🍽 ON THE PLATE
Paper Tiger Cafe is bringing a long-overdue brick-and-mortar to Lincoln Park. Rick Shi's Paper Tiger Eats — the Chinese street food pop-up that's been a Green City Market Saturday fixture for years — filed a retail food license at 628 W. Webster Ave. on June 1, and the Instagram account (@papertigercafe) confirmed the cafe is coming to Lincoln Park. Shi started Paper Tiger Eats at the end of 2019, building the brand around grilled skewers, scallion pancakes, and locally-sourced ingredients at GCM. The brick-and-mortar concept looks to be a café format — coffee, matcha, pastries — alongside the market-inspired food Shi has been refining at GCM for years.
Noema, the Greek gastrobar that opened quietly at 1443 W. Fullerton earlier this spring, just filed an outdoor patio license. The Infatuation flagged it in April — modern Greek mezze, braised short rib, crispy lavraki with risotto. New patio adds another reason to go. Wed–Mon 4–9:30pm (closed Tues).
Smyth named best restaurant in North America. The three-Michelin-starred tasting menu at 177 N. Ada St. in the West Loop was named No. 1 at the inaugural North America's 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony on May 28. Chef John Shields and Karen Urie Shields. The ten-year-old spot was at No. 4 last year. It's Chicago's only three-Michelin-star restaurant.
📅 MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Green City Market Chef BBQ — Thursday, September 10. The year's biggest local food event returns to 1817 N. Clark for its 26th edition: 100+ Chicago restaurants, breweries, and beverage purveyors cooking from GCM's local, sustainable farmers in an outdoor evening setting in Lincoln Park. Early bird tickets are on sale now through June 21 — historically this one sells out, and early bird saves money. VIP entry at 4:30pm, general admission at 5:30pm. greencitymarket.org/chef-bbq
🏗 PERMIT DESK
DePaul's sports facility at 2300 N. Sheffield has broken ground. A $42 million caissons-only permit was issued June 5, marking the start of construction on the university's new athletics building just north of Belden. The project has been years in the making — and years of community pushback over the demolition of 1890s residential buildings to serve a team that the commenters on YIMBY never let you forget is last in its conference. Ground is moving regardless.
See you next Friday — The 60614