Critic's Choice Food Awards winners

Chicago Tribune

26-03-2025

It's been more than two years since we've held the Critic's Choice Food Awards. A lot has changed since then. But not as much as five years ago when we wanted to recognize a different kind of winner with a new award — Person of the Year: The essential hospitality worker.
That wish hasn't waned. Recognition is meaningful, to you and our recipients. We saw its emotional impact with our recent Readers' Choice Awards.
As your food critic, I chose this year's Critic's Choice recipients from businesses that opened after our last awards in March 2023 until the end of 2024 — with a couple of outstanding exceptions. Delicious food and drink is a given. But they're not simply my choice. You should recognize that they represent our taste at this moment in time and beyond. Each person and place has built a wondrous world that exceeded my expectations and their own.
— Louisa Kung Liu Chu, food critic
Here are our Critic's Choice award winners this year:
Best Barbecue Restaurant: Sanders BBQ Supply Co.
A barbecue kitchen is not like other kitchens. Even the simplest of traditional barbecue requires long nights, space for ventilation, and lots of tender love and care. Craft barbecue at the scale of Sanders BBQ Supply Co. in Beverly, which opened in June 2024, requires so much more coordination, it feels more accurate to call its slow-cooking operation a facility.
'This is definitely more of an upscale barbecue,' said chef and co-owner James Sanders. 'Even the way we plate it on trays, it's kind of like a meat charcuterie board,'
Sanders has said customers often ask, where is the smoker?
The answer hides in the back — a rear compound houses an absolutely titanic red M&M BBQ Co. smoker, emblazoned with the Sanders logo, that's capable of cooking 1,000 pounds of meat. The smoker door opens to a rotisserie of brisket slabs emitting a luxuriant aroma.
'That smoker was a big reason I came in here,' said pitmaster Nick Kleutsch, a talented barbecue ronin without a home after the closure of Lucy's BBQ in Highland, Indiana. He found a kindred spirit in Sanders. He commutes from Indiana to experiment with top-quality protein and equipment.
On a chalkboard near the smoker, ideal temperatures for the cooking stages of each meat are written like a study guide in a laboratory. Gigantic slabs of ribs are seasoned by hand. A storage area for post oak wood from southern Illinois might well dwarf the front kitchen. And they're still expanding their capacity in the back in their evolving mixture of art and science.
'It has a little bit of a Kansas City flair with a little Texas with a little Chicago,' said Sanders. 'We really try to integrate all the flavors together.' Texan sour, Midwestern heat and Chicago spicy sauces reflect just a bit of that.
The team of pitmasters, prep cooks and meat cutters are encouraged to experiment. Kleutsch recently contributed a smoked brisket Reuben with a marble rye bun, miso Russian dressing, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese, it's a new level of funky fermentation and smoke. Sanders, who also operates Fuze Catering, contributed best-selling items such as peach tea smoked wings and collard greens with smoked turkey.
It may take that extra step beyond a typical barbecue place, but Sanders expressed a shared core philosophy that you find in all the best barbecue spots.
'We make food with love. Even if it is a little different.'
1742 W. 99th St., 773-366-3241, sandersbbqsupply.com
— Ahmed Ali Akbar
Best Weekly Tavern-Style Pizzeria: Bungalow by Middle Brow
Bungalow by Middle Brow, which opened in 2019, has gotten popular for its Tavern Tuesdays. They became a regular weekly feature in 2021 right in that chaotic, yet comforting era when people were emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic looking for a great slice of pizza.
'When we launched Tavern Tuesday, it was timed very well — the world was also getting kind of nuts about tavern pizza,' said Pete Ternes, co-founder of Bungalow by Middle Brow. Not to mention, sourdough pizza. 'A good combo, right? Sourdough and tavern. I don't think that existed then.'
Despite demand, the pizzeria can only produce its extremely thin-crusted tavern pies one day a week due to oven constraints. The dough differs drastically from Neapolitan pizza, as does the cooking temperature. Ternes and his team source their pizza flour from the Meadowlark Organics farm in Wisconsin, while they source the bulk of their pizza toppings from farmer friends and neighbors, such as Mick Klug Farms, Frillman Farms, Butternut Sustainable Farm, Smoking Goose Meatery, Four Star Mushrooms and many, many more.
