Supper with Sylvia #7 Phil Vettel, Acclaimed Chicago Tribune Restaurant Critic

An era ended in 2021 when acclaimed restaurant critic Phil Vettel retired from the Chicago Tribune.  Behind the shadowy figure in his by-line, Vettel brought the tastes of a diverse and vibrant culinary landscape to thousands of loyal readers for 31 years.   In this episode of Supper with Sylvia, Vettel details the modes operandi he used to keep his identity a secret to the hundreds of restaurants he visited during his storied tenure,  and how the game changed with the explosion of social media.  Phil Vettel is a true Chicago legend and we hope you enjoy this episode.

Show notes:
Phil Vettel is still working and his latest reviews can be found in Naperville Magazine.
https://napervillemagazine.com/

This podcast was produced by Jane Stephens
Music and audio engineering by Donnie Cutting

Check out SupperwithSylvia on Instagram.
Email us at SupperwithSylvia@gmail.com

Transcript

Supper with Sylvia (00:06.574)

So here's a guy who needs no introduction. For more than 40 years, Phil Vettel worked as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, including 31 as the paper's restaurant and food critic. For much of that time, no one knew his face because he traveled incognito, but everyone knew his byline. He's left a legacy of more than 1,500 reviews and knows more about the ins and outs of the Chicago food scene than anyone. Phil retired from the Tribune in 2021

And I cannot say enough just how much it is my pleasure to have him here today for this episode of Supper with Sylvia.

Supper with Sylvia (00:47.982)

Phil Vettel, oh my gosh, I am so excited to be talking to you. Let's see. my gosh, it's so great to see you. Was it 41 years at the Chicago Tribune, is that right? Yes, 41 years at the Tribune and 31 of them as the restaurant critic. As the restaurant critic. And you retired in 2021. What are you up to these days? I go see my grandchildren who live in...

who live in Texas out around Houston area. And I have another son lives in Nashville and he just got married. I've reason to visit him as well. And I write once a month for Naperville magazine, which is a small magazine owned by Chicago magazine, which is part of the tribune. So there's a whole circle going on here. I love it. The full circle moment. You

were with the Tribune for such a long time. And I know that you said 31 of that was as the restaurant critic. How did you come about that job as a journalist? How do you go from this to this? was interesting. I didn't even know I was applying for it, to be honest with you. I was a general assignment reporter, for the Friday section. But I also helped out the dining crew from time to time every now and then.

Twice a year they'd put out a dining guide, which is a series of capsule reviews of all the various restaurants listed by ethnicity and all that. And every now and then, Paula Camp would look and say, hmm, we're a little light on German restaurants. And so the editor would give me a bunch of money and say, go to five German restaurants and I need the capsules in six days. So.

I would go out and for a week straight eat nothing but German food and write little capsule reviews for them. It didn't give stars because it was just me. But I did that for a while and then Paula moved up the corporate ladder and then Jean Marie Bronson took over and then she decided she wanted to be the test kitchen director so there was a little gap for who was going to be the critic. since, I don't know, guess since I'd...

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done those capsule reviews and some stuff for the old suburban trip and didn't mess up too bad. They thought they'd give me a shot. So I got called into the office and handed the job. Wow. So they said you are the Chicago Tribune restaurant critic. How did you feel about that? Were you excited? Was this something you wanted to do? It wasn't something I ever really considered, mostly because the people ahead of me were so good and so well entrenched. I was not aware of any of these

these little chess piece moves that were going on. In fact, I was on vacation at the time. I came back from a week long vacation, joked to my boss, well, what have you done in my job now? And he said, you know, you should come in. And that's how I found out. So it was very exciting because it's such a high profile job and terrifying at the same time. love it. OK, so you just said something that's interesting to me because it's a different world now. But you said.

The first time you did the capsule pieces, they gave you a whole lot of money and you had to go eat at German restaurant. So you officially get the job, you are the food critic. And this is what I love because nobody knows who you are. They just know your name, but nobody knows the face except for those people closest to you. Tell me what was involved in critiquing the restaurants. The Tribune would say, go here, here's some money. They would pay for everything. Walk me through what the process was. Sure. Especially in the early times.

There'd be a few restaurants assigned to me. We had a dining editor, Patricia Tennyson, and I would go out and have dinner and turn in my receipts and eventually get my money back. And so the trick was to be able to pay for the meals without telling people who I was because I was going to go back a couple more times before I actually rewrote the review. So if I showed up the first time, my credit card said,

Bill Patel on it, then they'd be on alert the next time I walked in. So I would endeavor to get different, well, credit cards and names different than my own. So you had several different names. Give me some examples of some of the names. Well, one of the fun ones was Paul Roche. And everyone assumed, some people assumed, one PR person told the story not really knowing, but she just thought I was being so very clever because

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a roach is the last thing you want to see in a restaurant dining room. And yet I'm the one you really hope calls into your restaurant dining room. And so there was a little clever play on that, but it wasn't. Roach happened to be my late wife's maiden name. And so instead of Paula Roach, which was her name, I just hacked the A off the end of it. And I started showing up in restaurants as Paul Roach. And then I had one that was called Gainsby Bradley. That was the name of my dog.

