A Restaurant Called Oriole
Ahhh. Summertime in Chicago. Pretty damn hard to beat. I was with Boogie and it was her first time in this great American city and I was excited to show it off. More accurately, I was excited to show my friends off.
The friends I had in this city were old school industry friends. True blue. Masters of their craft. My friend Michelle hooked me up with reservations at her restaurant a month or so in advance. They confirmed the reservation via text message. I knew the place was highly lauded, multiple Michelin stars, and that my friend had flipped from being an absolute assassin on the hot line to surprising me with discovering a real passion for wine, as she was the junior somm on deck, was the cherry on top. It wasn’t like the flip necessarily surprised me so much. I’d started out in restaurants on the kitchen side too. I’d never gotten close to the high level Michelle had attained nor put in as many years, for one simple reason: I wanted money. And after many grueling years and enough honor heaped onto her so that she didn’t have a goddamn thing to prove to anyone, she’d come to that realization as well. Or as she would say: “Being broke ain’t cute.”
I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to realize that’s why it’s become so difficult to find good help these days back in the kitchen, and why you will find in many places it’s going to be brown folk, many times immigrants, working the line. The veil has been lifted. I’m not here to talk shit and disrespect any hard working cook with a dream, but let’s be real here. The gimmick of going to culinary school, crawling out with the debt, and then grinding it out for minimum wage just to slowly work your way up the ranks until you become the next star chef has drastically lost its appeal in the face of reality. In America, anyway.
Minimum wage doesn’t cut it any damn place in this country. The cost to live becomes the only thing that matters. Success has to happen immediately or you get ground to dust. The bubble had to burst some time. I’m not even saying it completely has… but yes, I am saying that there are too many restaurants and not enough cooks. Not enough cooks who want to stay cooks certainly. And what a hit we took with losing Anthony, to be there to inspire the next wave. Who will be the next messiah? Or will there continue to just be a slew of sleazebags getting caught for their misdeeds and reformed alcoholics desperate for redemption? I don’t care that much. I’m a bartender. People will always need to drink. And worse comes to worse, my girl can cook her ass off.
But… while we still reside in the age of worshipping otherworldly restaurants, let us return to Oriole. The restaurant is located in some sort of warehouse district, on some discreet street that gives off a slightly sketchy vibe, which naturally I loved and found exciting. We opened the door and there’s a guy standing in a suit with glasses in front of one of those elevator doors where you have to pull the doors together from top and bottom for it to close. There is a small window in the door and we could see secret eyes observing us from the other side. The man in the suit gave us an introductory cocktail as we waited briefly on a plush bench while our table was made ready. The cocktail was small and cute and lovely.
The man in the suit was young and gregarious and very sweet and conversation was easy. They’d already asked us but he asked again whether or not we had any dietary restrictions. You see, Oriole only served tasting menus and the menu itself remained a mystery. Every dish would be a surprise. Of course, they explained in detail as each dish was deliver and afterwards, they would provide you with a written menu of what you’d been served. We had no idea what to expect, just that there would be many courses.
They let us into the place and Michelle was so happy to see us and that let me know we were in for something very special. It let me know because if she was just like “hey guys” kind of lethargically, then we’re there just to see her, and that’s fine. But for her to be as excited as she was, it told me she was excited for us, for what we were about to experience. I’ve known the feeling before and I was able to recognize it. The excitement infected Boogie immediately but I myself tried to remain calm. The reason for that was because I wanted to read the room first and get a lay of the land and also, I never liked to look like a rookie. At anything.
The restaurant was white linen and pretty minimalist. Brick bare walls and a few paintings I couldn’t figure out. All the front of the house were dressed immaculately and the back of the house and entire kitchen were right next to the dining floor in plain view of the guest. The kitchen staff was not small and their white chef coats glowed as if they were all doctors in a lab preparing to provide us the solution to attaining true happiness.
And the other guests? About what you would expect in a restaurant with this kind of price tag and reputation and exclusivity. These folk were not our peers by any shape or form. We were sitting next to people (and there weren’t many, I’d venture to guess there were around fifteen tables in the whole place) made of money. Six figure and beyond kind of folk and I’d say a couple of one-percenters thrown in there as well. And here Boogie and I were, a couple of wild upstarts who’d cleaned up just enough but not able to completely hide our rough edges and the flow of alcohol was sure to reveal that soon.
