A few weeks ago I called upon a well-known and outspoken chef for some expertise I needed for a story. But this chef wanted to talk about something else. The chef had just come from lunch at one of the celebrated new restaurants launched by a certain large and ever-spawning restaurant group, and before that dinner at a sprawling spinoff from another very prominent local group in town. “I hate what they’ve done to this industry!” raged the chef, referring to the forces behind the oft-anticipated Chicago restaurant bubble. “It’s gonna come down, and you know what? It’s all gonna come back to chefs opening their own little places on their own credit cards.”
Take Frunchroom, a place you’d call a hole-in-the-wall if it weren’t bright and cheerful and perched in Portage Park, the antithesis of a hot restaurant neighborhood. It’s a 27-seat counter-service cafe that incorporates elements of both Italian and Jewish deli traditions. Nearly everything on its surprisingly deep menu is made in-house by chef Matt Saccaro and his crew of four.
Sandwiches form the core of Frunchroom’s menu and include some extraordinary takes on familiar standards. Ham and cheese on a long bun, griddled under pressure, oozes butterkase, with pickles and mustard inside, a stealthy Cuban Reuben. The BLT is simultaneously airy on brioche and saturated (faturated?) with butter, bacon fat, and basil aioli. Grilled cheese pushes that fat quotient even higher, leaving slicks of butter, raclette, and caramelized onions trailing down the chin. The requisite burger is also buttery, coarsely ground, cooked correctly, and just great.
4042 N. Milwaukee 773-853-2160 frunchroomchicago.com
