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If you were to rank Chicago’s restaurateurs by their desire to see their own faces in publicity, one end would be marked by the reclusive Brendan Sodikoff and the other by Billy Dec, star of Windy City Live!, wearer of hipster hats, online bro personality and, oh yeah, owner/personification of Rockit Ranch, which has the Rockit bars, Sunda, ¡Ay Chiwowa! and others. Read his online bio or his Facebook page and the line between reality and parody instantly dissolves—his Facebook self-image is a Burberry bus stop ad he was in, the extremely white Dec somehow won “the Asian American Hall of Fame Award,” and the top story on the Rockit Ranch homepage is that Lady Gaga dined at Sunda recently, as well as Anne Burrell and Michael Bay (exactly the sort of random semicelebrity pairing we Chicagoans get excited about; maybe next week George Wendt and Ruth Bader Ginsburg will check it out together).
The official announcement last Thursday was that he had hooked up with one of the most undervalued stars on the culinary scene, Kevin Hickey of the Four Seasons’ Allium. Hickey was a chef who labored in the paradoxical obscurity of a of Michelin-starred restaurant (Seasons) on Michigan Avenue—theoretically a high-profile gig but in reality the kind of restaurant that’s better known to travelers on expense accounts than Chicagoans spending their own money. But he successfully sold the hotel on converting it into the more approachable Allium, devoted to an upscale take on comfort food inspired by his own Bridgeport upbringing—making the most precious hot dog in town (but also one of the best), as well as dishes like bacon buns (a nod to Bridgeport Bakery, around the corner from his boyhood home) and brussels sprouts with Polish kielbasa.
