Does a restaurant exist if Google can’t find it? Go ahead and type the words “Two restaurant Chicago” into a browser. Bubkes, right? As of this writing the only immediate pertinent result I can come up with is a not terribly helpful Everyblock post on the second page. To get anything relevant out of a search engine you would have to know Two—the second restaurant from Yamandu Perez, chef/owner of Hinsdale’s Zak’s Place—is located at 1132 W. Grand, the former home of the doomed Black Sheep and before that May Street Market. Plug in the address and there it is.
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That seems consistent with the almost aggressively low-key opening of this spot, which has been significantly redecorated, brightened, and filled with reclaimed blond wood fixtures, sweeping out the ghosts of the Black Sheep to make way for entirely new ones, and replacing its seminal, if dusty, punk-rock soundtrack with unthreatening aural wallpaper such as Coldplay, Lenny Kravitz, and Sade.
And then on that second visit—a similarly slow weeknight—my table was subjected to a succession of dishes so fundamentally wrong it felt as if culinary students were feeding us. The off odor of grilled octopus swimming in stewed tomatoes arrived well in advance of its leathery flesh, while a chilled plank of smoked salmon had a mushiness that wouldn’t have been noticeable had it been sliced thin rather than nearly an inch thick. A fat house-made sausage looked temptingly seared off but possessed none of the juicy snap a visual cue like that should foreshadow, and it arrived at the identical temperature to a small soft pretzel on the side. Similarly, a blistering hot braised oxtail ragu was a solidified mass on its raft of grilled cheddar grits.
1132 W. Grand 312-624-8363113two.com
