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It’s no secret that a new Executive Chef can make a huge difference in how a restaurant operates and the quality and creativity of the cuisine being offered. The transformation can begin almost at once, but it can take months to complete. We have been watching such a transformation at the Albert, the hotel in the EMC2 hotel. Our first review was in March 2019 with a followup in May. As Fall descended on us, we went back for another look at what Chef Larry Feldmeier was up to.

The cocktail program has always been quite good, even in the pre-Feldmeier era. I started with a classic Penicillin cocktail.

Whiskey with lemon, ginger, and honey has long been a home remedy for colds and other ailments. I don’t know if any medical organization has ever endorsed this idea, but at least that explains why a combination all these things would be called a “Penicillin” cocktail. A member of the sour family of cocktails (liquor, citrus, sugar), a good one lets the whiskey flavors and aromas come through as it mingles with the citrus and other flavors. The most common problem, in my book, at least, is making the cocktail too sweet. In this case, it was nicely balanced. 

The Penicillin is traditionally a Scotch whisky-based drink. This one used both Scotch whisky and Japanese whisky. The Japanese have been producing some fabulous whiskies in the style of single malt Scotches for some time now. One of my objections to the cocktail list at the Albert is that they are not specific when they list the ingredients. It is always generic: Scotch, vermouth, sherry, etc. Serious cocktail lovers want to know exactly what Scotch, vermouth, etc. is being used as it can make a significant—sometimes huge—difference in the cocktail. I try to remember to ask, but I often forget, as I did here.

The Chef sent out an amuse bouche to get us started.

Smoked fish, done well, is a beautiful ingredient that reflects one of the oldest methods of preserving food. We don’t use it as much for preservation as for flavor these days, and this was nicely done. The sturgeon had a clean, clear, but not overpowering smoky flavor.

Kohlrabi is a vegetable that you don’t see very often. Here’s what it looks like.

“Kohlrabi” is a German word that means “cabbage turnip.” It is sometimes called a “German Turnip.” While the bulb may look similar to a turnip, and the crunchy flavor of the raw vegetable may taste vaguely like a turnip, it is not related to the turnip at all. Nor is it a root vegetable. It is, in fact, a relative of cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli. The bulb grows above the ground and it is classified as a wild cabbage. The whole bulb can be eaten raw or cooked, although the skin is quite tough and is usually peeled off. I often see it in the grocery store, so you may want to give it a try.

The first course was a salad of figs, beets, and walnuts.

This was colorful, flavorful, and full of varied textures from the soft figs, to the firm beets, to the crunchy walnuts and greens.

While the cuisine at the Albert is outstanding and the cocktail program generally good,  the wine program remains the weak link. I asked for some wine pairings as we progressed through the meal and the first one came out as we enjoyed the salad.

Albariño is a white grape from northern Spain that makes delicious wines. It is light, has a nice citrusy acidity, and lovely floral aromas. The wine was a fine choice for the first couple of courses. The problem is the glass it was served in. It may look like a big Champagne flute in the picture, but it was, in fact, a small cordial glass—not even close to the right stemware and filled to the brim besides, which is a no-no for virtually every wine. I am not going to harp on every wine, but what was basically a pretty good selection of wines was served in a weird series of stemware.

Happily, the next course was another winner. We had a slightly different version of this Tempura Maitake Mushroom dish on our last visit.

Maitake mushrooms cook up beautifully in a light tempura batter and are the base this dish. The additional components have been more seasonal, but have included fruits and herbs. Since we are in the transition from summer to fall, there was a combination of summer (honeydew) and fall (orange & grapefruit). The mushrooms provide a great, meaty, texture, complimented by the crunch of the tempura, and the sweetness and citrus bite of the fruit. The freshness of the mint and green completed the picture. 

The next course was a savory pudding flavored with sweet corn.

We were at the end of the fresh local sweet corn season, but this dish was a great way to take advantage of the last of the crop. Corn was used in the creamy custard pudding and was also grilled to add another layer of corn flavor and texture. Corn and crab work really well together in general, and they certainly did here.

Jimmy Nardello peppers are a long, bright red, sweet pepper from Italy. I have seen them popping up in restaurants recently so availability must be increasing. The peppers were brought over from Italy to Connecticut in the late 1800s by the Nardello family. The son, Jimmy, grew them until the 1980s when he began giving the seeds to others. A pretty cool story of one individual saving an heirloom species. 

I am always up for a foie gras course, so I was very happy to see this unique presentation.

“Ganache” usually refers to a mixture of chocolate and cream used as a filling or frosting in all kinds of decadent desserts. Here, it was essentially a foie gras mousse, which is just a savory form of decadence.

Foie gras can be prepared many ways, but it is almost always served with a sweet, usually fruit based, sauce to balance the fattiness of the liver. Blueberries work well, and they were included in this dish both as a sauce and as whole berries. The kumquat slices were an unusual addition that brought color, texture and flavor to the dish. A couple small slices rich, buttery, blueberry cake rounded out the presentation.