He got that name from friends because he really liked to Gainsburgers. His full name was Gainsby Bradley. And other silly stuff like that. I had one credit card in the name Wyndham Earl, which only Peaks Freaks will recognize as the serial killer in season two of Twin Peaks. yes. Wow. OK, this is crazy. Could you actually get credit cards today with names that aren't yours?

That doesn't seem like that would fly now. was 9-11. I think it got extraordinarily difficult. Yeah. But back in those days, well, for one thing, my wife's card, all I had to do was have her write a note to the credit card company saying that she does business under her given name. And so she needed two credit cards and she just wanted the card to say P. Roach because she did not want a card that would necessarily identify her gender. So.

Of course, they said yes right away. And so that's how I got the first card. And then occasionally I would call and say, I need a third card for a family member, but I'll be responsible for the bills. And so then I was able to get cards in different names and it didn't occur to them to ask why the family member had a different last name. And as long as the bills got paid, nobody really cared. care. They didn't care.

Wow. So you went out of your way to make sure you were anonymous. At best I could. Yeah. And which included not going to public events such as hamburger hop. I would never show up to those things because there'd always be somebody with a camera and you meet one person. The next time you go out, that person tells three other people. And in very short order, you have a lot of people know what you look like. So how many people at the Tribune knew it was you?

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Everyone did, right? Sure. Cause it was my name in the byline. So yeah, that was, I didn't go, we didn't go so crazy as to come up with a complete anonymous name for the, for the, for the criticism. For people who don't remember. So in the Tribune, we'd never saw your face. There was a kind of a profile, right? Not a profile, just a shadow, like a silhouette, a shadow. Yeah. And that wasn't even me. And it wasn't even you. It didn't even look like you. just pulled out of some file somewhere. That wasn't even me.

So we've got this shadow of a person and the byline is Phil Vettel. So how quickly after you started doing these critiques were people really noticing what you were writing about? Because your reviews, I mean, I would go and I'd read the paper and if it was a great review, it's like, Phil Vettel said, this is good, I'm going. But maybe Phil wasn't as crazy about this one, so maybe I won't go do that. How quickly...

Did you notice people were reacting to you? Very, very quickly. I would hear it back from chefs. One chef, Michael Lakowicz, who has an aboie up in Winnettka. At the time, he was doing a different restaurant, and it was not getting a whole lot of attention. And he said, the morning that that paper came out with the review, the phones started ringing, and they didn't stop ringing for a week. And suddenly,

from a restaurant that was barely getting enough people in to cover bills, suddenly he was packed every night. So that was, I can't say I did that every time, but definitely. then I found out in sometimes embarrassing ways when I think one time for a restaurant called Brasserie Joe, which is Jean Joho's second restaurant, Everest was his primary restaurant. I accidentally transposed two numbers in the phone number, which is an absolute cardinal sin. You just don't do something that stupid. Well, I did.

And, no, it wasn't that I transposed yet, but by transposing the two numbers, instead of printing his restaurant phone number, I printed the restaurant's fax number. Back then, restaurants had fax numbers and phone numbers, they all printed out, and they usually were only off by one number. And so he laughed it off, I printed a correction, of course, he laughed it off, he said, because he knew every number that came into that fax machine was a direct result of my review.

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because nobody else had the wrong number, but people who read my stuff. Wow. So how many people knew who you were when you went into restaurants? I mean, eventually people had to figure it out, right? Right. Sometimes in funny ways. remember one of the first restaurants I went into was the seafood restaurant Burhops. They briefly had a restaurant on LaSalle Street in the same location that became Michael Jordan's and

and now is a steakhouse from England. And I hadn't gotten my new credit card yet. So I just kind of slipped it into the check and, you know, into the check presenter and off it went. No problem. Two minutes later, here comes a manager bounding out of the back room with my credit card. And she sat down and we started talking. also, yes, sometimes people figured that out that way. I know some.

Places would wait for the review to come out and then backtrack by the dishes I mentioned and they'd say, find me two tables that ordered these dishes and only these dishes over the last month. And then they'd figure out my phony name that way. They said, Mr. Roach did this and this and this, which is why I kept changing the name because they would figure out to assign Roach. And then one time,

I got busted in the most spectacular way. had colleagues, we had a program called the Alfred Friendly Fellowships, which journalists from foreign countries would come and work for several months at the Tribune newsroom and learned journalism American style, I guess you'd call it. And one of the fellows one year was a woman from Indonesia and had an Indonesian restaurant coming up on my calendar.

