• David Tamarkin found that at least half of Hoyt’s menu is dedicated to the “kind of American food every hotel restaurant is required to have.” Luckily, the restaurant is “actually inching toward the other kind of hotel restaurant—one with prestige.” The onions rings were “some of the best I’ve had in a very long time,” while the salmon with shaved fennel was “as satisfying and well-executed as it was unsurprising.” [TOC]
• Mike Sula checks out Cafe des Architectes to see what new chef, Greg Biggers, is doing with the space. Though the very European hotel restaurant featured “French speakers at no fewer than five tables,” Biggers has “has worked no further abroad than Philadelphia.” He’s cooking in a “sweet-ascendant formula…with varying degrees of success.” He liked the seared scallop served on top of duck confit, but didn’t care for the “oysters drowned by cloying pomegranate granité.” Luckily, pastry chef Meg Galus “has maintained the standard” of great desserts for the restaurant. [Chicago Reader]
• Julia Kramer can see herself getting comfortable at Bite Cafe, giving the restaurant three out of five stars. While breakfast still features a “mediocre tofu scramble,” that’s all made up for by the “Mashbrown: a crisp-on-the-outside, burger-size patty of skin-on potato mash, which is wisely tacked onto a good number of the breakfast dishes.” Lunch is “bolder,” but dinner is when the seats really “fill up.” The “portions are generous, the servers are at ease and, though the execution of the food can be wobbly…it is nothing if not simple and satisfying.” [TOC]
