Ursula Davids, matriarch of the family that runs Pastiche restaurant, likes to call its food “cuisine without borders.” You might have inferred something like that from the name, just as the name of Stewart Parsons’s restaurant, Gypsy, suggests the chef’s culinary meanderings across national and cultural frontiers.
Cross-culturalism isn’t limited to the fancy places, either. Lots of otherwise basic American restaurants offer pizzas in classic or designer versions, Italian-style fried calamari, Greek salads. Then there are the targeted efforts, such as French-Japanese crossovers or Asian-Italian attempts.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
If for no other reason, come here for the conch–the wonderful ocean meat that’s sort of a cross between shrimp and octopus. The tender stuff comes from inside various kinds of seashells, and you find it all over the Miami-Key West-Caribbean circuit, but rarely in Chicago except at an occasional old-line Italian spot, where they call it scungilli. As an appetizer, Patricia chops it up and turns it into greaseless fritters (conch fritters are a Caribbean standard), served with zippy key-lime and mustard sauce ($4.25). Or, better yet, try it as a rich entree, panned in a light coating of corn-meal, then anointed with a really garlicky aioli (mayonnaise) sauce ($9.50).
Another starter, called “studded” mushrooms, was big mushroom caps stuffed with a mix of sauteed eggplant, sausage, peppers, and olives ($5.95). Kind of tasty, but the mix was so assertive that you didn’t get much mushroom flavor. A couple of other dishes also showed tendencies to overseason or pile too many good things together.