'It's gratifying in that the work stays challenging and there's relationships with the people who are literally making the cheese with their hands,' he said, noting that they aren't 'purists' or dogmatic about only using farm-sourced cheese or meat, but they try to source everything within 150 miles of Chicago.
The produce, almost always, is farm-to-table. Ternes said the inconsistency of farm-sourced flour adds a unique flavor to each pizza, which is on brand for the Logan Square restaurant — a natural winery, brewery, sourdough pizzeria and bakery — that thrives when things are a little imperfect but always authentic.
'It doesn't feel like we were trying to mimic a thing that existed in the world,' Ternes said. 'We're just trying to make stuff that makes us excited and makes you feel alive.'
— Zareen Syed
Best Taco Program: Mariscos San Pedro
There are many ways to enjoy Mariscos San Pedro, a Mexican seafood restaurant that opened in Pilsen's historic Thalia Hall in June 2024. But perhaps the simplest is through their perfectly dressed tacos, each a unique creation with a curated blend of acid, texture, quality protein and toppings. Whether you're a fish skeptic or a fanatic, the menu has ways of earning repeat visits. You might explore other equally sublime sections of the menu — aguachiles, tostadas, desserts from pastry chef and co-owner Antonio Incandela — but the tacos always deserve an order.
Chefs and co-owners Marcos Ascencio and Oliver Poilevey both have a deep love of Chicago. What's reflected here is not a specific take on any regional cooking style, but a wholly unique Chicago experience mixing influences from seafood and street food from cities such as Mexico City, Oaxaca and Chicago; Poilevey's French and Ascencio's Mexican culinary backgrounds; Asian foods and the chefs' playful creativity. Ascencio recalls certain memories with Mexican dishes, where the seafood came perfectly as is. Perfect-as-is is the philosophy here.
'We're using Mexican ingredients, but our main focus is on the proteins,' said Ascencio. 'Getting really good fish, and treating it with respect.'
But tacos begin first with tortillas, which are made in-house by the 'masa ladies,' sisters Norma and Beatriz Chillogalli.
'We wanted to make our masa program different,' said Ascencio. That means processing and nixtamalizing the raw corn and hand-pressing. Nearly every masa-based product at MSP passes through the Chillogallis' capable hands.
Whole fish is a classic Mexican seafood option and it's the most free-form way to enjoy tacos here. One person can slice and dice the fish, making tacos for the table that allow a group to explore the flavor profiles of different salsa pairings.
But for 'perfect-as-is,' the taco menu has included delicious bites such as shrimp gobernador, brandade dorados, plantain, baja fish and lobster quesabirria.
Poilevey also owns Obelix and Le Bouchon, the latter of which he and his brother Nicholas inherited from their parents. Salt cod isn't usually found on Mexican menus — brandade, a mixture of salt cod, olive oil and potatoes, is more French — but here, the brandade is presented in a new context with salsa, pico and queso fresco.
'My dad — that was one of his signatures,' Poilevey said of his late father chef Jean-Claude Poilevey. 'His (brandade) was very classy, fish spread with toast.'
'To me, that's the true beauty of food is passing it on,' Poilevey said of his dad's unexpected influence on the menu. 'It's the romantic part about food.'
In 2025, MSP will be shooting for new heights. They've begun offering limited omakase seatings. The tacos are so perfected, it's exciting to imagine even more.
1227 W. 18th St., 312-508-4700, mariscossanpedro.com
— A.A.A.
Best Pastry Chef: Leigh Omilinsky of Daisies
For someone as award-winning as Leigh Omilinsky, executive pastry chef and partner at Daisies, she often talks about her weakest moments. Since 2020, the Skokie native and Jean Banchet 2014 Best Pastry Chef has been pioneering the cafe and dessert program at Logan Square darling Daisies. Despite much success, she still looks back to opening day on Easter Sunday as one of the hardest moments of her entire career.
'I'm very much the person who's like: let's do it! Let's figure it out!' said Omilinsky. But it didn't work the way she had hoped on that first full day of service as the first dedicated pastry chef at Daisies. She was, in her words, drowning.
Omilinsky had found success at hotels such as Sofitel and restaurants such as Michelin-starred L2O and several in the Boka Restaurant Group. The cafe at Daisies was something smaller, something that was hers — but it came with its own learning curve. She needed to figure everything out again. She says she still is.