So I asked if she would join me because I'd have somebody to really speak to the authenticity of Indonesian food. And it was fun. It was fun. It was very nice. She was nice. said, she said I helped. She said I spicy food pretty good for a guy. was my compliment. And anyway, I found out her last day was going to be Thursday. So I said, we have to do lunch. Let's, let's do one more lunch. And we said, fine. But as a good reporter, as she left the office,

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she let her editor know where she could be reached. This is before the days of beepers and cell phones. So the editor who just wanted to join us for lunch called the restaurant instead and said, is Phil Vitell there? And they transferred the call directly to the chef who was Tony Manchuano. And he said, he's still there. And he said, I don't know, what does he look like? And she tells him.

No, she described me. Keep in mind, she should have, she could have said, well, there's two people dining and one of them's a four foot 11 Indonesian woman. Might have narrowed the search down a little bit. Instead, I hadn't even arrived at the restaurant yet. So I walk into the restaurant with my colleague and at the host desk, it's, I'm like looking at the Tudoposto Christmas photo, the entire staff.

is gathered from the host stand, including Tony, who could barely stop giggling long enough to say, you must be Phil. my gosh. Were you like, how did you guys know? How did this happen? Yep, yep. I finally figured it out and asked the editor what on earth they were thinking. And the response says, I didn't realize you were out reviewing that. said, what difference does that make? I'm still trying to be anonymous.

Superman, Clark Kent, Superman, Clark Kent. The glasses do it all. I take my glasses off, no one knows where the hell I am. And I can't see them, so I can't even help. Yeah, so if you can't see them, they certainly can't see you. So it got to the point where some people started recognizing you. And I'm sure Tony was probably telling some of his chef buddies, hey, here's what Phil Patel looks like. I think that's how John Hogan figured out who I was, because he and Tony were like this.

So bust that now is the same reason I didn't go to public events. Once Tony figured it out, somebody else figured it It wasn't as widespread as you might imagine because for some of these chefs, that was pretty precious information that they might not, they might have enjoyed the edge of being able to say, wait for him to come back. Another time I was busted because my son played, my other son played on a traveling soccer team and

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restaurant owner was friends with the coach and just as support for his buddy. He came out to watch him coach these 10 year olds and he's sitting there on the side, he's standing on the sidelines. I wasn't actually at that game and all of sudden he saw a little kid go zooming by with the tail written on his back back of his jersey and suddenly he got really interested to see which minivan this kid went into.

And so I got home from wherever I was and my wife said, we have a problem. Steve Byrne of Bistro Bonheur was at the game and he knows who Chris is and he knows that I drove him home. so, so the next time I had occasion to review that place, I walked in and then there he was. But the funny thing is he wouldn't come near me. He stayed 20 feet away from me at all times. was shoulder check and see how the table was.

And when I finished the review and all the rest of it, I said, seriously, was it helpful that you knew that it was me or would you have rather known? said, I would have. I'd never known. I was a complete nervous wreck. But every dish that went out of the kitchen and what could he do? it's watching it happen. There's really no control he has. would say, even if I get spotted at the door, what is the chef going to do? He's going to run out and buy better veal.

remake all the sauces and he might do that, but not much he can do at that point. He can make sure I get his best waiter, but that's about as far as it can go. So what kind of review did you give him? That was a three-star. That was a very good restaurant. I'm very sad when it came to an end as all restaurants eventually do. You talk about your experience where the restaurant in Evanston where you did one of your first reviews and

you know, the phone calls that people were coming in. You must have really realized the weight and the responsibility of what your role was. Was that a lot? wasn't a lot, but it was something always to keep in the back of my mind. always like to say, I always reminded myself that every restaurant that ever opened was somebody's lifelong dream. Maybe many people's lifelong dream.

