[Update: In spring 2012 executive chef Todd Stein left the Florentine for Piccolo Due; in his place is Coco Pazzo vet Chris Macchia.]
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Not so for executive chef Todd Stein, who can often be seen purposefully striding across the dining room on critical tasks. Last summer the MK vet stepped away from an all-too-brief tenure at Cibo Matto—another corporate-owned hotel restaurant—and moved over to this, the first Chicago outpost of BLT Restaurants, a steak-centric New York group once fronted by Laurent Tourondel. BLT had also recently brought on another (sort of) local talent in corporate chef Rodelio Aglibot, who previously left his prints all over the pan-Asian gimmickry at Billy Dec’s Sunda.
I could barely wait for the chance to scarf down this crew’s texturally and technically flawless pastas again, and in that respect I wasn’t disappointed, even though in a few cases they arrived terribly oversalted. That didn’t stop me from demolishing the otherwise opulent duck egg carbonara, rich yolky bucatini piled under a snow cap of grated pecorino—a Stein signature, that by virtue of pancetta already flirts with high sodium levels. Nor did it the rectangular squid ink chittarra tossed with crabmeat and bread crumbs, chile, and mint, and the wide sheets of pappardelle (no sodium problem there) billowing among roasted mushrooms, parsnips, and shards of Parmigiano Reggiano. Better judgment will tell you to stop eating even the oversize half-portions long before the reflex to kicks in.
[Editor’s note: Both chef Todd Stein and sous chef Russell Kook have since left the restaurant.]