It's that attitude of improving and reflecting constantly in collaboration with the broader team that has made Daisies' pastry program such a success. It started humbly. The pandemic had brought her work at BRG to a halt, so Omilinsky took up her longtime friend and colleague Joe Frillman on the opportunity to sell at a new pop-up market. Soon, her pastries were selling out. By the time Daisies reopened, it was off to the races — Frillman offered Omilinsky a partnership, the role of executive pastry chef and a niche of her own, running the 'little coffee shop within a restaurant.' From baristas to bakers, she's now got about 12 staff members working under her at the restaurant's new location, which opened in March 2023.
Omilinsky's acceleration is evident. For this year's Paczki Day service at Daisies, they produced more than 2,300 pastries, up from a little over a hundred during the first year.
Omilinsky's team also provides pastry for the savory side and desserts for dinner service. Some of Omilinsky's offerings include a budino inspired by an espresso romano, pairing orange with coffee, and a pretzel cream puff with butternut squash and vanilla inspired by Wisconsin state fairs.
The daytime pastry menu — with kouign-amann, croissants, Danishes and chamomile apricot scones — might now be as popular as the pasta at Daisies. Customers know to get there early if they want a full selection.
'I try to have something for everyone,' she said. 'If I knew the algorithm of how much to make each day, I'd be a wealthy wealthy human.'
For now, she's got the magic of a full pastry case emptying out to delighted customers every day.
2375 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-697-9443, daisieschicago.com
— A.A.A.
Best Bakery: Justice of the Pies
Justice of the Pies, a social mission-based bakery in the Avalon Park neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, offers thoughtful takes on traditional pastries, quiches, tarts and, of course, pies. From salted caramel peach to sweet potato, the classics exist alongside lavender lemon cookies and slices of dark ale cake.
Maya-Camille Broussard, whose prowess is no secret having been a finalist for a James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Baker in 2022 and featured on Netflix's 'Bake Squad,' said she likes a challenge in the kitchen and will regularly create new pies out of a desire to eliminate as much waste as possible.
'I use a lot of lemon zest in our pound cake but I wasn't using the lemon juice,' Broussard explained. 'I was like, I need to figure out how to use this lemon juice. I have a strawberry basil key lime pie, but strawberries are not that good in the winter time, but the winter is the perfect citrus season.'
Customers can now find a bold and beautiful lemon basil pie in the pastry case.
'Creativity is always born of challenges, and so if I have a challenge, it really doesn't frustrate me, because I know that something beautiful is always going to come out at the end of it,' Broussard said.
The Justice of the Pies storefront opened in September 2023, around the same time the Broussard Justice Foundation received its status as a nonprofit. She's currently raising money to offer baking classes to low-income kids in the neighborhood.
The bakery is a culmination of Broussard's favorite things: art, dance, creative expression and her mother and late father, who dubbed himself the 'pie master.' Along with sweets, the bakery has a lineup of savory quiches such as smoked gouda and spinach, and warm provisions such as shepherd's pie and paninis. There's also the shokupan cinnamon roll, made with Japanese milk bread dough — a meticulous undertaking with leavening techniques that require a certain level of patience and intuition.
'I love beautiful themes,' Broussard said. 'I'm always looking for one element of art to inform my creativity and the expansion of my mind when it comes to coming up with something to bake at the bakery.'
8655 S. Blackstone Ave., 773-437-3433, justiceofthepies.com
— Z.S.
Best Chefs: Adam McFarland and Tom Rogers of John's Food & Wine
Adam McFarland and Thomas Rogers first met cooking under chef Bill Kim at Le Lan in River North nearly 20 years ago. But the defining experience for the young cooks came later at Gramercy Tavern in New York City. The future business partners cooked together again at the Michelin-starred restaurant, famously co-founded by chef Tom Colicchio and restaurateur Danny Meyer.
There, the cooks were paid as little as $10 an hour.
McFarland and Rogers opened John's Food & Wine in Lincoln Park in October 2023. The chefs and owners describe their debut business as a seasonal American neighborhood restaurant. They named the place after their fathers.
John's began with an à la carte menu for walk-ins only. Standouts included a golden fried fish sandwich with house-made kimchi spiced ketchup and a stunning cherry glazed ribeye steak with charred garlic scapes. They added a five-course tasting menu with reservations a few nights a week at the end of last year.
