sarily expensive wine. His goal is to find wines that taste like they cost more than they do. “This is not the Pepsi/Coke challenge,” he tells me. “There’s so much out there to enjoy.”
Paul Virant, chef/owner of Vie restaurant in Chicago suburban Western Springs is no slouch in the honors department himself, chief among them a 2007 Food and Wine Best New Chef award. I first enjoyed Virant’s cooking, not at his restaurant, but at Prairie Fruits Farm in Urbana, which holds bi-weekly farm dinners during the growing season. The dinner’s theme was “The Whole Hog,” the pig supplied by Stan Schutte of Triple S Farm, who comes to Wednesday’s downtown Farmers’ Market.
Actually, “enjoyed” is too pallid a word. The meal was perfect, sublime: one that joined a small list of meals I’ll always remember and wish I could experience again, from the housemade charcuterie starters, through the soup with its base of smoked pork broth, slow-roasted porchetta (an Italian marinated and herbed classic) to a finish of outrageously delectable clafouti (see the IT 7/23/09 RealCuisine article about clafouti) made with mixed berries grown on site.
Virant is a Midwesterner who attended the Culinary Institute of America before working in such stellar Chicago restaurants as Charlie Trotter’s, Ambria, Everest and Blackbird before opening Vie. Vie’s coolly elegant dining rooms, decorated in black and white and every shade of grey, couldn’t contrast more with the bucolic setting of dinner at Prairie Fruits Farm. But the philos ophy behind what’s on the plate is the same.
Virant’s food is, above all else, focused on the highest quality, freshest ingredients. Don’t expect fancy squiggles of irrelevant sauce, or weird and inappropriate combinations of trendy foodstuffs. The dishes are far from austere — portions are generous and often contain multiple components — but the individual components form a unified whole, grounded in solid, often classic technique.
Take the signature potato gnocchi starter for example. Potato gnocchi are an Italian staple; made of flour, potatoes and eggs, they’re always substantial, but in the wrong hands can be leaden. Virant’s, however, are almost ethereal; they’re based on a French quenelle (dumpling) mixture made with pâte a choux dough (used for cream puffs) that’s light and airy. Virant is well known for his use of local ingredients and farmers — Vie’s menu even includes a glossary that lists the local farms and dairies that have contributed to the evening’s menu as well as definitions of specific ingredients and preparations. He defines his cuisine as “Seasonal Contemporary American” and says his food “reflects the seasons, local harvests and the world becoming a smaller place.”
I define it as delicious.
The Hope School’s 15th annual Celebrity Chef Dinner is Saturday, Sept. 12. Tickets are $100 per person. Call 585-5119 for reservations or more information.
Contact Julianne Glatz at [email protected].
