A Critic Thinks Mordecai Changes the Game in Wrigleyville

Mike Sula says Mordecai is an experience worth braving the Wrigleyville crowds for. Matthias Merges’s project inside Hotel Zachary is a refreshing addition that brings fine dining and a seriously impressive whiskey collection to the neighborhood. For fans who want more than an Old Style, the cranberry gin rickey is “tall, pleasingly bitter” and “fresh as your mother.” The food menu is executed by Jared Wentworth and includes an “intensely and vividly colored” salad of green romanesco cauliflower with sweet-and-sour pickled veggies, curried farro, and harissa-whipped aioli. Emerald-colored risotto supports fatty porchetta and carrot sticks, while the “explosive juiciness” of a goat bratwurst “warrants the use of safety goggles.” Capping off the meal is an “arresting” chocolate-Fernet sundae that “still haunts [Sula].” [Reader]

Topolobampo’s tasting menu at lunch is “technically impressive, diversely delicious, [and] slightly undersized,” writes Graham Meyer. It starts with the “bold, colorful combination” of short rib and raw yellowtail under a coconut wrapper before moving onto a course of abalone with spring ingredients. The main entree features two “delicious” scallops with pineapple and mole, and dessert paris rich cake bites with cajeta and pasilla chili ice cream. Portion sizes are on the small side but overall, midday offerings don’t get much more refined than this. [Crain’s]