Michelle asked us if we wanted the normal wine pairing or the hyper drive Reserva.
I didn’t come to Chicago to drive Miss Daisy.
Places like this can make a person feel uncomfortable. You are being watched. You are being scrutinized. You are certainly being judged. Myself? I basked in it. I knew this place wasn’t for people like me. Except… on the low, it was. All those cooks back there, all the staff wearing suits and standing around with perfect posture and speaking with lovely articulation, I’d been with every one of these bastards in some low down dive shooting back whiskey and cursing up a storm. To have me sit there with my lady and eat amongst these rich sons of bitches was a victory for every one of us and we would all celebrate that with each dish delivered. I was always excessively grateful to any staff that took care of me this way. In fact, anyone I held in admiration or sincere respect. In this case, I’d arrived with the largest order I could get from Gus’s Famous Fried Chicken after receiving a tip from Michelle that the kitchen preferred it over a bottle of good liquor, which was my standard move.
I’m not going to tell you every dish we had. I didn’t take any pictures either. I snagged these off Instagram because you need a break from the words, I get that. Sure, I’ll throw you some of the dishes. A bite of Alaskan King Crab on chicharrones. Caviar and hamachi. Capellini with summer truffle. Uni nigiri. Three dessert courses. But let me focus on two moments specifically regarding the food.
Before I do, I want to reference the movie Ratatouille. Boogie hasn’t seen this movie yet. So when I tried to explain it to her, I was unable. But hopefully you’ve seen it. I call moments like this Ratatouille moments. I’ve actually only really had one in my life before this night. It was when I was in France, visiting an old college friend in Lyon. What a trip that was. The first night was as good as any vacation I’d ever or would ever have. Good wine, good food, beautiful city, and beautiful beautiful girl named Maud.
The next morning my friend and I and her husband got up and went to the Sunday market and we ordered a tower of oysters. And that very first oyster, from Ireland, or maybe it was Scotland… anyway, I sucked that first oyster down and my eyes rolled to the back of my head. I was warped to some other place. And it was a heavenly place. And I could only stay there for a few seconds before I was violently warped back. I’ll never forget it. Well, I experienced another Ratatouille moment. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t say it was directly attached to a beautiful wonderful restaurant I worked at back in Austin called Uchi. And as cliché as it is, I just have to profess this truth, the moment had to do with foie gras.
Anyone seriously in the food world knows about foie gras and has an opinion on it of some kind. Me, personally, you know, I don’t live or die by it but I’ve had it at it’s highest level and at other levels and I’d simply be a fool if I didn’t acknowledge that it is without question the definition of decadence. It never looks like much but you know what is coming to you if you’ve had it once and then it hits your tongue and it just melts away. It melts away, and as it’s melting, every pleasure button that exists in your being is caressed in the most luxurious way. Almost lustfully, actually. I mean, I have seen women lose control over their bodies in reaction to a perfectly cooked and tiny portion of foie gras. And I guess it had just been a while, because I’d seen it so much working at that fantastic restaurant in Austin, I’d relied on it so much, to get me across that finish line and into the big money, that I’d forgotten how good it is, how good life can be, to be sitting somewhere with a beautiful woman and a lovely old and very expensive glass of wine and to take a bite of foie gras and just sail off into Valhalla, sun cascading to the water and the purple waves as friendly as can be as they gently sway you back and forth. I know this sounds like I’m exaggerating. I’m not.
And the other item I had that completely rocked me was a just a little slice of Madai on a warm ball of rice with a bit of shio kombu and Okinawan sea salt. Again, this looks absolutely unassuming. A pale strip of fish on rice. Not impressive, visually. I remembered to take the piece of nigiri by two fingers and flip it so the fish would hit my tongue first, took down the piece whole, and was completely unable to stop myself from moaning loudly in the restaurant. Michelle stood off in the distance with a coworker laughing. She would come up afterwards and tell me, “That was quite a roar.” Madai is Japanese Seabream. Personally, my favorite fish for sushi. Another staple of mine at Uchi. The Madai Carpaccio, was what we called the dish. It was an off menu item. A curveball to throw guests when we wanted to knock them out the park. Worked every damn time. It was all coming back to me. What an honor it was to have worked at that place, and with those people. Most of them. Ha.
