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  • Chicago’s Best Cheese Dishes

    Chicago’s Best Cheese Dishes

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    It’s hard to think of any food Chicagoans agree upon more than cheese. They argue about hot dogs, beefs, tavern pizza, and tacos. But when cheese enters the conversation, locals become soothed like an angry tiger tamed by a trainer. They eat “cheese” on nachos in plastic batting helmets (no matter which team is playing), scarf-flaming saganaki, fried cheese curds, and gooey quesabirria, and are tantalized by the cheese pull from a pan of deep dish.

    As the weather cools, Eater Chicago collected five examples of excellent cheesy dishes around town that will charm every savage beast.

    La Serre’s French onion fondue

    La Serre has been packing the house since they opened this past summer in the crosshairs of the Fulton Market restaurant zone. Every Emily-in-Paris-in-Chicago has been clamoring for a table full of St. Tropez Spritzes, angel hair with caviar, and duck Chinois, plus the best mussels this side of northwest France’s Brittany region. Naturally, there’s plenty on the French-ish menu to choose from for the cheese-loving set, but the French onion fondue is truly not to be missed. Gobs of wine-soaked caramelized onions served topped with melted gruyere cheese for spreading on grilled sourdough, baguette, or frite without annoying soup to water down the experience.

    Nettare’s cheese plate

    This isn’t a sad wine bar’s cheese plate at Nettare.
    Nettare

    When Conner O’Byrne, owner of West Town’s Nettare, asked chef John Dahlstrom to add a Midwest cheese plate to his menu, he worried if his boss “wanted a quintessential phoned-in wine bar menu.” O’Byrne pushed hard, inspired by Wisconsin’s epic rep in award-winning cheese production. Dahlstrom accepted the challenge and made O’Byrne and Nettare’s customers happy. Dahlstrom is proud of a rotating selection of the Midwest’s cheese bounty, including Black Goat from Prairie Fruits Farm in Champaign, Dirt Lover from Kansas City’s Green Dirt Farm, and many more. Guests can select one, two, or three options and add a house-made charcuterie item. Dahlstrom throws in tahini crackers, local honey and jam, and a handful of smoked and candied black walnuts. This takes this cheese plate far higher than just a pedestrian wine bar menu.

    Maxwells Trading’s Loaf Lounge marble rye with stracciatella

    A slice of bread with cheese.

    Maxwells Trading showcases marble rye from Logan Square’s Loaf Lounge.
    Wade Hall

    The menu changes frequently at Maxwells Trading, but the local love-child vibe stays true to its delicious Chicago roots. That vibe includes featuring friends like Sarah Mispagel and Ben Lustbader and their magnificent Loaf Lounge marble rye sourdough bread and neighbors like rooftop basil and cherry tomatoes which, according to executive chef Chris Jung are amplified using a soak of Japanese flavors like shiro dashi and united by a tasty cloak of fresh stracciatella cheese from Caputo Cheese in Melrose Park. Because honestly, what brings folks (and other ingredients) together better than cheese? Stracciatella is poised to topple the reign of cheese terror previously held by the beloved burrata ball for almost a decade. Made up of torn bits of mozzarella dressed in cream (like what you’ll find in the center of that burrata), stracciatella’s milky, spoonable richness deserves the star turn it has been taking lately.

    Mano a Mano’s eggplant cutlet

    A breaded piece of eggplant with mozzarella, basil and a dollop of tomato sauce.

    Mano a Mano’s eggplant cutlet is memorable.
    Mano a Mano

    The menu at Logan Square’s Mano a Mano is loaded with stracciatella and other Italian-style cheeses — like zucchini flowers stuffed with fior de latte mozzarella and fresh buffalo milk ricotta, the tiny ravioletti filled with taleggio and black truffle, and — just like at nonna’s — you’ll get a bowl of grated cheese to sprinkle on your dinner at will. Your server will advise you to order the eggplant cutlet, and order it you must. Chef Doug Psaltis’s take on eggplant parm is a young farm eggplant, crisped up and served with a spicy tomato sauce, with that delicious stracciatella schmeared on top. Says Psaltis: “I fell in love with it after first tasting it on a trip to Puglia. Stracciatella’s wonderful creaminess and fresh cream flavor make it a perfect pair for the spicy Diavolo sauce of our eggplant cutlet.”

