“Let’s ask the chefs at new restaurants to pick their favorite new restaurants,” we said. “With the caveat that they can’t pick their own. Wouldn’t that be interesting?”

Rob and Alison Leavitt, Mado

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It’s so hard to choose where you’re going to spend your money these days—we know that if we go to Lula or Avec our money is going to be well spent. And we know them. And the reason we know them is that we’ve had good meal after good meal and have cultivated a relationship with them so we keep going back. It’s like the old days when there were only a few good restaurants and you knew you were going to get a good meal, as opposed to trying to check out the new hot thing. We’re very anxious to try the Publican, but we haven’t been able to go yet.

The thing I love about having just moved to Chicago is that everything is new to me. I went to Blackbird and really enjoyed the experience. (Since we make our butter in-house, we end up with a lot of leftover buttermilk. We offered it to Blackbird. They put it to good use.)

I live up in Avondale and I’m definitely dying to go to Urban Belly. And of course I’m trying to get myself to the Publican. We’re neighbors and he does wonderful food. And Province, Randy Zweiban’s new place. We’re also neighbors, and I’m anxious to check them out as well.

We went to the Publican. We loved the communal seating ’cause we have it too, and we definitely support something that’s out of the box and not a cookie-cutter kind of place. And we love the meatpacking district and we just love [executive chef] Paul Kahan’s cooking.

I really, really respect Bill Kim; he was one of my early mentors. He really laid it out for me and kind of explained, like, “This is what you’ve got to do.”

Graham Elliot 217 W. Huron, 312-624-9975

L2O 2300 N. Lincoln Park West, 773-868-0002

Mado 1647 N. Milwaukee, 773-342-2340

Perennial 1800 N. Lincoln, 312-981-7070

Province 161 N. Jefferson, 312-669-9900

The Publican 837 W. Fulton, 312-733-9555

Urban Belly 3053 N. California, 773-583-0500