TAB LE
50 CHICAGO | SEPTEMBER 2019 Photography by JEFF MARINI
A whiplash-inducing surprise taints an otherwise brilliant
meal at Acadia. By JEFF RUBY
Dramatic Turn
REVIEW
Allium butter
with brioche
I
’VE BEEN SPOTTED AS A DIN-
ing critic before. Usually, it
launches an unspoken
game, the rules of which
have been passed down through genera-
tions. No one says a thing. No comps, no
bribes, no hovering. The restaurant
sends its best server, someone gregari-
ous but appropriate. We both try to do
our jobs the best we can. During a 2016
meal at Grace, Curtis Duffy referred to
me by the fake name under which I’d
made my reservation, when we both
knew damn well I was not Danny
Lewison. That’s how you play the game.
But what happens when one side
decides to thumb its nose at the game to
such an absurd degree that it becomes
all but impossible for the other side to
do its job? That was the question I faced
on a recent Sunday night at Acadia, Ryan
McCaskey’s South Loop stalwart.
Acadia was a place I’d been eager to
finally visit. After seven years, it has
retained its two Michelin stars, and yet
it struck me as underrated — perhaps due
to its location far from the heart of the
restaurant scene. It’s versatile enough
to please the cheeseburger demographic
(who congregate in the bar), formal
enough for business dinners and couples
enjoying an elegant night out.
What’s more, McCaskey seemed to be
having a moment: He’d recently opened
a second spot, Acadia House Provisions,
in Stonington, Maine. And I’d heard that
his cooking at Acadia had settled into an
appealing groove. (For those unfamil-
iar with the chef’s story: McCaskey was
born in Vietnam, abandoned as a baby,
then evacuated from war-torn Saigon in
1975 and adopted by a couple in Chicago’s
northwest suburbs.)
The meal started like so many others:
with my presumably anonymous entry
into a crowded restaurant that felt alive
a nd f u l l of prom ise. T he d in ing room siz-
zled with conversation and bustled with
staffers cooking slices of A5 Miyazaki
wagyu beef tableside on steaming-hot
slabs of black stone.
As dinner got underway, it became
clear that Acadia’s 10-course, $185