We were at K&K Saturday night prior to Steppenwolf - We had two of the spreadable appetizers, the ham and the chicken livers (both quite good), followed by the papparadelle with mushrooms (very nice) and the fried chicken thighs (a bit overcooked).

I have a reservation for tonight. It'll be my first visit, and it's supposed to be a mildly celebratory meal. That said, I was wondering about possible back-up places in the area. I understand that K&K can be noisy; it may end up being sensory overload for my companion. She insists that we still try it out, but where can we go nearby for drinks and solid food that might be just a smidgen tamer on a Friday night if we need to leave K&K? I don't know the neighborhood at all. We won't have a car, but a very short cab ride might be OK (just don't want to make a big production if we do need to change locations).

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Sharon

Webster Wine Bar and Sweets & Savories are both fairly close by.

John's Place is right down the street--should be very quiet--food is fine though hardly noteworthy. If sushi is an option, Macku is nearby as well (Clyborn just north of Webster) although sure to be fairly busy on a Friday night. I haven't been in many years but Cafe Bernard was always a reliable, quiet spot--Halsted & Dickens.

happy_stomach wrote:I have a reservation for tonight. It'll be my first visit, and it's supposed to be a mildly celebratory meal. That said, I was wondering about possible back-up places in the area. I understand that K&K can be noisy; it may end up being sensory overload for my companion. She insists that we still try it out, but where can we go nearby for drinks and solid food that might be just a smidgen tamer on a Friday night if we need to leave K&K? I don't know the neighborhood at all. We won't have a car, but a very short cab ride might be OK (just don't want to make a big production if we do need to change locations).

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Sharon

Sharon, you'll find that the upstairs area of K&K is significantly dialed-down with less chairs, space and people -- and so perhaps more appropriate for your sedate celebration ( ).

jesteinf wrote:Webster Wine Bar and Sweets & Savories are both fairly close by.

Ah, thanks for these ideas. Now I know where I am. I like Webster's a lot. Sweets & Savories may be a little too sedate.

boudreaulicious wrote:John's Place is right down the street--should be very quiet--food is fine though hardly noteworthy. If sushi is an option, Macku is nearby as well (Clyborn just north of Webster) although sure to be fairly busy on a Friday night. I haven't been in many years but Cafe Bernard was always a reliable, quiet spot--Halsted & Dickens.

These are also helpful ideas. My friend is vegetarian, so we'll probably skip Macku.

David Hammond wrote:Sharon, you'll find that the upstairs area of K&K is significantly dialed-down with less chairs, space and people -- and so perhaps more appropriate for your sedate celebration ( ).

This is good to know. I can't remember reading anything about an upstairs, so I'll know now to ask about seating up there if downstairs seems too much.

happy_stomach wrote:This is good to know. I can't remember reading anything about an upstairs, so I'll know now to ask about seating up there if downstairs seems too much.

The upstairs is more of just a mezzanine at the back of the restaurant overlooking the main dining room. It doesn't seat that many people. I would recommend calling ahead and requesting a table up there.

eatchicago wrote:

happy_stomach wrote:This is good to know. I can't remember reading anything about an upstairs, so I'll know now to ask about seating up there if downstairs seems too much.

The upstairs is more of just a mezzanine at the back of the restaurant overlooking the main dining room. It doesn't seat that many people. I would recommend calling ahead and requesting a table up there.

Ah. I just called and asked. They said they couldn't promise us a table up there, but they said they'd try. Thanks.

My friend and I ended up having a nice evening at K&K. The place was pretty empty when we arrived (at 7:00, post storm #1). Per David Hammond and eatchicago's suggestions, I requested a table in the raised back room, but upon scanning the space decided that the rear of the restaurant was too isolated for our purposes--we didn't need anything private or romantic, just quiet enough to have conversation. We ended up asking for and getting one of the two two-tops on the balcony between the main dining floor and the back room, which was great except we had a waiter who seemed to have no other tables to which to tend and who hovered. (For example, he asked us four times if we were ready to order before we had even touched the menus. Granted, it took us almost an hour after we sat down for my friend and I to stop talking and turn our attention to ordering, but, in general, through the course of the evening, our waiter seemed to have a hard time reading our table).