So I guess, yes, my favorite dishes were all dishes that reminded me of a great time in my life. I mean, everything we had was great. There were completely new sensations being introduced to me. And maybe, in the future, I would revisit that. But to be time warped that way, it’s a special thing, especially as we get older and grow familiar with how addictive the drug of nostalgia can be.
With each dish that came our way, we got a new half glass of wine, and Michelle spoke on each except one, where her head somm, the only one above her, came over to speak. He was nice and said beautiful things about my friend. Each time Michelle came over to tell us about the wine, I would sit there with my chin in the palm of my hand. Sometimes I didn’t even hear what she said. Sometimes I’d ask her to repeat herself.
But really, I was just so happy. Happy for and proud of my friend. It’s a great thing in one’s life to see a person you really love and care about succeed in life and do well and do so nobly and honorably and with passion and I could see my friend succeeding here and how far she’d come and it just blew me away. So many of us settle or can’t seem to focus or just degrade and put ourselves into corners where we believe there’s no other way to go. You live long enough and you see it too much. Not enough do we get to see someone just shining, just doing really well and looking good as they do it. Michelle in her smart black suit and cute shoes and her glasses and telling me about wine from Loire Valley and Alsace and Burgundy. Everything was a Grand this or that, vintage or labeled by hand or had a cult following. Everything was super special and I’m a sucker like everyone else, if someone tells me how special something is and spins me the right yarn, I’ll go right there with you. I was so proud of my friend. And I was proud of myself too.
Here we were, two kids come from very humble households. We hadn’t been given anything. We’d made mistakes and seldom saw our families and we’d moved around searching for things to make us whole but all this time we’d kept in good touch with each other and always cared about each other. Our parents would have no idea what to do in a place like this. Our parents had never experienced anything close to something like this. I couldn’t imagine my mother’s reaction, telling her I was having a meal that would go up to a thousand dollars, just for two people, for just one night in our lives, and that even though I maybe could have afforded it, I would have been crazy or plain careless to pay, through the blessing of a long and honest friendship, we would have the entire meal comp’ed.
Michelle took care of the whole thing and it was just up to us throw them the tip. The tip by itself was enough to make up the most expensive meal my parents might typically have. I don’t say this to brag. Please understand that. I say this because I was sitting in a room with people who owned multiple houses and had stocks and could afford to wear a suit every day of their life. Eat like this whenever. People who could never ever relate to someone like me. People who ate in places like this and still couldn’t keep their faces out of their phones and didn’t look across the table to the person they were with with their eyes full of mirth and joy as they ate so extravagantly.
I say this because I considered myself blessed and I could appreciate the moment and I grabbed it and soaked in it and so did Boogie and so did Michelle and so did her coworkers and cooks and chef. I know we all relished in it together because I’ve been on the other side and if you are that kind of person, you actually do get a genuine joy from serving another person, from making another person happy, by giving someone an experience they will talk about for a long, long time.
My parents would have said save that money for something. Something you really need it for. Pay something off. Maybe even invest. But fuck that. This is what we are here for. Not to insulate ourselves with material objects and hunker down waiting for the shoe to drop. But to taste the rich fruits of life. Life isn’t for perpetual validation and paying rent.
We were the last guests in the restaurant by the time it was all over. The dining room was empty and the cooks were getting into their street clothes and we were allowed into the kitchen to enjoy a vintage digestif with the chef, who I happened to share many memories with as we’d both lived in Richmond ages ago when we were young and foolhardy. It was great to throw the baseball of memory back and forth as we shared our past in that wild city, finding how much we had in common. And I learned how humble this man was, even with three Michelin stars at his age. Really goes to show you…
Michelle got into her normal clothes too. I gave her a great hug and so did Boogs, then the three of us got out of there and headed to our favorite pub in the Ukrainian Village to get back to our normal programming of a High Life and a shot of whiskey. Real life. Always there, still waiting for you. But every now and again it’s nice to feel the fantasy.
