Osteria via Stato, Bistro Zinc, Fox & Obel

I spent this last weekend in Chicago. As a non-food aside, I went to check in at the Whitehall, only to be told I had been shifted to the Ambassador East. Now, I've stayed at the AE before, but I didn't think my sis would like it. And I didn't like that the Whitehall hadn't e-mailed me ahead of time. But when I checked in at the AE, I found that I was staying in a suite, with a living room, a dining room, and a small, nearly extinct kitchen! More than perfect.

On to food. We had lunch at Osteria via Stato. While the food was servicable, and the wait staff excellent, I wasn't totally wowed about the food. But the overall experience was good, if that makes any sense. We had the prix fixe lunch -- house cured olives (nice!), marinated vegetables (ok -- but I'm not a raw veg person), veal meatballs (very nice, very moist, in a nice red sauce), and lovely lovely onion slices that had been drizzled with a fennel-infused cream (couldn't taste the fennel, however) and topped with parmesan cheese, and then broiled. Sublime. Tasted like a slice of onion soup.

For our main event, I had the penne with chicken and mozzarella cheese in a tomato cream sauce. Very nice, but sadly I'd chowed down on too many antipasto to thoroughly enjoy the pasta. My sis had the pappardelle in a meat ragu. Very tasty, very hearty.

As we started to leave, our server told us to stay -- she was bringing us something. It turned out to be a dark chocolate bar that she broke into pieces, with a little dish of sugared almonds and candied orange peel. Divine! Sublime!

Next morning, we decided to go to F&O for breakfast. We're in a bit of a rut. We both had pancakes and some breakfast sausages. Well, the prices were actually higher than room service at the AE (!), and sadly, while I used to love the pancakes, they have been tough the last 2 times I had them. F&O is off my list for breakfast.

On our way back to the AE, we passed Bistro Zinc. They were open for brunch. Damn! But not to worry, we had lunch there! Sis had onion soup, that was perfect -- dark, rich onion broth, bubbling, tender cheese on top, with a nice amount of bread. Then our entrees -- Sis had the curry chicken salad, which was very good. Flavors were well-balanced, and included not only nice chunks of chicken, but also purple grapes. Despite having breakfast only a few hours earlier, it was GONE! I had the goat cheese salad with shaved roasted pears and toasted hazelnuts. The salad had a sherry-vinegar dressing -- a little overdressed for my taste, but the combination of the roasted pear, greens, and goat cheese was very tasty.

We've found a new rut for breakfast!

Sounds like a fun weekend. I must say, the two onion dishes -- the sliced onions at Stato and the onion soup at Zinc, both made me want to jump in the car and head right downtown. But maybe I'll wait for the weekend.

Nice post to read. I had always enjoyed Zinc in its Southport days. I had heard that some kind of business split occurred and that the present Zinc was under different ownership than the orig. Was wondering how it was these days. I used to really love their roast chicken "grandmere" I think it was called. As well as their various apps.

I've had one meal (dinner) at the Osteria and though many have carped about various aspects, it was a very good meal. I sent a note after with a polite, deferential complaint about an aspect of the wine service which resulted in a lovely conversation with the then wine director (she has since moved on) and an invite to attend staff wine training if it interested me.