Lite Bites: What Your Favorite Chefs & Mixologists Are Up To Around Town This Week

Chef Grant Achatz

What a great week for Alinea owners Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas. On Tuesday, they taped a food-focused episode for Katie Couric's show with culinary stars Art Smith (Table Fifty-Two), Ming Tsai, Rocco DiSpirito and Cat Cora. All the chefs are featured in Joseph Levy's award-winning documentary, Spinning Plates, which spotlights the challenges of owning world-class restaurants. The show airs Thursday on ABC.

To celebrate, the Alinea guys are hosting a few parties that take place at Aviary Oct. 25-27. Here are the details, which include hors d'oeuvres, an open bar and an opportunity to meet the players.


Chef Dale Levitski (Photo: Sprout)

• Also, close to 80,000 readers voted in Condé Nast Traveler's annual Readers' Choice Awards, and this year they ranked Chicago as No. 5 city in the United States. The magazine gives our city additional props by hosting a number of exclusive dinner parties, beginning on Oct. 27. Alas, you MUST be a MasterCard holder to take advantage. That sucks, but one of the highlights of the series is a family dinner party at BellyQ. Chef Bill Kim is whipping up American classics appropriate for the kids, and you'll get such dishes as beef ribs, corn bread with kimchi and bacon, and cole slaw with nuoc cham and mint. There will be cocktails for adults and mocktails for children. It's $100 for an adult and child under 12, and takes place at 5pm Oct. 27. Here's the full list of festivities.

• LM Bistro's new beverage director Maura Davis—formerly of The Purple Pig, Davanti Enoteca and Violet Hour—recently debuted a new fall cocktail menu. Many of the drinks are made with house-infused liquors, including Bon L'Orange (house-made spiced rum, ginger, blood orange), Pamplemousse (house-made grapefruit vodka, Chambord, chamomile, lemon) and Chaleur (house-made rose vodka, honey, warm apple cider, citrus).

• Chef shuffles: Dale Levitski (Sprout, Frog N Snail) and Ryan Poli (Little Market Brasserie, Tavernita) have both left their respective posts, according to Eater Chicago.

• And Chef Cleetus Friedman throws a Punk'n Party at Fountainhead at 4pm Oct. 29. That consists of Halloween-focused beers, pumpkin carving and jammin' out to a punk rock playlist. Get a pumpkin and a pumpkin poured beer (think Jolly Pumpkin Parcela, Southern Tier Pumking, Uinta Punk'n) for $15.