Situated on a primo piece of real estate on the ground floor of the new Park View Hotel, facing the Green City Market, Perennial is for the most part a solid homecoming for chef de cuisine Ryan Poli (formerly of Butter), who’s working under the aegis of executive chef Giuseppe Tentori (Boka). There’s a rustic and seasonal simplicity that’s occasionally sideswiped by some untamed flourishes: a sweet peekytoe crab salad was all but destroyed by a bitterly acid avocado mousse that’s in the running for one of the worst things I’ve eaten all year, and the short-rib cannelloni that accompanied some otherwise beautiful seared sea scallops was a textural nightmare of overmanipulated manky meatstuff. Overall, though, Poli is working excellent ingredients into appealing, often colorful creations, from Roman-style crusty baked cylindrical semolina-beet gnocchi with a thick walnut puree to a portobello carpaccio salad with pickled garlic and diced prosciutto vinaigrette executed in such a way to make the meaty fungus almost diaphanous. A striped bass fillet with crisp, silvery skin in a bath of Parmesan-tomato jus stirred up happy childhood memories for a tablemate, who compared it to alphabet soup broth. The simplest dishes were the most impressive: a lamb duo of chops and spicy braised loin with eggplant chutney; a slick, lush foie gras torchon on the charcuterie plate; and a watermelon-tomato-olive oil salad that should be devastating at high tomato season. This is one of the most boring restaurant neighborhoods in the city, so Perennial ought to be valued by locals as well as hotel guests. —Mike Sula
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1800 N. Lincoln, 312-981-7070
166 E. Superior, 312-523-0923
660 N. State, 312-202-6050