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It was also a source of employment for anywhere from six to 40 people. And so I wasn't just, you know, flipping a coin over done, under done, that kind of thing. I knew in a way I was dealing with livelihoods. And so it had to be, I had to be very, very careful about that. I didn't think I could be flippant or snarky in the way that some people.

tend to be because it's easy. But at the same time, was really that the person I was really writing for was the person who was thinking of going to this restaurant and spending $125 or $200 on dinner and to whom that might have been their entire entertainment budget for the month, if not for six months. And so those are the people I had to answer to. I spent all this money because you told me to. I had to be able to look them in the eye or

figuratively look him in the eye and say, no, this is what I believe that I tried all this stuff. It's one of the reasons. other reason that I tried so many dishes and went back so many times is that I knew that once I wrote a review of a restaurant, the likelihood of coming back and re-reviewing that restaurant was very small given the size of the Chicago market. I mean, we're talking nine different counties I was going to, including Lake and Porter in Indiana. And

So there was always a new restaurant or one I hadn't been to in a while, or it was always something else. To justify going back and giving that other place a second look, they had to be doing something really extraordinary or something that was monumental change, like a new important chef came in or something along those lines, which meant that for many restaurants, they got one shot at me. Wow. And so it had to be, I had to write it as though I was writing the definitive.

word on this particular restaurant, as I knew almost never would I go back. you ever eat at a place that was so bad you thought, I'm just not even going to review this? Yes. A lot of it was based on how big and how important they were. You only get one review a week, and it's in the paper, and people open it up. And if the headline is, don't go to this place, well, now they're done. Now they get nothing else from me for another week.

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So I much prefer being able to say, this is a good place, go here, go there. And especially again, with the livelihood and the dream, a little place that's tucked into a small, large neighborhood that said, if they're no good, they'll die on their own accord, or they'll find an audience and they'll be fine. They don't need me one way or another. If I can't recommend them and it's that bad, I just tear up my notes and.

then that would be it. Unfortunately, at that time, the Chicago Tribune had the kind of money that if I said, yeah, I spent $200 and you're not getting anything from me. couldn't get away with that. Boy, Phil, that was a different time, wasn't it? Back then, they were making money hand over fist. This is pre-internet. This was classified ads. All those lost puppy and shoes for sale ads, looked this big.

you get a full page of them, that brings in more income than a full page ad. Wow. They hang up. And we'll be right back.

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So as a journalist, I think we all have stories that we remember. I remember covering a story years ago about a young girl who was missing. I was told to, you know, I had heard some people talking about what they thought happened to her. And I had called the station back to say, this is what they're saying. And they were saying to me, go on the air with this immediately. And I was a young reporter, but in my gut, I

I felt sick to my stomach that I did not have enough information to confirm this. And long story short, I'm so glad I didn't do it because it didn't turn out to be any of what the rumor mill was saying. But I remember getting a really hard time from my editors and there was a lot of pressure on me. Did you ever feel any pressure like that when it came?

to your reviews to go with something or not to go with something when it came to these restaurants? Because as you said, this is a livelihood. First of all, nice instinct. Way to go. Second, no, there was never any, you have to review this particular restaurant or, you know, or any editor coming up to me and saying, I had a really lousy time at restaurant Z, go get them. You know, that never happened, thank God.

And so I was, I really did. After the first few months, I was able to operate almost independently in that, in that I picked the restaurants I went to. went to places that were interesting or intriguing to me for one reason or another. And I I got to make that call. Now, the only time I ever had a dance delicately is when, I don't know, there were a couple of times when you'd have a famous chef couple that were running a restaurant and then they were getting divorced.

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And, you know, there, you know, I realized on one level I have to report this because it's news and it's going in there, but I'm really not interested in details. know, dealing with two people that right now are feeling about as bad as they can possibly feel for one reason or another. And it was not my job to air that stuff out. Just a simple boom, boom, boom. Give each one a chance to make a comment if they so wished.

And that was the end of it. There wasn't much drama I had to report on. Mostly food guy stuff. So how many restaurants did you visit a month and what was this like on the waistline? Did you ever feel like, I don't know if this is so good for my health. Actually, my doctor used to say, this job is going to kill you. he hasn't been right yet.

Yeah, this has not been good for my beach body, I will say. Nobody sees me on the beach, except for those pesky environmentalists who keep towing me out to sea. But no, but yeah, it's tough. I do see some critics who manage it. I happen not to be among them. But yeah, that's a little tough. I was going out four or five nights a week.

And, you know, that's a lot of crumb delay. It is. Did you bring your wife with you every time? Not every time, because again, I lived out and we lived out and down as girls and we had two very young children. So during the week, Paula had zero interest in coming down on a Wednesday or Thursday, finishing what she working at Amoco out in Warrenville. So coming home after doing a nine to five, giving the kids and then.

Hey, let's drive 25 miles and meet up for dinner. No, no, no. So I would grab somebody from the office or friends who live downtown for those. But she was always my weekend date. It was always Friday and Saturday. In fact, it used to be some of the people, some of my companions would be able to confirm that sometimes I would, we'd look at a menu and I'd say, well, I'd always say, you can't have this dish or this dish because those things are, I'm not interested. And then.

