Chicago Gourmet at Millennium Park
Emily Withrow |
A hungry man objects to the empty buffet.
The evening started off as expected: a fine night, a lovely location, and well-dressed people milling about with champagne in anticipation of delicious food and wine. It was, after all, the kickoff for Chicago Gourmet, a food-and-wine festival designed to ground the city on the culinary map. But as the mayor's photo shoot drew to a close and the crowd wandered into the festooned tent for dinner, things went awry.
Everyone soon realized that the $250 ticket didn't buy much in the way of dinner. They grew greedy and mean with hunger and, increasingly, drunkenness. (An open bar featuring a couple of ho-hum wines helped the crowd out.) The food stations, where small plates or single bites were available from the festival's foreign-based chefs, often ran out of food, causing long lines and paranoia about pecking order. (One woman told me, "Excuse me, the line's back here;" another angrily muttered, "What the fuck?" when someone cut through a line to access a different table.) Groups hovered by the draped-fabric doorways designed to hide the food-prep area, waiting. Nervous servers would emerge with small trays of appetizers, only to be immediately picked dry by a flock of hungry guests. Servers with tongs and empty trays shrugged and tried to laugh off disappointed visitors to their tables. And the food (when it was available) was pretty lackluster, considering $250 will buy you a tasting menu and wine at Alinea or Trotter's.
Day one of the festival, though, gave way to a happier demeanor, largely thanks to a brand new (and much bigger) crowd and a sun-drenched Millennium Park that distracted from the once-again long lines stretching far into the grass. All the food was good, all 20-odd bites of it. One trip around the park took about an hour and provided an array of tastes from Chicago chefs and sponsors, with the surprise standout being Fox & Obel for its generosity. (They provided a huge spread of olives, cheeses, and bruschetta.)
The festival's real bright spots were the seminars, offering a more intimate setting with chefs and experts for an additional fee. Goose Island brewmaster Greg Hall led a tasty seminar on pairing his brews with cheese. Both are foods born from fermentation, and he argued that beer does a better job than wine because its alcohol, carbon dioxide, and bitterness cuts through the fat. He advises a complimentary-or-contrast method to pairing: Match his Harvest Ale (heavy on hops with a caramel-type flavor) with a firm, grainy cheese like a Gruyere, and it brings out the nuttiness of both. India Pale Ale, which Hall said is tough to pair with any food because its strength tends to overpower everything, found a good contender in blue cheese. His class was the most satisfying event of the day, outshining the slow grazing of the rest of Gourmet with plenty of instruction, anecdotes, and damn fine cheese and beer. For next year, maybe skip the big-ticket items and head instead to the smaller stages. Or just check out any of the other classes going on around town -- they're cheaper and happen year-round.
