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Why I’m Taking Warlord Off The Essential Chicago Restaurants List

Why I’m Taking Warlord Off The Essential Chicago Restaurants List

A reflection on how we coddle dangerous cooking genius

Michael Nagrant
Jun 12, 2025
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The Hunger
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Why I’m Taking Warlord Off The Essential Chicago Restaurants List
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“You must kill all your darlings.”

--William Faulkner

Faulkner said that good writers must self-edit, murder even their best words if they don’t truly serve the writing.

He might as well have been talking about how food writers, food critics, and even diners should also treat the operators of even the most beloved restaurants, if those folks somehow dishonor the human contract.

There is no such codified or binding document in the world, unless you count “The Golden Rule”, but the way I see it, the world works best when we pursue our own happiness as long as it doesn’t come at the premeditated expense of others.

Be you! Also, don’t be a dick.

And yet, being an asshole and being yourself are often such cozy bedfellows.

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