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Sometimes I say, you see this dish? Yeah, Paul's really gonna wanna order that dish. So leave that alone because we'll be back in two Fridays and then she can have it. So- Aw, that's so sweet. long has your wife been gone now? Three and a half years. Well, I know you miss her desperately. guys have great parents. How many children do you have? Two boys. Two boys. One just turned 36. The other one's about to be 38.

two grand boys. that's great. OK, so everything has changed now when it comes to everybody's a restaurant critic now, aren't they? mean, social media has totally taken this in a whole different direction. do you think that's impacted restaurants? I think it's something they're constantly concerned about. mean, can nobody wants to hear bad mouthing from anybody, even if it's somebody filing a report from my mom'sbasement.com.

You're still, there's still a certain like nobody wants to hear that. And particularly on social there, there would be some people you'd swear, you know, they're writing reviews while they're still measuring the windows for drapes. And they hadn't, they get in there right away and they something, there was one, I can't remember the restaurant anymore, but it was clear that the reviewer was their first customer ever.

This person showed up and started sitting at the bar and started ripping food. thought, that is manifestly unfair. I mean, it takes any restaurant a while to get its rhythm. And back in the day, I had the luxury of being able to say, well, I wouldn't even go into a place until it was a month old. And then I'd go in, I'd wait two weeks for the second visit and maybe another week for the third visit. And then I would write. So by the time it actually got in the paper, the restaurant would be 10 weeks old.

And by then you're hoping the servers aren't bumping into each other and the kitchen has its rhythm. But internet changed all that. Suddenly people are weighing in on a place that's been open for an hour and a half. And it accelerated my pace. I couldn't wait 10 weeks to come out with a review of some place. So I want to talk about how the restaurant scene changed from when you started to when you ended. What were some of the hot chefs

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What were some of the hot restaurants that were up and coming? Was Chicago the kind of food town that it is today? No, not quite. Although back when I started in 89, Francais was very well established. Jean Banchet was known coast to coast. Bon Appetit magazine had already at one point called Le Francais the best restaurant in America. So there was some attention going on, although the really rich people, what they were doing there, flying their private jets into Palo

and then taking a cab over to La Francais and then going home. So I'm not sure how much good that did Chicago as a whole, but it sort of helped. But when I started, Rick Bayless was two months away from opening Topolobombo. It wasn't there yet. Charlie had become pretty well established, but I don't think he quite got into that superstar level as most people looked at at the...

that the big chefs or I mean the chefs that I took early notice of were Susie Crofton who had a couple of restaurants. Now she's up around Milwaukee, Didier Durand, Pierre Paulin out in the Northwest suburbs with La Titi de Paris. And then John Tursak was the original chef at Gordon, which at the time was the hands down coolest restaurant in town. And then when he left, he opened a couple of restaurants up around Lincoln Park and stuff. So he was a big name.

and so was his late brother Dennis, who had opened a Solomio on Armadillo Avenue. The classics one back then, Gordon and Spiaggia and Ambria and yeah, places like that. Those were big names. But the dining landscape was largely French. All the big names were still the French, the French, the Tite du Paris, the Vigissois.

Le Tour, all the places. French absolutely dominated the fine dining scene in Chicago. Would you say Charlie Trotter was really the one who brought the main focus to Chicago back in the day when we started becoming a restaurant scene? I think so, for a couple of reasons. One, of course, is he was very, very innovative and it was a wonderful restaurant in all regards and it has graduated a virtual who's who's list of chefs.

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that one time or another worked with, worked under Charlie. But I think a big part of it for Chicago especially is Charlie was one of us. was a North Shore kid, went to University of Wisconsin, came back here, started a restaurant. So he was pure Midwest in his background and not necessarily in his approach. He did all the usual ways of studying and learning.

French technique and all that kind of thing. But his was a uniquely American, style of cooking and, you know, very minimalist is too strong a term, certainly stripped down free of the free of the heavier and starchy or sauces that were prominent in French restaurants at the time. very, sparing in this use of butter and creams.

It was, was, was different. He was the first, I believe the first chef to come out with a vegetarian tasting menu. When, you know, when he went all tasting menus, had a main menu and the vegetarian menu and nobody was doing 10 courses of vegetable dishes. so uniqueness and the fact that he was completely local is, what made him so dear in Chicago. And, it's one of the things that attracted, I think the out of state press.

because then as now even looking at Michelin, they're not particularly interested in coming to Chicago to try French food. They're coming from major metropolitan areas because they have French food there. Yeah, and so it wasn't so much, but Charlie's food was, didn't have an easy comparative anywhere else. And that I think is what really brought the national press in. So what do you think makes a great chef? Creativity, vision.

You don't think about it very often, but just being able to be a leader, because almost every chef out there, even in restaurants that aren't particularly good, if the chef sits there and cooks your meal, you're gonna be blown away, because they do a lot of work. The trick is in a restaurant is to gather a team and get all those people to cook the dishes exactly the way you want it cooked, and to refine and to correct.