Foie gras dishes are traditionally served with a sweet wine, most often a Sauternes from Bordeaux, France, but a Cream Sherry was served with this dish.

I can’t remember the last time I had a cream sherry and I don’t think I have ever had one served with foie gras. It worked very nicely.

If you are not a sherry aficionado, I’ll briefly explain that sherry is produced in several styles with varying degrees of sweetness, from the light, dry, fino style up through increasing longer-aged, heavier, and sometimes sweeter versions. Cream Sherry doesn’t contain any cream, but is a blend of dry, medium-bodied sherries with heavy, very sweet sherries. It was first produced in the 1860s, but the history of winemaking around Jerez, Spain, the home of Sherry, goes back to 100 BC.

I am on a personal crusade to get all restaurants to stop serving the foie gras course near the beginning of a meal and, instead, make it the last course before dessert. I got this idea after dining at Brindille. They served the foie gras course just before dessert and, for me at least, it was a palm-to-the-forehead, why didn’t I think of this before? moment. Look at the image of the foie gras dish above. It’s beautiful, but does it look like a savory course or like a dessert? It looks and tastes like a desert, and is served with a dessert wine. It would fit beautifully just before the dessert courses rather than in the middle of the savory courses. 

I’m not having much luck on the crusade and most people look at me like I’m an idiot when I suggest the change. I guess a few centuries of tradition are hard to overcome, but I’m with Brindille on this one.

Having said that, this course was delicious and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Chef Feldmeier seems to like presenting pasta is unusual ways. Here’s one:

Now, there is nothing unusual about fettuccine, unless it is made by taking sheets of squid ink pasta dough and pressing them together with sheets of saffron pasta dough, then cutting the fettuccine ribbons. You could serve the resulting bi-color pasta with a simple cream sauce and get high marks for creativity, but add lobster roe, garlic, chili sauce, trout roe, clams, and oxalis leaves grown on your own rooftop garden and you create a dish with an amazing array of colors, flavors and textures.

The final savory course of the night was a good old NY Strip.

I make NY Strip steaks at home all the time, but they never look quite like this: a perfect rectangle of beef, glazed with a sparkling veal jus. It was served with eggplant caviar (roasted eggplant, usually smoked, puréed with garlic, shallots, herbs and spices), parsnip purée, potato strings, and roasted carrots standing like little stalagmites on the plate. This was quite an imaginative upgrade to the all-American plate of steak, potatoes, and a vegetable.

Parsnips, pale cousins to carrots, are sweet, delicious, and nutty. Roasted, pan-fried, or steamed they are a great root vegetable.

I’m not a big fan of the traditional “palate cleanser” course, which is usually a scoop of too-sweet sorbet or granita. However, this bowl is far more interesting, and if all palate cleansers were like this, I might rethink my position.

A typical palate cleanser course would be just the raspberry sorbet or just the lime granita. Put the two of them together, add some slices of fresh pluot and you have something that could easily be presented as a proper dessert course. A pluot, by the way, is a hybrid stone fruit that is 75% plum and 25% apricot. They are quite easy to find these days, at least in my local stores, and they are quite delicious.

The “real” dessert was a deconstructed cherry pie with a scoop of corn ice cream.

If you ever watched the “Iron Chef” TV series, there were times when they seemed to compete on who could put the weirdest thing into the ice cream maker. After watching that, almost any kind of ice cream seems normal to me. As it turns out, a sweet corn ice cream is delicious. Dried, fresh, and gelled cherries with bits of baked pie crust made for a pretty cool cherry pie.

Finally, because clearly we were still hungry after all that (NOT!), some mignardises.

I’m not a big jelly fan, but the chocolate coconut crunch was delicious!

So, the Albert is even more an undiscovered neighborhood gem as Chef Feldmeier has had more time to move the cuisine and service in his direction. The wine program still needs help, but there are good selections to be had on the wine list and they do have proper glasses to serve them in. We’ll see them again, soon.

The Albert (In EMC2 Hotel)
Address: 228 E Ontario St Chicago, IL 60611
Phone: (312) 471-3883
Reservations: opentable.com
Website: https://thealbertchicago.com
Dress Code: Smart Casual
Price Range: $31–$50
Hours: Sun–Wed, 6:00 am–10:00 pm
            Thu–Sat, 6:00 am–11:00 pm   
             Brunch: Sat, Sun 6:00 am–2:00 pm
             Breakfast: Mon–Fri 6:00 am–11:00 am
             Lunch: Mon–Fri 11:00 am–3:00 pm
             Happy Hour: Mon–Fri 3:00 pm–6:00 pm
Credit Cards: AMEX, Discover, MasterCard, Visa

The author has no affiliation with any of the businesses or products described in this article.

All images were taken with a Sony a7iii camera with a Zeiss Batis 40 mm f/2 CF lens using ambient light. Post-processing in Adobe Lightroom® and Adobe Photoshop® with Nik/Google and Skylum® Luminar® plugins.