We started with cocktails. Kind of irritated with our waiter already, it didn't help that, rather than first asking us if we had any questions about the cocktail menu, he proceeded to give us a Cocktail 101 talk. It was probably because I just wanted him to go away, but I somewhat resented the fact that he needed to explain what a Pisco Sour and Caipirinha were (even if we didn't already know the ingredients, everything was listed on the menu that we were reading at that moment). Again, I think if the waiter had made even a modest attempt to gauge our interests and knowledge, the interaction would have been very different and less grating. I suppose I could have been happy for him that he had just learned what a Pisco Sour was that day, which he admitted, but, in the moment....I wasn't. We ended up with a Sazerac and French 75, which were competent.

Food was OK to good. We ate vegetarian, so we sampled a very small portion of the menu. I wished the eggplant purée had more of a roasted eggplant dimension--it was fairly generic though I enjoyed the inclusion of golden raisins. The cucumber salad with strawberries, chévre and basil was far, far too acidic--neither me nor my friend could eat very much of it. The bibb lettuce salad with Cabernet vinaigrette left much to be desired visually--looked like heap of just-washed lettuce--but it was actually outstanding. The vinaigrette was very well-balanced. My friend swooned over the tagliatelle with pea broth, radish sprouts, shaved radishes and mint. I thought the radish sprouts were used in excess and awkward to eat, but this was a gorgeous dish.

For dessert, we had the panna cotta with rhubarb and financier with pickled blackberries. The former was served too cold and maybe as a result felt somehow too gelatinous. I'm a financier snob; K&K's rendition was very dry. Neither dessert was terrible, but I can think of a handful of restaurants that turn out similar desserts at a much, much higher level (e.g. Mado, Terra Gusto). Had there not been a storm, I would have insisted on a dessert kudho post-K&K.

I wouldn't return to K&K immediately, but overall it was pleasant. It was much more reserved than I thought. I guess I came with the misconception that this was more of a gastro-pub, but it just seemed like a restaurant to which DePaul students might take their visiting parents (which is how most of the crowd looked last night). We forgave all service issues at the end of the evening after one of the hosts very valiantly hailed us a cab at the height of storm #2.

(A quibble-aside: the ladies restroom at K&K was very bizarre. Nothing about it seemed unusual at first, but construction was pretty shoddy--mainly in the measurement of the stalls, with a door that barely cleared the toilet. I had to change clothes before dinner due to a very foolish decision to dance in the rainstorm before heading to the restaurant. Changing was somewhat perilous in that restroom.)

Wait, did you just write that you took an hour chatting before you even ordered? What a bold parenthetical. No wonder the waiter asked if you were ready four times. I have a hunch he was maybe as irritated as you were.

Vitesse98 wrote:I have a hunch he was maybe as irritated as you were.

Why should he be? My impression from H_S's post, and the fact there were two intense storms that evening, K & K was slow. What is the possible difference at 7pm, hours before they close on a slow night, if two friends want to chat before ordering their meal.

Enjoy,
Gary

Nothing wrong with taking your time at all! But even on a slow night, I'm not sure how a waiter was supposed to respond to two folks just hanging out other than asking if they were ready to order once every 15 minutes. It's not like the waiter rushed them even if H_S felt a little rushed. Anyway, no one got hurt. I'm excited to try this place.

I've been thinking about trying the $25 chef's choice three courses.

We went to Kith & Kin for the first time last night. We really, really enjoyed it. Perhaps our taste-buds are still recalibrating from several days in Disney World, but we came away way more impressed than either of us expected.

We started with a crock of the egg and olive salad. The egg salad was good enough on its own, but the diced olives provided a nice bit of saltiness and an added textural component that elevated the dish.

Next we had an heirloom tomato salad with "curds and whey" and a beet salad with cured arctic char. While both dishes were good, I thought the beet salad was the better of the two dishes. The char looked almost like yellow beets resting alongside some red beets and creme fraiche. This was another dish where tastes and textures played really nicely off of each other. The tomatoes in the salad were plump, sweet, and juicy and went nicely with the "curds and whey" (not sure what these were exactly, they looked and tasted sort of like semi-hardened cheese curds).

