Chicago’s newest Michelin-starred restaurant is only a year old, but it’s one-of-a-kind, worthy of the accolades.
That’s because both the food and the format are so unique.
Chicago has plenty of Mexican and Latin American restaurants. And when it comes to high-end tasting menus, with more than a dozen intricate courses, we have that covered, too. But a combination of those two, where every course is meticulously crafted and delicious? That exists in just one place.
The tacos – like nearly everything else on the set menu – are pretty enough to take pictures of when dining at Cariño, a year-old restaurant in Uptown, beneath the Red Line tracks and next to a hair salon. It’s intimate. Just seven seats at the counter, with a few more tables nearby.
“I like to describe it to people as a Latin American inspired, with a heavy Mexican influenced tasting menu,” said Norman Fenton, the chef-owner of Cariño.
Fenton packs an enormous amount of thought and effort into each bite. Just consider highlights from his first three courses on the current menu, starting with “chips and salsa.”
“We just have this salsa verde jelly that’s dusted in fennel pollen. We put on a spoon with tortilla crumble, topped with avocado puree, a little bit of lime gel, pickled ramps, coriander flowers and some licorice,” he said. “Familiar flavors in a very unfamiliar way. So when you look at this thing, it doesn’t look anything like chips and salsa, but then you take that complete bite and you get that experience.”
The Food Guy
“Be very careful picking it up, make sure you take it all in one bite…”
“And then we move into a chicharron from there, which is a big, airy fried pork skin. We dust it with a pretty classic Texas barbecue spice, but then we make an espuma – a bunch of corn, cream, epazote – which I like to refer to as a Mexican green tea leaf – we cook it all down, roast it, and make an esquites, which is a really traditional corn dish you find on the streets of Mexico,” he said.
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“…I encourage you to dip your chicharron into your esquite espuma…” he told his guests while serving course #2.
“So here we have our oyster michelada…”
“So a michelada is pretty classic drink you’d find in Mexico – beer mixed with chamoy, maybe different spices, sometimes they put octopus, shrimp, whatever on it. So ours is an oyster that’s been topped with a little bit of Modelo beer foam; we’ve got celery curls on there, tomato dashi mignonette, cocktail spears, so Mexican-style cocktail sauce, and a rim of Fresno chile hot sauce and tajin, which is a chile citric condiment,” he said.
The fourth course also features seafood.
“We’ve got Ora King salmon that’s been cured in mezcal, dusted in hibiscus, hibiscus-pickled pearl onions, chile vapor pouring out from underneath…”
Cucumber gel and ribbons are surrounded by aguachile liquid, containing jalapeños, serranos, cilantro and parsley. You can see why the Michelin guide recently awarded Fenton a star; the food is as delicious as it looks.
“That recognition and that validation helps give us a little more oomph really, to try to keep progressing our concept, and our cuisine as far as we possibly can,” said Fenton.
Here's where you can go:
4662 N. Broadway
312-722-6838