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because that's what makes a great restaurant. It's like, yeah, if somebody, if the head chef makes my dinner, it's going to be amazing. And one of the other guys, maybe not so good. That's where the chef comes in. has to make sure that everybody, they're operating with military precision. He's got to be willing to get in the face of somebody who's not keeping up and get them up to standard. And that's the really tough thing. The great...

The great contradiction among chefs is that you have to be super creative and come up with innovative new dishes and flavors and unique combinations and hard to find ingredients and get a deaf dish that's absolutely perfect. And then you get it that way and it's like, okay, good. Now we're going to make 20 of these every day for the next six months. So it is wide open creativity combined with

mind-numbing repetition. you've got to be able to psych up for that 300th version of that dish that you're going to make, just as you were creating it in the first place. I love the way you explained that because you're so right. The consistency is key. If you're going back to a restaurant and somebody else is cooking and it doesn't taste the way you remembered it, you're not going back, are you? No. You say, you think either I was wrong the first time or they were great, but now they've lost a step.

or something like that. It can be crippling. And on top of all that, has to be a really, fairly shrewd business person. I've said there are more mediocre chefs surviving because they're good at the business end than there are genius chefs who are not thriving because as good as the food is, they didn't work the books right. Wow. I love that. That's so true. I haven't really thought about it that way. You got to make money. Otherwise you won't.

We all have our favorite meal or a memorable meal. One of my most memorable meals was just a few years ago at Rick Bayless's Topola Bombo. And he, as you know, Rick is a huge collector of Mexican art. And so in that room, they had all this artwork. I don't know if you went to this dinner too. And every meal that was brought out to me matched a piece of artwork on the wall.

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And I remember looking down at my plate and looking at the wall. And that whole experience was just so fulfilling, not to mention the fact that the food was incredible. when I think about some of my all-time favorite meals, that one will always stick out in my mind. What is yours? I will say I was at that menu. I was able to sample that menu and it ran for a while. it was almost perfectly matched.

you Rick's credo because he's always pointed out that the great restaurants feed you artistically and intellectually as well as physically. And so it's a great combination because they're broadening your mind even while they're filling up your belly. And most of us go to restaurants to fill up our bellies. So it's really amazing when you get more and you get more than that. Other than that, it's mostly dishes. It's so funny. I still think of

even though the simplest dish in the whole wide world, the artichoke fritters that they served at Gordon, I mean, it was nothing too, was just batter, batter fried artichokes, canned artichokes at that, canned artichoke hearts, batter fried, and served over a little bit of, a little puddle of a Bernay sauce. But was, everybody came into the, what then, you always had to order, you always had to order that, it was great dish. And then dinners, at meals at Everest, way back, but always started,

with a little bit of cauliflower puree that was piped onto an ice teaspoon and you got that and that was one bite and that's all there was to it. But it was kind of an opening thing like this is not what you expected, the next dishes are not gonna be what you expected either and this is the artistry, this is how much effort we put into this little freebie we're just handing out and that's kind of what you can expect.

with the rest of the experience. And it was a great opening statement. And Grant Atkins was a master at that, especially when he started Trio in Evanston. And then coming up with dishes like his, what do call it, exploding truffle, this ravioli filled with liquid black truffle juice. So you put it in your mouth, you couldn't take a bite out of it because nothing holding the liquid back but that piece of pasta. And once you've bit into it,

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it's going to go squirting out. So the whole thing in your mouth, settled out and then get that, the flavors exactly at once. Wow. Is there a particular restaurant now that is something you always look forward to or you, you know, you dream about the artichoke fritters. Is there anything right now that you, that you love in Chicago that you still think about going back for? Well, I go back to a few places. One of the, one of the, one of the downsides of being a critic over the years is that you don't get to have a place.

You don't have, you haven't got, I didn't have the time or calories to spare to have a favorite restaurant that I go back to a number of times. Now I kind of do. So now I can go to, now I can go to Pico Lo Sonio, Tony Priolo's place. And I go there, you know, once or twice a month. And it's, you know, and it's always great. my I've seen you there.