The restaurant became best known early on for its service style, unusual at the higher price point. You order at the host stand, and there are no traditional servers, but cooks and other staff bring you your food and drinks. Wine director Owen Huzar and sous chef Jackson Cretin have both played critical roles in day-to-day operations, said McFarland, and have been with John's since those early days.
Checks include a 20% service charge, which is effectively a tip that's paid out to hourly employees. The restaurant does not accept further gratuities.
The chefs and partners have persisted with the practice, despite ongoing online outrage. And they pay their cooks far above the industry standard they once had to accept. They have become the change, while making outstanding food.
What does it mean to McFarland and Rogers to receive our award for Best Chefs?
'It brings out a lot of emotion,' said McFarland. 'And makes me think about all the great people I've met along the way, and my partnership and my friendship with Tom.'
John's Food & Wine is what their ideals are, he said.
'The way we think it could be sustainable, and taking care of people, the way that we wish that we had been taken care of,' McFarland added.
But he also thinks about all the hard nights.
'I feel like these types of awards make them worth it,' said Rogers, about all those hard days too, worrying about everything. 'We came out to do what we're doing, and all I can say is, it's working.'
2114 N. Halsted St., 773-383-7104, johnsfoodandwine.com
— L.K.L.C.
Best New Restaurant: Maxwells Trading
Erling Wu-Bower, the three-time James Beard-nominated chef, opened his debut restaurant on the ground floor of a vintage brick building with rooftop greenhouses off the Kinzie Industrial Corridor with business partner Josh Tilden in December 2023.
Maxwells Trading offers a deeply delicious, Asian-influenced and intimately American experience.
Executive chef Chris Jung sources some of their produce from the greenhouses by The Roof Crop. Some of that bounty is transformed into crisp griddle bread and silken dips, which they call dunks. A seasonal herbal and floral tea is delicately sweetened with honey made by bees from the same blossoms in the gardens above.
The restaurant is part of a larger collective, which includes The Roof Crop and Third Season, their apothecary, design store and coffee shop next door in the building. It's a complex community of organic elegance thanks in large part to the many extraordinary people actively involved.
What does it mean to Jung and Wu-Bower for Maxwells Trading to receive our award for Best New Restaurant?
'I'm super proud of the team I have,' said Jung. 'Every single one of my cooks, prep cooks, dishwashers and the entire front-of-house team. And how that synergy of both the front and the back house is creating something special in my mind.'
A lot of his cooks are coming from restaurants where maybe they didn't have the best time, he added.
'They're the ones I'm the closest to,' said Jung. 'It's just great to see them having a good time and then get validated.'
Wu-Bower said the day before you open a restaurant, it's difficult to predict if you're going to get it right.
'You never know what it's gonna feel like when it all comes together,' he added. 'And this is just one of those rare instances when you have this idea, and the idea kind of comes to fruition.'
A restaurant is more than its chefs and owners. Maxwells Trading is the following people: Susana Alvarez, Ruby Amihere, Lizeth Aragon, Jade Aton, Joseph Baker, Brandon Barrios, Julieta Campos, Pablo Castro, Yanneth Colina, Liv deHainault, Jesse Delgado, Nathan Doljanin, Eliza Dorfman, Anika Ellison, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, Brigitte Fouch, Mateo Galban, Taesha Goode, Ervin Guinto, Georgia Hall, Tyler Houston, Eks Hutch, Ryan Imboden, Marissa Janz, Alisha Jones, Chris Jung, Alex Lehman, Monse Lopez, Juanarias Lopez, Kristina Magro, Adrian Martinez, Jorge Mejeant, Aimee Oakes, Paul Oh, Reed Palur, Javier Perez, Raul Pineda, Jay Rank, Bobby Robbins, Rolando Rodriguez, Beth Serowsky, Briana Shamley, Aly Shenderovsky, Abdul Shomari, Jonny Sommer, Kaylee Spears, Jessica Syburg, Joshua Tilden, Sienna Tompkins, Julia Weeman and Erling Wu-Bower.
— L.K.L.C.
Outstanding Chicago Classic: Calumet Fisheries
Mark Kotlick grew up working at his family's small seafood restaurant next to the 95th Street Bridge in the South Deering neighborhood of Chicago.
