A Michelin-Starred Chef Aims to Build "The Best Casual Restaurant"
Plus an homage and revival of a legendary Chicago dish
“I want to be the best casual restaurant there is and take a refined approach. There are so many restaurants overtly saturated with good things. We want to be better than good. We want to be great.”
--Jenner Tomaska, Co-Owner/Chef of Chicago’s forthcoming Petite Edith
On November 20th, Tomaska and his partner Katrina Bravo, the creative and culinary team behind the Michelin-starred Esmé will begin their quest to bring greatness to Chicago casual dining with a seafood-forward French-inflected preparation of Midwestern ingredients in a neo-bistro setting in River North called Petite Edith.
The namesake “Edith” is derived from Bravo’s mother’s middle name. Chef Tomaska says of his mother-in-law, “I don’t have a lot of family. She’s always been very supportive, which is very atypical of the stories you often hear about in-laws. She’s always fair, never one-sided. She’s full of genuine love, stern when she needs to be, but also sweet. She’s such an important person on our lives, so what better way to say thank you than naming our restaurant after her.”
Tomaska doesn’t want to recreate the “Disney-esque” idea of a bistro. He loves that look and vibe, but Edith is going to me more light, bright, and “feminine”. The focal point will be a wrap-around bar, generous floral arrangements, and a dramatic chandelier.
As November whispers of snowmageddon have descended on Chicago, Tomaska envisions a room that will radiate with French coastal warmth even in the dead of January.
The food will zag too, and honestly that’s why I’m writing an opening story about Edith rather than a review. I’ve always been an admirer of Tomaska’s discipline to push things in a different direction.
He said, “I hate a blank canvas. I love to start from foundations like great classic sauce work and bend them. I like to work in a box and get outside of it pretty quickly.”
Whether it’s creating a course where diners can create a table-side painting, carving scallops to look like marigolds, or serving peanut butter with caviar, Tomaska has impressed me so much over time that I could no longer be a dispassionate observer of his work.
As a subjective supporter I’m looking forward to him twisting bistro convention at Edith, whether it’s serving bone-in monkfish lollipops or fin-on fried and flayed seabream kissed with citrus and a side of smoked potatoes, aka “Fish and chips”.
As a traditionalist and Chicago restaurant historian, I can not wait to house a mountain of Tomaska’s “Franklin Frites” at Petite Edith, golden potato slivers served with truffle aioli, a callback to the famous MK restaurant truffle fries.
If you moved to Chicago after 2017, you may not remember MK, but it was one of those legendary spots that seemed to launch a million careers. At some point the MK kitchen nurtured the careers of Michael Kornick, Todd Stein, Mindy Segal, Dave Beran, and Bravo and Tomaska’s mentor Erick Williams.
The address for Petite Edith is 868 N. Wells. MK’s old address was 868 N. Franklin. Is this coincidence, good fortune, or both? Who knows, but hopefully it means Petite Edith will have a long and generous run like MK which lasted for eighteen star-studded years.
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Opens Nov 20th Reservations are live now.
Petite Edith is located at 868 N. Wells in Chicago
I live in the area and am really looking forward to Petite Edith opening.
I also enjoyed the episodes focused on Esmé (as well as Cariño and Feld) on that Knife Edge show on AppleTV+. I was impressed with Jenner’s composure and getting a closer look at the stresses of running a restaurant at that level of cooking (and I am now dying to go to Cariño and sit at the counter). Thanks for the pre-open post!
this is awesum-ness
maybe actual "foodies"
will get the first word