Schwa hit the dining scene in 2005 turning the local restaurant world upside down with a revolutionary concept of communal chefs in a small 26-seat former-house near Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. Spring 2010 offered a shake-up in the restaurant, at least visually, when the owners decided to update the Schwa dining room and kitchen still accessed through a nondescript Ashland Avenue storefront entrance. The result was a sleeker but still simple dining space with glossy ebonized floor, artfully sprayed walls and artsy chrome light sculpture under a mirrored floating ceiling. Chef Michael Carlson continues to lead the assemblage of gourmands, who often double as the actual waiters. Carlson is a Chicago native who began his professional training under Paul Bartolotta at Chicago’s Spiaggia and later worked alongside Grant Achatz of Alinea and Heston Blumenthal of UK’s Fat Duck. <o:p /> <!--EndFragment-->
The Food
Perhaps the owners sum it up best, “A restaurant that is part of a new movement; a community of chefs who work collaboratively and share openly. A house with no front or back; a house where chefs are servers, and serving is about creating dialogue.” The result is a daily rotating tasting menu that begins with a thoughtful amuse before crab with pine and mushroom on plantain, apple pie soup with cheddar and chestnut, tiger fish with carrot and marshmallow and tagliatelle with veal heart and black truffle. But don’t get too attached to this menu, as tomorrow will be an entirely different line-up equally cutting-edge and worthy of its local cult status.
Last Word
Former-Wicker Park house morphs into communal gourmand with rotating daily tasting menus for Chicago’s culinary elite.
