The Restaurant of Summer

My birthday was last week. To reward myself for a birth I had nothing to do with, I went to one of the best restaurants in America, but the spot that really made my month, the place that felt like the true gift to myself was not that restaurant.

But that’s how it goes sometimes. That new seemingly great job opportunity turns out to be a boiler room pyramid scheme. The perfect partner turns out to be a serial killer. That’s ok, life is often most savory if we first wade through a little spiciness.

Part of the reason the other spot didn’t work out is because I want joy in my food, joy in my dining room, and joy in my restaurant professionals. I did not see a lot of that in the “best” spot.

I have enough of the joyless things brought on by the numerous challenges of middle-age life that the first thing I look for when dining out these days is an oasis of true hospitality.

And listen I get it, that we even have a restaurant industry post pandemic is a miracle. That doesn’t mean the folks working in it now are always closer to a living wage or great healthcare. They are often literally breaking their backs for a diner’s happiness. It’s tough to take care of others when you can’t take care of yourself.  But, in this case, we’re also not talking about that kind of restaurant.

But, we’ll get to that in another essay.

Right now, let’s focus on the new restaurant I love unquestionably: Mariscos San Pedro in the old Dusek’s space in Thalia Hall in Pilsen. I do not normally make a habit of being the second paid customer to walk in the door on a restaurant’s inaugural day. But, also like I said, I was in need. Taqueria Chingon, Le Bouchon, and Obelix have yielded some of my most joyous dining moments in last five years. It felt like a good bet that team would deliver here.

Out the gate, San Pedro was an absolute pool party, full of basket weave lanterns, lobster-adorned bathroom wallpaper, and an octopus swimming across some chalkboard art amidst an azure sea of walls. 

The garde manger chef shook her bandanna-wrapped pigtails to the reggae womp of Bob Marley. At the other end of the bar kitchen, the chingon of Chingon, Marcus Ascencio was locked in on expo. His partner Oliver Poilevey the dur à cuire of Le Bouchon was walking around with a Gloop-in-the-chocolate-factory-grin.

Our food runner with a bouncy coiffure, lean and earnest like a Chalamet, poured water and asked us how we were. We asked him the same and he gushed how cool it was to be here: “They’re speaking French downstairs and Spanish up here. I feel like I’m in a movie!”

I couldn’t say it better. San Pedro is basically what might happen if Like Water for Chocolate and Ratatouille had a cinema child.  Would I be surprised if the chopped crunchy chapulines, aka nutty toasted grasshopper garnish, rose from its sour orange and morita chili-spiked achiote butter dripping oyster-enriched pond, reformed, and scampered away to frolic in a nearby park? No.

This would be ok, because I’d just shift to the beachy passionfruit mignonette spiked crustaceans bursting with finger lime pearls.

Because I’d come off an expensive tasting experience I was weary of the campechana, a tostada larded with tuna, kampachi, uni, salmon roe, and avocado.  But, also I’m a slut for that custardy brine.

What I got was a cracklin’ corn perfumed raft glistening with jewel-toned pristine seafood flesh, salty, creamy, bright, effervescent, literally the ikura poppin’ off like bottle rockets.  I tasted the best of my meals at Tamu and Diego over the last few weeks in a single bite. Mexi-sushi at its finest.

If you like it fiery, there’s a trio of house-made hot sauces available. The smoky complex salsa negra was my favorite. At least until the softshell crab taco arrived, the proud squid ink-painted and tempura-fried crustacean standing tall like an onyx statue in a pool of peanut-studded green curry. A sidecar of nuclear orange Fresno chili hot sauce burst with the kind of acidity old school Huy Fong sriracha once did.

Also sunny, a big old snifter of red wine, lime, pineapple and gin, aka the Tinto de Verano, a cocktail rimmed with a tajin-spiked spinnaker of dried mango.

The San Pedro margarita is infused with La Luna Espadincillo mezcal, my favorite kind of marg, smoky with lilting vanilla top notes.  I have long done a similar version at home with Del Maguey mezcals that I call the Vanessa Kirby, because she played the smokiest Princess Margaret ever on The Crown.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and San Pedro’s Sonoran octo-dog, which subs out the frankfurter for a beautifully tender round of octo-tentacle channels the best of the bacon-wrapped classic, but because it’s nestled in an East-coast-style split-top bun it also manages to give Maine lobster roll vibes.

There is no ambiguity about the Mexican origin of a fluffy corn tamal stuffed with shreddy moist duck enrobed in a chocolatey mole glaze or a Mexi-rangoon like tetela oozing with creamy raclette and mushroom.

You know how there’s always that one banger of song that becomes the anthem of summer? The first one I ever remember is Bananarama’s Cruel Summer, mostly because it was the centerpiece of the soccer fight scene in the original Karate Kid, a movie I have seen at least 47 times.  Well, the drinks and food and vibe at San Pedro make me feel like this is the Chicago restaurant of summer 2024.

Stuffed, our affable server Dario implored us to get the leche frita, a fried cube of corn-flake-studded and cinnamon-sugar dusted crème anglaise, aka a deep-fried custard churro bite.

I also opted for a blue corn macaron.  I liked the deep masa-waft, but, and this is my only note of the night, a macaron’s glory is found in a shattery meringue crust, and the corn meal here bogs the dessert down a little.  I might find a way to infuse the flavor and filter out the corn meal for a lighter texture.

But, no worries. It was tough to come down from heights like this. I felt like I was floating into the weekend.  I was gobsmacked at how well San Pedro already ran, but also mystified by the effervescence running through the dining room.

Watching the smile on Oliver’s face as he worked the room, I thought of his father Jean-Claude and his mother Susanne whose Le Sardine was one of the first places I ever ate offal. It was the first restaurant that made me feel like a true Chicagoan, a spot that became my happy place for their reasonably-priced three course specials that rewarded a hungry but cash-strapped food lover in the mid-2000s.

I thought about the rebellious Oliver challenging tradition by spiking his dad’s bistro classics with fish sauce at Le Bouchon as he recently talked about on the Joiner’s podcast. I thought about Jean-Claude throwing away or hiding that bottle of fish sauce when Oliver was away. 

I thought about how Oliver and his siblings lost both of their parents way too soon, just as they were growing in to their own as adults and restaurateurs. I tried to reconcile that tension with the palpable happiness at Mariscos San Pedro. I reached out to Oliver and asked him whether his keen awareness of the shortness of life was somehow responsible for what I was feeling at San Pedro.

He said, “I think some of the best hospitality sometimes comes from people who have known real sorrow and they know how important hospitality and restaurants can be for that. But it’s also cause I’m super lucky to work with such great people.”

Mariscos San Pedro is located at 1227 W. 18^th St. in Chicago