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Get Your Kicks on Roosevelt Road

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Truck Stop Gourmet
Jason Paskewitz (J.P. Chicago, Wave), who has been planning River North’s Jackson Park Bar and Grill for ages—now slated for mid-January—is also launching The 621 Diner (621 E. Roosevelt Rd.; Lombard), an old-fashioned Route 66 diner, on December 10th. “Just for fun, we are opening before Jackson Park,” he says. “It’ll be breakfast all day, like truck-stop blue-plate specials: burgers and milk shakes and patty melts and cakes that are like 18 inches high in a round rotating glass display. Just good roadside food.” Paskewitz won’t do the cooking at the 125-seat spot, but will…

Celebrity Beat: Kanye West, Kid Rock, John Legend, More

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Condolences to Kanye West for the untimely passing of his mom, the intelligent and outspoken Dr. Donda West, 58, whom I had the distinct pleasure of meeting this past summer. Dr. West, a former Chicago State English professor whose book, Raising Kanye: Life Lessons from the Mother of a Hip-Hop Superstar, came out last May, died of complications relating to a cosmetic surgery procedure Saturday in Los Angeles, according to people.com…

Le Passage Lives! Plus, a New York Invasion

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Thursday night marked the reopening of Le Passage, which changed hands a few months ago when it parted from the Billy Dec brood and joined Three Headed Productions, a.k.a. the masterminds behind Cans, Salud, Junior’s Sports Lounge, and EvilOlive. Under Dec and Brad Young, Le Passage served as River North’s go-to late-night spot for the last seven years, but the business partners sold their share earlier this year to focus on their other haunts, including Rockit, The Underground, and an Asian-influenced restaurant slated to open next year…

Lemon Syllabub, Horses, and Bobby Flay

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Into The Wilde
Next from Martin Cournane, the man behind The Kerryman (661 N. Clark St.; 312-335-8121), comes Wilde Bar & Restaurant (3130 N. Broadway; 773-244-0404). His 185-seat “upscale pub food” spot will open November 12th with Alan Katz (Blue Mesa, Cullen’s) as chef. “Alan adds that extra flair to those bar-food favorites [wings, meat loaf, fish and chips, et cetera],” says Cournane. He even serves lemon syllabub, an obscure, centuries-old English dessert that Cournane describes as “white wine, sugar, and lemon made into a syrup, mixed into whipped cream, and served in a glass with sugar biscuits.” Toss in the pub’s 12 draft beers, two fireplaces, and…

Scene and Overheard

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Who knew Last Girl Standing was kind of like confession? Here, the most notable quotes from the last week:

“There I was, standing in a room with 700 women and three gay guys.”
–The Boyfriend, in reference to me dragging him to Thursday’s opening party for the new ultra-feminine Nanette Lepore store in Bucktown

“Oh, my god. Do you want to die? I think I lost my virginity to an R. Kelly CD. I think we put the music up really loud.”
–Kim Kardashian, in an interview I conducted…

Plan Your NYE Now

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I received this e-mail the other week from an LGS reader:

Sarah,
Can you give us your thoughts on a good New Year’s Eve party this year? We are all single, professional women, different ethnicities, and in our 30s. All suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

That’s a question I’m plagued by every year—along with just about everyone I know. “I’ve never had an amazing New Year’s Eve here,” one friend said to me recently. “How sad is that?”…

Thin-Crust Pizza Has Its Day

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A Tale of Two Pizzas
La Madia (59 W. Grand Ave.; 312-329-0400), a long-awaited contemporary pizzeria, opened on October 17th; four days later and three blocks away, Pizzeria Via Stato (620 N. State St.; 312-337-6634) fired up its new Wood Stone oven and baked its first Roman-style pizza. So how do these two River North competitors stack up? La Madia’s crust has great personality—tender chewy, an eense of salt, and lots of soul. Via Stato’s is no slouch, however, with its lighter-than-air blistered collar and crackery texture. Topping for topping, La Madia’s artichokes were light on flavor but the…

Time Tables

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The West Loop’s gorgeous Sepia is a good restaurant that could someday be a great one; Café 103’s tiny BYO charms the taste buds off its Beverly neighbors