tru, Trio and Spiaggia. Chicago has traveled a long road to achieve its status with world-class restaurants that have included Charlie Trotter's, Rick Bayless' Frontera Grill, Scott Harris' Francesca restaurants, Boka, Perennial, Girl and the Goat, Blackbird, Avec, and Grant Achatz' Alinea and Next.

About this title

About the Author:

Neal Samors, a Chicago native, has authored, co-authored and/or published twenty books about Chicago neighborhoods, downtown, Michigan Avenue, Lake Shore Drive, and the decades as well as memories of life in the city. His books have won three Independent Publisher and several Illinois State Historical Society awards. Eric Bronsky is a freelance writer, historian, photographer and transit enthusiast who began his career as an architectural model builder. He has co-authored several books with Neal Samors and shared in two Independent Publisher awards.

Review:

Equal parts history, love letter, and coffee-table scrapbook, Chicago's Classic Restaurants: Past, Present and Future by Neal Samors and Eric Bronsky, with Bob Dauber (Chicago's Books Press), enthusiastically rewinds to an era when dining out was a larger-than-life event. The authors (with an assist from Chicago Magazine's dining editor, Penny Pollack, who wrote the foreword) have amassed an irresistible document. Nostalgic photos and first-person accounts from restaurateurs and civilians alike flit from the surreal ice show in the Steven's Hotel's Boulevard Room to a stretch of the Loop home to so many modest lunchrooms it was called Toothpick Row. The book unearths some choice details, like the tactful Depression-era note on J.H. Ireland's Oyster House menu: Please cooperate in using only one pat of butter. The authors' approach works better in some cases (allotting ten pages for Rich Melman's clear-eyed memories) than others. But, if you're fascinated by history as told through supper clubs and tiki lounges, this volume is right up your alley --Jeff Ruby, Chicago Magazine, January, 2012

What's a classic Chicago restaurant? Totally subjective, but Penny Pollack makes a good argument in the introduction to Chicago's Classic Restaurants: Past, Present and Future. The Chicago mag food editor's plaint is consistency and the diner's ability to let her hair down and order a reliable chicken Vesuvio. By that definition, I'd say it's a bit too soon to classify the ever seasonal Blackbird or relative newbie Girl and the Goat as classic in this contemporary oral history by Neal Samors and Eric Bronsky, but they aren's unwelcome inclusions, if only for the unvarnished accounting from the likes of Paul Kahan, Kevin Boehm, and Rob Katz about their origins in the business. Add to that more veteran voices like Rich Melman (who deserves a book of his own), Jean Joho, Lawrence Levy, Rick Bayless, and Gordon Sinclair, and you have a pretty representative accounting of the last 40 years of Chicago restaurant history. And that's just in the chapter on 1970 to the present. But, you already know plenty about those guys? Right? Remember Henrici's? Ireland's Oyster House? Hoe Sai Gai? Thought not. Samors, whose Chicago Books Press published the Vienna Beef valentine Never Put Ketchup On A Hot Dog, has produced a book illustrated with photos, menus, and postcards that starts before the John Drury era and covers spots as ignoble as the M. Jungblat Coffee Shop to those as celebrated as the pre-Schrager Pump Room. At 208 pages, with more than 200 photos, it should contain at least a few classics you'll be able to agree with. --Mike Sula, Chicago Reader, December 17, 2011

About this edition

• Publisher: Chicago's Books Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0985273313
• ISBN 13: 9780985273316
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208
• Editor: Jennifer Ebeling