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Topolobampo/Frontera Grill
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It's easy to underestimate and dismiss whole categories of food. Until the early seventies, Chinese food in America meant the cooking of Canton, dumbed down to the point where it wouldn't challenge anyone's taste. It included dishes like chop suey, which would have been completely foreign to anyone living in Canton. As we all discovered, China has different regions with different cuisines, all of them capable of producing dishes of great flavor and subtlety. Somehow, very few people have made the corresponding and equally true discovery about Mexico. And there are still many people who live here in Chicago who don't realize that perhaps the best two Mexican restaurants in North American are in the same building just north of the Loop: Frontera Grill and Topolobampo. Both of these places are under the direction of celebrity chef Rick Bayless, although he has placed them under the day-to-day guidance of other chefs while he continues his mission to spread the truth about Mexican food on TV and through books and prepared foods under the Frontera label. Actually, there are enough people who know the truth about Chef Bayless so that reservations on weekends can be tough to come by, but not enough so that Taco-Bell-type Mexican food has died out. Frontera Grill is the "casual" dining spot of the two (where casual should not be taken to mean slipshod or unimaginative) and Topolobampo the more refined and upscale of the two. You can go to Frontera Grill as part of an evening's activities, but Topolobampo should be your evening's activity, and time should be spent in savoring the food. In effect, this can mean going during the week, when the hectic pace of the weekend slows to something more leisurely. How do the two differ? An example: both restaurants serve duck breast. In Frontera Grill, it's grilled simply and served with an ancho chile sauce, a salsa and some chile-enhanced mashed potatoes. In Topolobampo, it's roasted and served in a complex sauce of mushrooms, chiles and garlic. And if the rice is plain on the side, the pea-shoot salad sets off and ties together all the flavors. One thing that Topolobampo has and Frontera Grill does not: a five-course chef's tasting menu that will introduce you to more dishes than you could otherwise try and that presents a well-thought-out progression of flavors and textures. With wines chosen to match each course. When you're ready to move your Mexican tastes past the point of picking which number combination plate you feel like having, you owe your tastebuds a trip to Frontera Grill and Topolobampo. Chef Bayless believes in cooking according to what is fresh that season, and also according. Topolobampo/Frontera Grill | |
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