I spent this past weekend in Chicago for my first 2014 trip. ING is located in the West Loop right next door to Next and is owned by Homaru Cantu who also owns Moto which is right next door to ING. The 900 block of Fulton Market is kind of turning into the richest restaurant block in Chicago.
This was third trip to ING, but I've never blogged about it. ING stands for Imagine New Gastronomy and they tend to be very playful with what they do. Homaru Cantu loves to make things that look like one thing but taste like something completely different. That playfulness is a bit more restrained at ING than it is at Moto but there's still an element there.
ING's menus are themed and they try to change them every 3 or 4 months or so much like Next, but less heralded for some reason. The first menu I went to was The Wonder Years where they took childhood favorites and made them more adult. The second was Street Food where to did their take on street food from around the world. This menu is Salvador Dali where all the dishes were inspired by paintings or sayings of Salvador Dali.
The full menu is a ten course meal which includes pairings all for $105/person so overall extremely reasonable. Now onto the food.
So this is the menu.
The first course was inspired by a saying where Dali said "Once my appetite had been whetted, I became ravenously hungry." This is a tapas dish that was titled Onion-Kalamata-Salt Cod. The closest dish to the wrist is a piece of focacia topped with caramelized onions. The olives are covered by a pepper, and the piece closes to the fingers is a salt cod croquette. This was a really fun way to start the meal. This dish was served with a white wine out of California from the Mark Herald winery It was the 2012 Acha Blanca.
This is beet cubes that have been marinated in a bit of orage and then topped with I think some sort of honey cracker. This dish is served with the miracle berry. The miracle berry is a fruit that causes the taste buds to taste foods differently, meaning that sour foods tend to taste sweet. This is something that Cantu loves to play with. So the waiters tell you to eat about half the dish without the miracle berry. Then you take the miracle berry which is a little tablet that dissolves in your mouth, you then bite the lemon to make sure that it's working and then you eat the rest of the dish. I generally hate beets, and I really enjoyed this dish both with the miracle berry and without. ING loves to do inventive cocktails so with this dish the did a beet juice, artichoke liquor and mezcal with a bit of honey.
Dish #3 was inspired by what I think is Dali's most famous painting, if anyone who reads this blog is more in tune with art please correct me if I'm wrong, "Persistence of Memory" or melting clocks. I forget what the product that the clocks were painted on, but the one in the front is over sauteed mushrooms, the one in the back is over a goat's milk panacotta. The yellow stuff in the upper left is an espange which is a spanish frittata or omlette and the red sauce is a sofrito sauce. I really really enjoyed this dish.
Course #4 was "Still Life Moving Fast" The utensil of this dish is a spoon with a spiral handle that was filled with rosemary and thyme to give a bit of that aroma as you eat the dish. In the bowl was a chicken rilette. On the right was a pear sauce and I think a sauteed pear and on the right was a squash sauce with butter nut squash. The green sauce in front is an herb pistou. This wasn't one of my favorites, but it was still delicious. This course was scheduled to be served with Allagash Dubbel Ale, however, for whatever reason they decided to serve it with Goose Island Pepe Nero.
Course #5, "Tuna Fishing" I was a bit skeptical of this dish when it was described to me. The broth is an onion broth and on the bottom was a potato croquette. This is where I got skeptical, croquettes are supposed to be crunchy, so how in the world could one be soaked in broth be any good. Over the top of the croquette was a piece of olive oil poached cobia. Then on top of that was liquid nitrogen frozen onion noodles. Each of the components on its own was delicious. However, this dish got even better as everything melted together. It turned into an amazing fish stew. The pairing on this one was a Riesling from Bollig-Lebnert.
I forgot to take a picture of course #6 which was "Soft Construction with Boiled Beans" (Premonition of Civil War). This was Chorizo-Garbanzo-Pork Jowel. It was a broth that had a little bit of thinly sliced chorizo that was laced with garbanzo beans and had a pork jowl rilette. Absolutely delicious and my favorite of the night until course #7. This dish was supposed to be served with a Rauchbbier from Braueri Heller Trum, however, we got something else that I can not remember what it was.
This is Atavism at Twilight. I was a bit scared of this dish when I knew it was coming up because I was already pretty full and I know how these meals work and I figured it was going to be an absolute gut bomb. On the bottom of the bone was a parsnip and mashed potato mixture with bone marrow. The meat in the middle was an oxtail rilette and on the right is an olive tapenade. This dish came with the one and only red wine of the night which was rightfully big. Alvea, Alange, Ensamblaje from 2009.
Course #8 was based on a quote from Dali "I spill Coffee on my Shirt..." The spilled coffee in this dish was a cappuccino moose and a vanilla bean nougat in the top right and I really don't remember what the other components were. However, what I do know was that everything was really good and I'm not a fan of coffee at all. Of the three beers that were served, this is the one that actually on the menu. Dark Horse Perkulator which is a coffee doppelbock.
Course #9, "Architectonic Angelus" The stick is a frozen marshmallow and the sauces are brioche suace, cherry sauce, apricot sauce and pistachio sauce. A very unique dish, though not one of my favorites. On the ten course meal this wasn't scheduled to have a cocktail with it, but I had told the waiter that this was my third time here and they surprised me with a glass of 20% alcohol sherry. It was amazing.
The final course was "Metamorphosis of Narcissus" This includes chocolate ice cream, brown butter ice cream (i think) on the bottom is hazelnut and fennel sauce. A nice way to end the meal. I'm not a huge fan of deserts so it's hard to blow me away with deserts. The final cocktail was a mixture of Absinthe, frangelico and port.
Overall, I had a ton of fun with this meal. If you enjoy art, and enjoy food, make sure you get to ING before March 1 and this menu is gone forever.
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