Entries associated with the tag "Park 52":

Featured dissections in Food & Drink this week are on the terrific Mado, Veerasway, and Mixteco Grill--but don't miss the 15 other brand-new restaurant reviews.

For the most part we were impressed. Me, I think the casual amiability of Trattoria Pizzeria I Monelli and the superfresh Pho Xua (where I had the meat-filled betel leaves pictured) balanced the bad karma dumped on the universe by the wretched Paddy O'Splaine's and the checkered past of Chicago's Home of Chicken and Waffles. Hammond's arduous journey to Park 52 was rewarded by greatness at Mixteco Grill and exceeded expectations at Wrigleyville's Purgatory Pizza. Martha Bayne declared Great Lake another great pizzeria, and OK'd the south in her mouth at Big Jones. Irma Nuñez handed in the most informed review of Shochu ever, and Anne Spiselman sussed out some promising Middle Eastern items at Devon Avenue's Habibi.

See also Chocolate Grape, Couture Crepe Cafe, Shinobu, Skewerz, and Trattoria Isabella.

And coming soon: new reviews for Avenues with Curtis Duffy at the helm, Zed 451, and Jack Rabbit. 

Populist Jerry Kleiner's long-awaited answer to the void in Hyde Park's mid-range dining options is admirable—the crowd on my Saturday-night visit to this manifestation of his lurid red-velvet vision of urbanity was integrated to a degree I'm not sure exists anywhere else in town. But while the "classic American" dishes may seem attractive, larded with enough trendy ingredients and nods toward seasonality to set the casual diner's mind at ease, in execution many of those I tasted were middling: crayfish ragout failed to ignite glazed salmon, overroasted roasted halibut filet fused prosaically with its pureed cauliflower, a Spanish chorizo stuffing emphasized the dryness of a roasted chicken. These dull dishes set a tone that now makes it difficult to recall the better things I tried—lamb brochettes with black quinoa were an appealing curiosity, and a superfresh fried calamari salad was simple and well done. Our waiter steered us toward a perfectly good and affordable malbec. He'd had nearly a year to get intimate with the wine list, broken into “sexy reds” and “sexy whites"--whatever that means. That's about how long it took for the liquor license to come through, he said, though the private upper perch, which requires a separate license, was still closed. Is the otherwise swift and efficient bureaucratic process haunted by the ghosts of E2?

All that aside, there's not much here to distinguish Park 52 from the rest in the pack of numerically named restaurants. You can almost hear the ambivalence inside dozens of cars inching down the south-bound Kennedy: "Hyde Park? I thought our reservation was at Table Fifty-Two. Oh, forget it—let's go to Zed 451."    

Park 52, 5201 South Harper, 773-241-5200