Main courses were scallops and grilled flank steak. The two good sized scallops were cooked perfectly (nice sear on the outside, rare on the inside) and were served with egg, diced tomato, creme fraiche and a gazpacho-like sauce. Grilled flank steak was cooked medium rare, served over rapini, and topped with anchovy butter. Again, both dishes were good but I liked the flank steak better. The anchovy butter really added an interesting element to the dish (wonderfully complimenting the steak), and I'm generally a sucker for rapini in any context.

Dessert was sort of a no frills cheesecake with sliced fresh plums on top. It was a simple and delicious way to end the meal.

Maybe it was just what we ordered, but we thought that everything we ate was made better by the fact that the main ingredients were really allowed to shine and weren't interfered with by any elaborate sauces or any other kinds of kitchen trickery. Tomatoes, beets, char, scallops, and steak were all allowed to really speak for themselves, only to be complimented (and not overshadowed) by other elements on the plate.

Service was extremely friendly and warm. The Manhattan that I had with dinner was good, and packed quite a punch.

With Kith & Kin so close, we will definitely be making many return visits.

ETA - Reading back the prior posts, I would say that Kith & Kin has evolved quite a bit from when it first opened. I don't feel like I went to the same restaurant that some of the earlier posters described.

We enjoyed our meal here a few weeks back, but weren't blown away. The small plates were highlights - the pate! the tomatoes! - but the entrees nothing spectacular, if solid (save the scallops, which no one at the table liked). The service, however, was some of the best I've had in Chicago, with our waiter truly knowledgeable about wine/drinks and food alike. We actually wanted to like our meal a lot more than we did, and in the end we decided we wouldn't be back before we'd hit a few other spots on our to-try list.

Effective immediately, Chef de Cuisine Andrew Brochu has been bumped up to executive chef at Kith & Kin, relieving David Carrier of his duties.
.....

"Carrier said that Taleb said he was relieving Carrier of his duties because he didn't make changes to the menu six months ago when Taleb requested them and that Carrier yelled at some of the staff. Carrier says that Taleb had requested price increases and a removal of lower-margin items like the sandwiches including the savory doughnut-like grouper cheek."

Link

SSDD

Michael Nagrant has an excellent piece looking at this. Unfortunately it suggests little future for a promising restaurant:

http://www.hungrymag.com/2010/09/12/the ... -break-up/

I don't know about that, since: (1) the grouper cheek sandwich was an odd, unwieldy concoction; and, (2) Andrew Brochu is a damn fine cook.

What's unpromising is if guys whose main culinary experience was Zig Zag are going to be micromanaging the kitchen and menu, as all this suggests.

Mike G wrote:What's unpromising is if guys whose main culinary experience was Zig Zag are going to be micromanaging the kitchen and menu, as all this suggests.

Exactly. Carrier is no slouch. He owned a fine-dining restaurant in Appalachicola, FL prior to K&K. As such, the best-kept secret about that place was its gulf seafood, given Carrier's connections to suppliers down there (not to mention his experience in cooking Southern food). I liked K&K - as Josh's post suggests, this was a restaurant that was steadily gaining its footing, and refining itself. During my last visit there with a group, we sampled almost everything, and had a fantastic meal. I'm sorry to see Carrier go.

If Brochu's in charge, then this is a personnel bump and kind of unpleasantly done, but survivable. If he suddenly finds a reason to pursue other interests in the next couple of months, then Kith & Kin is probably over.

one great thing about david was that he made me feel at home every time i was there. even last week when our meal came out slow he came to the table and explained the situation in the kitchen. rarely have i felt as comfortable at a restaurant as i did at kith when david was there. KEEP DAVID IN CHICAGO PLEASE!

Mike G wrote:Michael Nagrant has an excellent piece looking at this. Unfortunately it suggests little future for a promising restaurant:

http://www.hungrymag.com/2010/09/12/the ... -break-up/

The issue that concerns me from this article is the trend of short sighted business types to exploit a talented chef's skills to build reputation and reviews, and then to dump said chef for reasons of pure greed and ego.

I agree that the situation at Pensiero was exactly this motivation, even if we never hear it confirmed.

I suggest that we "foodies" of the world owe it to chefs to recognize when these events occur, and penalize the greedy owners who exploit these folks by withholding our business.

