The Reader’s fall preview: Food & Drink
The Sixth brings quality cocktails to Lincoln Square— finally a LATE FALL Lincoln Square’s dearth of quality cocktails will come to an end sometime in the late fall, when the Fifty/50 Group and crack barkeep Benjamin Schiller open the Sixth, a bar adjacent to a second iteration of their Quad Cities- style pizza joint Roots. Schiller promises seven to nine house cocktails at $10-$12 apiece and a deep American whiskey collection with a special focus on bottles from defunct distilleries. “I’ve noticed a sort of ‘Aw shucks—we’re just a shot-and-a-beer joint’ approach in bartending of late,” he says. “Many bartenders have grown tired of being lumped in with the easy-to-make-fun-of ‘mixologist’ archetype that’s out there, so I think they’ve stopped trying to push forward in a lot of ways. Not us. We’re going forward as hard as we can.” What’s to eat to soak up all that booze? Doner kebabs and frites. On a trip to Paris four years ago Schiller was treated to his first taste of the ubiquitous late-night Turkish-European street food. “I ate my entire order before the rest of the guys finished putting theirs in,” he says. “Been hooked since.”
— MIKE SULA 2200W. Lawrence, thesixthbar.com
Stephanie Izard tries Chinese at Duck Duck Goat a DECEMBER
Celebrity chef Stephanie Izard will try her hand at Chinese at her Boka group collaboration Duck Duck Goat, slated to open in November in the West Loop. For Izard it’s home cooking, conjuring early aromatic memories of making moo shu pork with her late mother. Brave ingredients and bold flavors have been Izard’s calling card at Girl & the Goat and Little Goat, and her sense of culinary adventure fits the cuisine. She’s done her research by exploring the kitchens of mainland China, and a more recent trip to Taiwan with her staff solidified one fun restaurant feature: a take-out window, through which Izard will serve street foods like dumplings, noodles, and fried chicken. Other menu items, sampled earlier this summer at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic, include fried rice, Chinese spare ribs, and a grilled whole fish, according to the Aspen Times. Izard told Travel + Leisure that Chicagoans aren’t quite ready for off-the-wall items like stinky tofu or pig’s blood cake, but then again, back in the summer of 2010, who could’ve imagined we’d be happily ordering pig face? — MARISSA OBERLANDER