Yes. And out my way in Western Springs, there is now, well, it was V, now it's Petite V Brasserie, which is just a terrific classic French bistro slash brasserie. Paul Verant, right? Paul Verant. So I love those. I get back to Brondé, which is another classic.

restaurant and then, and then Bistronomic up around Loyola Chicago campus, is, which, which, which never, never lets me down. I have other lists of places I've been meaning to get back to and, you know, I'll get there eventually, but I don't go out five nights a week anymore. So, yeah. And I'm sure you're a little grateful for that. And I love that you can have your spot now. Now you can have your restaurant spot where you couldn't have it before. Yeah. As you walk in, they say hi and you'll walk in,

Yeah, Luca Osteria in Oakbrook is another one like that. I could walk in, the bartender knows my drink. I get a table eventually, chef comes out, says, hi, and then, you know, I have a meal. Thanks to be able to do that. And you don't have to write about it. OK, how has the restaurant scene, would you say, would you say it's changed a lot since the pandemic? Because we sure went through a lot with the pandemic and restaurants closing and, you know, switching how they did things. What have you noticed that's different?

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I don't think restaurants have completely recovered from the pandemic. Multiple challenges. The big one, I think, is staffing, especially with the increase in the minimum wage. There are lot of other jobs that someone can work in and get $15, $17, whatever, dollars an hour, and they don't have to work every Friday and Saturday night. so, it's restaurants. Kitchen work is...

more becoming a calling, you have to really be into it because it's very hard work. I know that most restaurants aren't staffed as well as they'd like to be. Almost everybody's got an open job or two, hopefully no more, but maybe more. And not only do they have to pay more to attract people like that, they also have to start addressing quality of life issues back, you know, and a lot of chefs back in the day, nobody ever heard of anything like that.

You worked your 12 hours, you had your dinner and a handheld sandwich sitting on an upended plastic tub in the back room, and then you got back to work, and then you'd go home and you'd crash and you'd get up six hours later and start doing it all over again. kind of, people aren't willing to do that, increasingly. They're not willing to do that, so you have to, that's why so many restaurants now are closed on Monday or Monday and Tuesday, because they realize they have to give.

their people a break. They can't just keep working and they can't stay open seven days unless they have enough staffing to do that and get people time off because you start losing people. So that's a big thing. As a result of that and having to pay more, prices have gone up. And as we know, a lot of suppliers, a lot of businesses seized the opportunity of the shortages that was started by COVID.

to kick up the prices and leave them up there. And so you're paying more for stuff and they say, well, you know, supply chain, that's not really a factor anymore. The fact is they could, the market said, okay, we'll pay this price now for a burger and they're gonna keep getting that price now. So that's another challenge. A lot of places, keep hearing from people who's like, oh my God, I went out and I spent $14 for a burger. What's going on with this world? I said, well, my perspective is that $14 is not.

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a lot to ask for a mate to order a Now, if you're driving through and they hand you a burger they made an hour ago, that's one thing. But if you're sitting down at restaurant and you have a nice table and service and they bring it to you and all that stuff, I don't think $14 is a lot of money. people will disagree, but that's the reality now. But it squeezes restaurants. Restaurants had tiny margins as it was, and now they have to allow for these extra costs. Labor costs more, supplies cost more.

I don't think rent's been going down. So, yeah. It's amazing as many of them are able to stay open, which is why I always have respect for those restaurants who have been around for such a long time. I'm curious if there's any restaurant that has closed that you miss that you think back and went, wow, that was a really good one. I wish that was still open. quite a few. One of the closings that I felt bad about, especially it was

Doe's Urban Cantina, which was Brian and Jennifer Jones's place in Logan. I thought that was a terrific restaurant. COVID hit them hard. They had to really simplify the menu to be able to bring in people because of what they would have to charge for the menu they used to have. And eventually they had to close the place. Looking back at the old days, I mentioned Tudoposto where I got right.

got busted by some insane murder events. You know, that one went away in the suburbs. was a cottage down south. There was 302 West, far west in Geneva. So many places. I mean, it's the nature of the beast that restaurants will close eventually. I mean, Gordon closed, it was so sad. But they were open for 23 years. Umbria was open for

I'd grief close to 40. mean, was all these places were around for a long time. It's we saw it happen. So it happens in almost an entire category when most of Chicago's German restaurants just went away. And what was happening is that these were largely mom and pop operations. And that's how they know that's how they survived in this country. And that's how they were able to raise and educate their kids.

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And the kids didn't want to follow in the business. So when it was time for mom and pop to retire, there was nobody willing to take the reins. So sell the real estate and enjoy your retirement. Yeah, shut down. So what we haven't talked about is one of my favorite happenings with Phil Vettel. Please remind me of the year. And I remember I had gone from ABC to Fox 32. So I was

really got into the whole food and restaurant world. While I've been working at Fox, I've gotten to know a lot of the chefs and stuff. And so I remember when the word came out that Phil Vettel was going to reveal who he really was. This was a huge deal. And I had this new manager and I was like, we have got to do this story. You have no idea. This is huge. Phil Vettel is going to reveal who he is. And you came on my show to talk with me about it. I was so excited.

