March 31--In the last year, Chicago food lovers have pegged Hyde Park as the next restaurant hotspot, the next West Loop, carrying with it the connotation that it's a dining neighborhood on the rise. With Tuesday's news of Mike Sheerin joining the fray, little doubt remains: Hyde Park is the place to eat.
And even though Sheerin's new project, a dumpling house called Packed, won't until until late summer, his entry into the neighborhood further validates Hyde Park as a fine dining hub now. It's not everyday a new restaurant is helmed by a chef whose resume include stops at wd~50, Blackbird and Cicchetti.
As for Packed, the restaurant will be more compact than his previous ventures: a 50-seat, 1,600 square foot space at 1321 E. 57th Street.
"I grew up in restaurants that were small, 60-seaters. I can do the (big, sprawling) restaurants well, but for me, it's more about finding a product that is really delicious," said Sheerin, named a Food Wine Best New Chef in 2010. "For me, this is going to be a lot of fun. I'm more about high pace, busy restaurants that have a lot of energy."
For Sheerin, the dumpling genre is a wide umbrella that's not strictly Asian. Among the 10 dumplings on his opening menu is a pastrami dumpling, with housemade pastrami, flavors of caraway and pumpernickel, a red wine mustard and pickled green tomatoes.
Sheerin is also obsessed with xiaolongbao, the soup-filled Shanghainese dumpling. The xiaolongbao here won't adhere to rules of authenticity -- "You won't find any of this in Chinatown," he said -- but rather, the concept of the burst of broth when biting in. He's working on a French onion soup dumpling with gruyere cheese, cognac caramelized onions and a sourdough wrapper that explodes beefy broth when consumed. The majority of the dumplings will be steamed and served in bamboo baskets, though several are fried and pan-seared.
Sheerin and partner Aaron DiMaria join a list of Chicago restaurateurs who have embraced Hyde Park as a culinary destination: Yusho and A10's Matthias Merges, The Promontory's Jared Wentworth, Ja' Grill's Tony Coates, Porkchop's Jovanis Bouargoub, among others. Sheerin said to expect a late summer opening, which as restaurant construction goes, will likely mean September.
kpang@tribpub.com
Twitter @pang
