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Two deaths from the Chicago culinary community were announced, to general shock, over the weekend. The most shocking was the sudden death of bartender Jason Cevallos, who had just moved to Hong Kong for a job; the cause was said to be typhoid fever, caused by salmonella infection. Cevallos, who was about 35, was a veteran of the Aviary and the Office, part of the team that won a James Beard award this year for Outstanding Bar Program. He had a particular passion for Fortaleza tequila and big bear hugs, to judge by how people remembered him on Facebook. Tributes came in from many colleagues on Facebook (you can see some at 312 Dining Diva); as my friend Todd Lemmon wrote me after seeing the news, “I only went there once but he was an engaging, funny, serious, talented hospitality professional. I appreciated that very much.” Cevallos did the actual on-camera mixing in Craig Schoettler’s Key Ingredient episode in 2012, and just this past August was the subject himself in the Reader‘s Cocktail Challenge.
The Palm Beach Post piece sums up much of why Le Francais wowed then, in terms that could have come from a Trotter review a decade later: “The food is the attraction, and it is meant to dazzle the eye . . . the flavor is intense, the identity of the seasonings elusive.” Like Trotter, he was a perfectionist heedless of cost, importing haricots verts (a folly you couldn’t possibly make money on) because American green beans were gauche. He said he was the only one in America importing foie gras (this was before it started being produced in the Hudson Valley, because it was before Americans knew anything).
