Alpana Singh Flirts With A Political Run + More Intel

—Alpana Singh was this close to running for Cook County board commissioner, according to an interview the former Check, Please! host and owner of Terra and Vine in Evanston and The Boarding House in River North did with Crain’s. Meanwhile, she has sold her stake in her downtown restaurant, Seven Lions. Singh had raised $50,000 for a potential campaign but had second thoughts on filing by the September deadline. Singh, who worked with the city to bring the James Beard Awards to Chicago, also has a banner with her photograph displayed on the ground floor of City Hall. Meanwhile, don’t expect changes without Singh at Seven Lions, which opened in February 2015.

—The new Logan Square bar from the Scofflaw team, The Moonlighter, is set to open next week at 3204 W. Armitage Avenue, according to a spokeswoman. Apparently, they’ve been pummeled with so much public inquiry that they put up a sign touting a Wednesday, November 1 date. The bar features a 100-seat patio which will be nice to have sometime next year. Expect to see more coverage next week.

—Forno Rosso, the Neapolitan pizzeria with two Chicago locations, celebrated a victory in a pizza competition held in Atlantic City. Owner Nick Nitti said there were more than 200 contestants at the Pizza & Pasta Northeast expo held earlier this month. Zero Ottantuno, a mobile pizzeria Nitti and his other colleagues contribute to (they feed street festival attendees), won first place in the “STG/ Napoletana” category in the 2017 USA Caputo cup. This just further cements Chicago as a pizza town.

Courtesy of Nick Nitti

—Chef Guiseppe Tentori is getting his two River North restaurants — GT Fish & Oyster and GT Prime — involved in a special 11-course dinner that takes diners from one restaurant to another in a span of 90 minutes. Diners can take the two block stroll between restaurants starting on Sunday and tickets are available at the link. These “progressive” dinners cost $100 per person for groups of two or four with five courses at GT Fish & Oyster and then finishing up with another six at GT Prime. There’s one 6 p.m. seating nightly on Sunday through Wednesday.

—Chop Shop, the unique Wicker Park-Bucktown butcher shop/restaurant/bar/event space has a new executive chef. Earlier in the month they welcomed Adam Grandt, the former chef de cuisine at Vincent and most recently the executive chef at Enolo Wine Café. Take a look at Grandt’s new menu below.