'My father, Sid Kotlick, and uncle, Len Toll, began our story in 1948, as a fresh fish and smoked fish shack,' said Mark Kotlick, now retired from his day job, but president of the business that's still family-owned.
His grandfather, Sam Toll, originally bought the shack, which dated back to 1928, to give his son, Len, and son-in-law, Sid (who would eventually be nicknamed Fish, and train his son Mark to smoke seafood), a means to provide for their families. The brothers-in-law ran the store together, with employees who would work with them for 30, 40 and 50 years.
They sustained what would become the last seafood smokehouse on the South Side among dozens once found along the city's waterways.
Calumet Fisheries closed temporarily in late 2023. An electrical fire destroyed the shack inside, but no one was hurt.
That was the most recent threat to their existence.
I did not know that the business was in danger of closing, due to a lack of demand for the traditional smoked fish, when I spoke with then-manager Carlos Rosas in 2008.
Full disclosure: I brought Anthony Bourdain to Calumet Fisheries that summer, to see the last wood-burning seafood smokehouse on the Calumet River for an episode of 'Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.' Tony and I shared silky smoked salmon, which we ate with bare hands, and snappy smoked shrimp, which we peeled with our fingers. The Chicago episode of the show premiered in 2009. The next day a nonstop stream of customers came, said Kotlick, and the shack sold out of food.
In 2010, Calumet Fisheries received a coveted James Beard America's Classic Award.
Ten years later, Rosas, beloved ambassador of the shack, died at 41 after six weeks of hospitalization from complications related to COVID-19. An Honorary Carlos Rosas Drive sign was unveiled in front of the store in 2021. That shining sign and the nearly 100-year-old smokehouse remained untouched by the fire on Nov. 21, 2023.
During six stressful months, the shack was rebuilt. The century-old wooden walk-in coolers had to be replaced with modern equipment. But the familiar red roof was restored and artist Casey King recreated the iconic signage outside while reimagining the menu boards inside so they appear as if they've always existed.
When the shack reopened on June 8, 2024, a nonstop stream of customers returned, and the shack sold out of food again.
What does it mean to Kotlick for Calumet Fisheries to receive our award for Outstanding Chicago Classic?
'We've been blessed with many accolades during our existence,' he said. 'But to receive this Critic's Choice award is very special to Cal Fish.'
It proves that after their struggle with the severe fire, he added, they were able to come back stronger than ever, and their customers haven't missed a beat since the reopening.
'I would also like to give recognition to the best employees,' said Kotlick.
Smokemaster Mundo Campos finally retired after more than 50 years, but he trained his nephew Javier Magallanes. Magallanes has also been the general manager for five years. And he trained a new smoker, Giovanni Rosas, the nephew of Carlos Rosas. Their legacies will live on through the stories of the fish shack.
3259 E. 95th St., 773-933-9855, calumetfisheries.com
— L.K.L.C.
Outstanding Community Food Initiative: Kitchen Possible
Katie Lowman, founder of Kitchen Possible, has the ultimate trick for getting kids to eat their vegetables: Let them make the food themselves. Lowman said that no matter how advanced or out of their comfort zone a recipe might be for kids, once they experience cooking and take ownership over their food, they are exponentially more likely to try it.
'Kids come into the classroom and we're making Thai curry and they see eggplant — they'll start with 'I don't know what that is, I'm not interested in eating eggplant,' or 'this smells really strong,'' Lowman said. 'And then once they make the dish fully for themselves, these kids are devouring eggplant and they can't get enough of the curry, and they will leave the room literally saying, 'I love eggplant.''
Kitchen Possible hosts weekly cooking lessons for kids ages 8-12 in various under-resourced Chicago neighborhoods. Lowman said each class follows five basic and accessible steps to 'cook anything' — something that can be applied outside of the kitchen too.
'I've always had this inkling that the empowering feelings and confidence that cooking builds are something that a lot of kids could really benefit from,' Lowman said. 'And we really believe that while it's super important that kids learn to cook fresh and healthy food for themselves, the benefits of cooking go so much beyond food — kids learn about things like working on a team or messing up and getting back in there to try again.'
Registration for Kitchen Possible is through community centers listed on their website. The classes are always free.
'It's really important that this is something that the community can really join without any barriers which is why fundraising is so important for us,' Lowman noted. 'And as we know, food is getting more expensive by the day, but it's really, really important that there's no barriers for entry.'