Chicago’s Restaurant Experts Share their Biggest Dining Grievances of 2018

Not all that glitters is gold. We asked Chicago’s industry writers to tell us their biggest dining grievances of 2018. Here’s what’s on the chopping block for the year.

Matt Kirouac, What Should We Do: Instagram influencers.

Ariel Cheung, CS Magazine: Stop trying to convince me crudité is anything but $3 of raw vegetables you want me to pay $15 for.

Chandra Ram, Plate: Seeing short ribs and Brussels sprouts on menus in June — what happened to seasonality? Also, I would like to reiterate my annual rant about lengthy menu tours. Yes, I’ve eaten small plates before. No, I do not care about your favorite dishes. Yes, I’d like a drink; soon-ish.

Mike Sula, Chicago Reader: Where was all the foam? My garbage was on fire.

Morgan Olsen, Time Out Chicago: Feeling rushed. Call me crazy, but unless I have somewhere to be, I love taking my time at restaurants. A few months back, I clocked a 45-minute dinner at a certain West Loop hotspot. Three courses worth of food came out at once and we were handed our check before we could ask our server for a second round of drinks.

Michael Nagrant, michaelnagrant.com: Gold leaf-covered fried chicken at Radio Anago

Michael Gebert, Fooditor: I don’t want to say grievance exactly. But — and here’s where I see some truth in That Article — I felt like there were a lot of places that sounded like they had cool concepts, from people with good track records, and then...is that it? Things were fine, but the best things I ate felt like they would have only been the bottom half of the menu at the place I was hoping for. I hope that in 2019, all those places leave timidity behind and wow me. Make no little plans for dinner.

Titus Ruscitti, ChiBBQKing: As is the case every year, there wasn’t enough time to get to everything I wanted to try.

Audarshia Townsend, managing editor for Restaurant Inc. magazine; regular contributor for WGN Morning News: I never got the opportunity to dine at Ema!