Every critic who steps off the elevators on the Trump Tower’s 16th floor is going to have the pin already pulled from his grenade, braced for any hint of the Donald’s trademark vulgarity. At least I know I did. But though the prohibitive prices and cheesy tunes piped through the sound system raised my hackles, the food at Sixteen is bewitching. It certainly confirms the reputation of chef Frank Brunacci, who launched his globe-trotting career in Melbourne, Australia, and went on to London’s Les Saveurs and Ritz-Carlton restaurants in Atlanta and New Orleans. Here he offers at least one signature dish from his past, a vanilla-scented crab salad in a cylinder of rock melon (that’s Aussie for “cantaloupe,” Yank). Everyone I describe this to snirches, and maybe that’s why the menu doesn’t mention vanilla, but with the briny crab, the sweet melon, and the acidic pineapple dressing it makes for a novel harmony of clear flavors—unrestrained, sure, but not obnoxious.
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That goes for many of Brunacci’s presentations, from a lamb loin perched atop “forbidden” black rice and lightened with grapefruit and lemongrass accents to duck “Percik,” a take on Malaysian roast duck splashed with a currylike cumin-and-carrot jus, to gauzy sheets of sunchoke-and-escargot lasagna, littered with black truffles that announce their arrival halfway across the dining room. It’s recommended that you order desserts, by pastry chef Hichem Lahreche (who has a similarly impressive CV, beginning with a run at D.C.’s Citronelle), at the start of the meal—they’re constructed like birds of paradise, particularly the monnaie du pape, a wafer protruding from a scoop of luscious milk sorbet with Drambuie gastrique.
Dinner at Schwa is probably more fun when you’re not fretting over whether or not the chef is going to make you as a critic. In the teeny dining room—just 13 tables in front of a window to the kitchen—there’s nowhere to hide, especially when the chef himself is one of your servers. Thankfully Michael Carlson seemed to have other things on his mind. “This has been the weirdest day,” he announced at one point, brandishing a bottle of wine left behind by another table. “We had, like, 20 cancellations, so we’ve been drinking since five!” He then launched into a story about the provenance of his free-range antelope. Apparently, with ‘lope meat, freshness is such a concern that the beasts are dispatched by sharpshooters from a helicopter and butchered on the spot.
The Fifty/50 2047 W. Division, 773-489-5050
Take Me Out 1502 W. 18th, no phone
Schwa
401 N. Wabash, 312-588-8030
466 N. Ashland, 773-252-1466
