The Local

We've gone into such detail on this restaurant not because we believe it to be uncommonly deceptive, but because we suspect that this kind of crying "local" for everything that has even the most tenuous connection to a locavore approach is all too common. If the Hilton wants to have a very conventional comfort food restaurant, at jacked-up tourist prices, in this particular hotel, they can do so and we're not going to lose sleep wishing for something better there. But it's wrong to open such a place and then give people the impression that it's doing the same things as other restaurants and other chefs who work harder to be genuinely local, and support farmers with better environmental and humane treatment practices, and make less money because of their commitment to it. And even if we could forgive some out-of-towners for this a little, this concept comes from the team behind a local steakhouse which we had respected as a serious place— and who surely know what local means in Chicago.

mgmcewen wrote:http://chicago.grubstreet.com/2012/12/the-local-chicago-greenwashing.html

We've gone into such detail on this restaurant not because we believe it to be uncommonly deceptive, but because we suspect that this kind of crying "local" for everything that has even the most tenuous connection to a locavore approach is all too common. If the Hilton wants to have a very conventional comfort food restaurant, at jacked-up tourist prices, in this particular hotel, they can do so and we're not going to lose sleep wishing for something better there. But it's wrong to open such a place and then give people the impression that it's doing the same things as other restaurants and other chefs who work harder to be genuinely local, and support farmers with better environmental and humane treatment practices, and make less money because of their commitment to it. And even if we could forgive some out-of-towners for this a little, this concept comes from the team behind a local steakhouse which we had respected as a serious place— and who surely know what local means in Chicago.

This particularly irks me because I know so many chefs are working hard, putting in extra labor, to source from good Midwestern farms. But the real food movement sort of shoot itself in the foot with excessive emphasis on the word "local." I first realized that was a mistake when I was at UIUC and part of a student group that was trying to get food from local sustainable farms in the dining halls. Next semester the dining hall menu has a section on local suppliers...most of them in the vein of Kraft. Yep, technically local.

NFriday wrote:Hi- I read the article, and boy, I do not know how Chilean asparagus can be considered local. When I looked at the comments though, I ran across a link to a restaurant at 1467 W. Irving Park Road, which is called City Farms Market and Grill. It's website claims to specialize in local and healthy food. They also have asparagus on the menu, and the majority of the items on their menu are not healthy. Here is their phone number 773-88FARMS Has anybody been to this place? I couldn't find any mention of the place here. This is the website.

http://www.cityfarmsgrill.com/

Thanks, Nancy