What year was that and what made you decide to finally unveil? It was 2018 and it was something that we had knocked around a little bit for a while at work, especially because the way newspapers are trying to connect with the readers was starting to change or starting to do more events, more places for people to go and meet the reporter and things like that, making ourselves more visible. And I started going over it and

in the piece of road explaining it, something happened earlier that year. I went into a restaurant on off Michigan Avenue and it was a nice place, but nobody recognized me, which is kind of the goal, which is fine. But I got seated in this remote Siberia-like part of the restaurant with a totally indifferent waiter who just came, took the order, brought back half of it correctly.

came back, other things, but it was not very nice and it wasn't very well put together. So that was disappointing. And then a few days later, I went into a new restaurant by the Let Us Entertain You people. It was EMA up out on Fulton Market. And it was so hot that you couldn't get a reservation for Love Normani. So I went with my son, we're going to get there 615, put our name in, hit the bar, see how long, we'll eat eventually.

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I walked in, gave a fake name, of course. Then I started, went to the bar and we had just gotten our drinks when I got a tap on the shoulder and said, your table's ready. And I'm thinking, how could my table be ready? Because the woman who was sitting next to me had just come back and told her friends, yeah, I checked. They said it's going to be an hour and a half. So they're out there quoting an hour and a half, wait to people. And I'm in at about seven and a half minutes.

And of course, the service was delightful and all this other thing. So obviously they knew who I was. And I thought, is it fair for me to ding that first restaurant for making mistakes at the second restaurant? Could never have made it because they knew and they didn't know. And there was no way I could talk Rich Melman into forgetting what I looked like. So the only option really was to remove the figurative mask.

and give everybody a shot and say, all right, this is closest I can do to level the playing field. Here I am, I'm only doing this once, I'm not gonna put my name, I'm not gonna put my face on each review out anymore, I'm not gonna do that either. Here's the one shot. So now, there, that's what I look like. You can do what you want with that information, but at least it's, there were just too many people that knew, figured out over the years. mean, figure after 28, 29 years,

If they haven't figured out what you look like, it means they don't care. So that's like the worst. Asking them not figuring you out. means you're not important enough that they don't mind. So that's how we got there. And I thought, yeah, this is the fairest way I can think of to make things even for everybody. did that change things then? Because then everybody, everybody knew who you were. Right. Well, it changed. One of the things that changed.

is that I would get invited to different events over the years and come out and do this. And I was begged off and I had good old anonymity saying, yeah, I can't, I'm not going to show up. Well, there goes that excuse. Now if there's an event I didn't particularly want to go to, had to come up with something else or I had to go. So that was it. It also, people would come up and say hi, but for the most part,

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most restaurants just still maintain that arm's length. know, shouldn't suddenly start, free appetizers just didn't start showing up to my table or anything like that. Most people more or less stuck to the rules of the game. And then a year and a half later, COVID hit and then the game was completely changed. Yeah. So Phil, you have got to be so happy with your career. As you look back,

I mean, to tell people what you did for a living, I'm sure everybody, there were so many people that were so envious. Right. Right? So as you look back, what do you want people to know about your time doing what you did? Well, I survived it, I suppose. That's the first thing. I don't know. thought I tried always to be fair to everybody and to review them on their terms rather than what I

personally think an Italian restaurant should be or ought to be. I think I gave everybody a fair shot. I think I distributed my attention pretty evenly so that everybody had at least an opportunity. Obviously not everyone because there's just so much time in the world. that, and people thought I did, people thought I was honest and incorruptible and

as fair as I knew how to be, that's all you can hope for, right? And that you were, you know, wasn't a dilettante, it wasn't consistent, inconsistent. So that a cop, somebody gave me, is that they would look at certain plings and, you would love a dish like this. That meant I had gotten my personality or my food thoughts out there. People actually had an idea of what I was getting at. They might, and they...

develop whatever opinions they might say, well, you he loved that French, but he always likes French. So it may not be that good. But wow, he never pays attention to Vietnamese. He lost his mind over this place. This place must be amazing or something like that. But that I was not completely predictable, but that people understood what I was where how I was approaching things. love that. Phil Vettel, what an honor and a pleasure. I had so much fun talking to you today. I look forward to seeing you at our favorite spots, Pico La Sonia and

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and all the other great places in Chicago, so many great restaurants, and you are such an iconic part of the restaurant history, and so I feel very honored and thank you for doing this with me. Well, thanks so much for having me. This was a of It was fun. I could talk to you forever. And don't forget, for more information on Phil Vettel, take a look at our episode notes.

Thanks for joining us for this episode of Supper with Sylvia. I'm Sylvia Perez. This podcast was produced by Jane Stephens with technical support and music by Donnie Cutting.