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Last week we showed you the interior, the kitchen and a little of the food at John des Rosiers' new Italian spot in Highland Park; tonight it opens to the public and you can just go eat there your own self (Metra stops just a couple of blocks away). What will you find on the menu being served by des Rosiers and executive chef Phil Rubino? Housemade pastas, crispy pizzas, housecured Becker Lane turned into pancetta... and above all, lots of fresh stuff straight from farmers. Check out the menus below.

For the second time, a hugely ambitious restaurant from New York in the same space has shuttered in a matter of months, reports Eater. BLT American Brasserie follows the previous Brasserie Ruhlmann in having been developed by BLT's Laurent Tourondel, but bombing in the location at 500 W. Superior. But where Brasserie Ruhlmann may have simply suffered from being too posh a spot for an economic downturn, BLT American Brasserie was perhaps done in by cruelly accurate reviews which skewered its pizza-to-sushi lack of focus, mediocre execution, and an undercurrent of unwitting condescension to the Chicago dining scene.

Jason Vincent, chef of Nightwood, bested four other top Chicago chefs at the Chicago edition of Cochon 555 to win a slot at the finals at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic in June. A capacity crowd at The Four Seasons stood in lines to sample the imaginative dishes made by the chefs, who were challenged to use a whole heritage pig and then judged on presentation, utilization (how well they used the entire pig), and overall tastiness. (The highest score is a 5-5-5 across all three.) Vincent won out over Stephanie Izard (Girl & the Goat), Mike Sheerin (Three Floyds), Carlos Gaytan (Mexique) and Danny Grant (RIA) for his wildly imaginative yet deeply porky set of dishes which included a puffy "chicharron" made out of whipped pork liver and a ginger blood pudding creme brulee set in a marrow bone. He was up last in the tastings for the judges (including ourselves), and he worried that we'd be too full by the time we got to him to appreciate his food, but in the end there was no danger of that as he was a clear favorite among our fellow judges and, apparently, among the crowd as well (who counted for about half of the voting, as did the judges). We'll have a slideshow of the entire event from our man Huge Galdones later in the day, but in fact Cochon 555 was only one of multiple exciting food events which drew hundreds or even thousands all around the area. Here's more about them.