Even though I respect Carrier's successor, Andrew Brochu, I will not patronize Kith and Kin, nor will I give my business to any of the Taleb's restaurants. And I won't patronize Lockwood, after the unions engineered the firing of Phillip Foss.

And yes, I know that the only evidence I have is "suspicion." I know that I am not privy to the inside dealings. But this termination smells very bad, and certainly fits the paradigm that the author of the Hungry Magazine article posits.

I think it's somewhat less dark and stark than that, though still far from encouraging.

It sounds like the Talebs always had plans for two restaurants, which is why they brought in two expensive chefs. Eventually one would move over there (Table is the future place's name) and the other would run Kith & Kin. But Table has taken longer to open than they wanted, and in this economy, Kith & Kin has done all right but not been the money machine they hoped, perhaps.

Add in whatever personal issues and the result was that the Talebs appear to have panicked and made some bad choices-- push for higher-margin food (which might well depress business in a neighborhood place even if it spiked margins), then fire one of the chefs in a clumsy, classless manner when they resisted. Still, maybe Brochu will do fine with K&K solo, or maybe he'll leave and it will suddenly have $28 grilled tilapia specials. That's what to watch for, I think.

As for eating in Hiltons, Foss was pretty much the only reason I ever would have done that in the first place, so there, a boycott (aka lack of interest) makes sense.

Has anyone been to Kith & Kin since the shake-up? Has the quality of food changed?

I haven't been back there, and will probably won't rush back as things at KnK seem to be in flux.

In addition to Carrier leaving, I noticed on Feast that other KnK kitchen mainstays who were recruited by David Carrier have also left, and two of them have opened a foodie oriented hot dog stand in Lincoln Park (as reported by Feast).

Among all the specialty hot dog spots to hit Chicago, Lincoln Park newbie, Derek's Dogs and Deli (711 W. Armitage Ave.) could easily be overlooked as another quick-serve. But the new project comes by way of Kith & Kin alum, Derek Crumpton and his co-pilot Matt Lair, who followed former executive chef David Carrier from his former post in Florida at Avenue Sea. Crumpton was approached by proprietors Al and Merri Baldermann to spearhead the project, which keeps a straightfoward menu of traditional sandwiches and hot dogs made in-house, with a few Southern touches such as pulled pork sandwiches, Southern chili dogs, and The Cajun, featuring andouille with red beans and rice. Crumpton says the restaurant is still in start-up mode and will soon introduce a number of daily specialty items. [The Feast]

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/feast/Crumpto ... z13a5JNooK

Went to Kith & Kin this past Saturday for my future sister-in-law's birthday. Drinks were well done, food was tasty...a few misses, but an enjoyable dinner nonetheless.

Hushpuppies, Sauce Remoulade

I haven't had a hushpuppie since the days my dad would take us to Long John Silver's on Touhy. These were, obviously, much better.

Bar Harbor Mussels, Spiced Broth, Candied Shrimp, Ciabatta

Mussels have been letting me down lately. The Publican's were ok, Bistronomic's were awful...but these? These were fantastic. Juicy, great tasting broth...Just great.

Buttermilk Biscuits, Honey Butter


Rabbit Stew, Knob Onions, Charred Tops, Pickled Cipollinis, Ciabatta


Grilled Strube Ranch Wagyu Ribeye, Mushroom Ketchup, Bleu Cheese Butter

Another standout. Delicious and tender.

Buttermilk Fried Chicken Thighs, Anson Mills Dirty Rice, Hot Sauce, Oregano


Blackened Tiger Shrimp, Anson Mills Grits, Smoked Cheddar, Scallions

Really good, and they packed quite the kick.

Steamed Grouper, Deviled Scallop Ragout, Meyer Lemon Puree



Argh. Of course this would be the entree I chose. Very bland, and yet somehow, heavy on dill? This was upsetting.

Chilled Peanut Butter Pie, Pretzel Crust, whipped cream, chocolate sauce

You know...it's dessert. No more, no less.

These pictures are incredible. Nice work. They alone make me want to go.

I think they are closed for business...it says so on their facebook page and their website is down.

Just read this as well. I am pretty stunned.

http://chicago.grubstreet.com/2011/05/k ... _clos.html?