    Beautiful Rind’s chevre sundae

    An ice cream sundae with red, borwn, and black toppings.

    Ice cream and cheese create a great combo at Beautiful Rind.
    Beautiful Rind

    You already know that Beautiful Rind is one of the city’s best cheese shops. You might even know that they offer an exciting dine-in or takeout cheese board menu complete with imaginative, housemade, choose-your-own-adventure accompaniments, plus gooey sandwiches, charcuterie, and fried cheese curds. But did you know that you can order a chevre sundae, consisting of three scoops of fresh Wisconsin goat cheese plus seasonal sauces and crushed marcona almonds, and no one will judge you? “We’ve always scooped fresh goat cheese with an ice cream scoop to help showcase the fluffy, light texture of fresh, hand-ladled cheese,” says owner Randall Felts. The next step was serving it sundae style in a cut glass dish, obviously, with toppings like salted stout chocolate ganache, strawberry amaro jam, and pineapple jam spiked with Aleppo chiles. “We want people to have fun with cheese and see our shop as a more adult version of a candy shop… full of delicious treats of the cheese variety,” Felt adds.

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    Lisa Futterman

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  • All the Best New Kitchen Products That Dropped in March

    All the Best New Kitchen Products That Dropped in March

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    Nikol Slatinska

    Nikol is a shopping writer for The Kitchn’s commerce team. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri – Columbia. In addition to writing about cool home and kitchen finds, she loves reality television and her Pomeranian, Finn.

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    Nikol Slatinska

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  • The Le Creuset Casserole Dish You’ll Want for Holiday Baking and Beyond Is on Major Sale Right Now

    The Le Creuset Casserole Dish You’ll Want for Holiday Baking and Beyond Is on Major Sale Right Now

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    We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.

    Winter is almost here, which means you’ll want to make sure your cooking arsenal is fully stocked with everything you’ll need to make hearty comfort meals from home. In other words, now’s the time to pick up a bread oven, stand mixer, pie plate, and all the other tools that’ll take your holiday baking to the next level. Without a doubt, Le Creuset is the go-to brand for most of these picks, mainly because of their signature stoneware line. Our staffers own and love many of the pieces from the collection, so when we find a good deal on one of them, we run to share it with you. Right now, you can save on a particularly popular piece of Le Creuset stoneware: the Heritage 4-quart square casserole dish. It’s going for $70 at QVC right now, which is a steal for this brand. Available in five colors, the dish is also a stunner, but you’ll want to act fast — inventory is sure to sell quickly!

    What is the Heritage 4-Quart Square Casserole Dish?

    Thanks to its mid-sized, square design, this casserole dish is perfect for smaller households and entertaining. Bake and serve everything from bread to cinnamon rolls to lasagna inside its deep interior, and keep the contents covered and warm for hours after you take them out of the oven with the dish’s matching stoneware lid. The lid also locks in moisture while your eats are baking, and it makes this piece easy to transport from oven to table or from your home to someone else’s. Afterward, you can use the dish to store leftovers in the fridge and reheat them in the oven when round two of the holiday feasting rolls around. With a piece this versatile, functional, and beautiful, you won’t need much else when it comes to wintertime baking.

    For one, you’ll love using the square casserole dish simply because of its striking appearance. But don’t be fooled, as its glaze also acts as a nonstick coating on the dish’s interior. Consequently, you’ll find that cleanup is a breeze, no matter how stuck-on your meal remnants appear to be. What’s more, the dish and lid are both dishwasher-safe, so you can focus on the festivities instead of the chores that await afterward. Also of note are the baker’s exceptional heat distribution capabilities. The stoneware spreads heat evenly throughout the dish, so your eats come out without overly hot or cold spots, no matter how dense they are.

    We also love that the baker boasts generous side handles, meaning you won’t struggle to pull it out of the oven. And despite how pretty it looks, this workhorse won’t chip or crack, so you can rest assured that it’ll remain a fixture in your kitchen for years to come. With all of these wonderful qualities, $70 is really a small price to pay. We suggest picking up a casserole dish before the festivities arrive. This smart purchase will undoubtedly make for a smooth holiday season — and beyond.

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    Nikol Slatinska

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