Following its success in the UK and Australia, Masterchef was first shown in the United States in 2010. In its first three series here it has kept to the concept of searching for skilled amateur chefs. The team of three judges includes Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot and Joe Bastianich, a restaurateur and business partner of Mario Batali. Graham Elliot has three restaurants based in Chicago including Grahamwich, g.e.b. (Graham Elliot Bistro) and the original Graham Elliot restaurant established in 2008.

This trip was a good opportunity to visit Graham Elliot’s restaurant and see where it came on the Masterchef judge scale ranging from Gordon Ramsay at the good end and Gregg Wallace’s Table at the universally derided end.

Situated north of the Chicago River, Graham Elliot’s occupies the ground floor of a six-storey brick property that occupies almost two thirds of the block on west Huron street. Inside, the decor is a mix of exposed brick and minimal wall decorations. The main dining room is fairly cavernous where the high ceiling shows exposed duct work. Lighting is dim. It helps if you like alternative music because the soundtrack on the evening of my visit included The Cure, Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys, Gorillaz, The Killers and Southern Culture on the Skids and the volume is set above background noise. The wait staff tend towards the achingly hip with a uniform of jacket, tie, jeans and DM type footwear or full black shirt with black trousers.

The evening menu has a choice between a three course prix fixé option, an eleven course tasting menu or a mystery menu whereon information is available about what to expect. I opted for the tasting menu where dish descriptions were limited to single words. Some of these were replicated on the prix fixé menu where three word descriptions gave a vague idea of what those dishes were likely to include. At the end of the meal the restaurant gave a copy of the menu to take away.

The amuse bouche was listed as yuzu, comprising a white soy gelée with yuzu bubbles. The micro shiso garnish had a liquorice-like flavour. As an amuse bouche, it provoked more of an indifferent shrug rather than starting things off with a bang. It wasn’t a help that the jelly was impossible to cut with the supplied teaspoon.

The first main course proper was cauliflower (yellow purple green). The dish explored different treatments of cauliflower and the listed colours referred to the types of cauliflowers that were included. The centrepiece of the dish was a slice of creamy cauliflower terrine. It came with cooked cauliflower couscous, purple cauliflower purée, olive oil and lemon zest. The purple purée had a wonderful intense flavour to it. Crispy fried cauliflower slices were also included together with pickled yellow cauliflower heads. This was a strong dish with the terrine, purée and pickles the standouts.

Clam (fennel potato champagne) followed next. The dish included two presentations of clams including razor clams with crispy potato, orange sauce and fennel where the refreshing fennel and citrus worked nicely with the marine flavours of the clam.  The other clam was cooked in white wine and served with champagne spheres and foam. Overall this dish was very pleasant, particularly the clam and champagne sphere combination. The dish came with a warning that only the items within the shells should be eaten. This would happen with later courses too.

The next dish was listed as butternut (noisette chestnut sage). A near-empty bowl with chestnut crumbs and atom olives was set on the table and a butternut squash consommé was poured fresh. Perched on the rim of the dish were strands of deep-fried butternut squash topped with toasted seeds. The delicate consommé had a wonderful flavour although it benefitted when the butternut strands were added for body. The toasted seeds gave a nutty crunch and the atom olives added a redcurrant type flavour. This was the dish that confirmed that coming to Graham Elliot was a good choice. Lovely.

The next course was billed simply as celery again taking the approach of combining different approaches to the same core ingredient. The centrepiece was a creamy celeriac mousse topped with celery salt and leaf. Fragrant diced celery was blended into the mousse at the base of the dish. This was another good course.

Lobster (coconut lime horchata) was an elegant dish combining poached lobster, coconut gel, cilantro and white chocolate pudding. The combination of coconut with lobster was really lovely although the white chocolate didn’t stand out at all. Fresno chilli pepper gel added a welcome spicy kick. This was a very enjoyable course.

Things stepped up a notch with sturgeon (rutabaga apple caraway). The dish turned up with a wonderful smoky smell. The smoked sturgeon was combined with rutabaga cake, apple sauerkraut, gruyere fondant, caraway glaze and pumpernickel crumbs. The firm meaty sturgeon was a strong focal point to the dish and every other element worked well here. The apple sauerkraut gave a nice acidic counterbalance while the gruyere gave a rich depth to the each forkful. This was the standout dish of the evening.

Moving onto meat, the main course was beef (matsutake matsutake matsutake).  The dish consisted of braised beef cheek with roasted turnips, potato purée, mushroom purée and matsutake mushrooms. The dish included pine cones and needles for presentation to emphasise the pine flavour of the matsutake mushrooms. The beef was quite dry so it benefitted from the purées and it was noticeable that the pine flavour alluded to by the waiter really came through in the mushroom purée. The savoury dishes ended nicely here.

First of the desserts was one I’d been looking forward to from the description of carrot (maple ginger raisin) envisaging a variation on carrot cake. The actual dish was very different revolving around different kinds of sous vide carrot with spiced crumb, ginger gel and crème fraiche ice. The ginger gel had an intense ginger flavour that could overwhelm although the crème fraiche helped lighten proceedings. This was alright but ultimately something of a letdown after the other courses.

The chocolate course was much better. Chocolate (dark gianduja Mexican) combined dark chocolate cake, chocolate mousse cookie and chocolate ice cream. Sweet Mclaren Vale Riesling was ordered to counter the heat of the Mexican chocalte and cut through the richness of the cake. The chocolate mousse cookies with their nutty flavour were placed in Mexican chocolate mousse and were outstanding. The ice cream was also delicious. Overall this was a really pleasant surprise. I would never order a dish that was totally focussed on chocolate but this delivered a really combiniation of chocolate flavours.

Final course, almost a petit four, was another take on yuzu to close the circle on the meal. This time it was a yuzu gelée topped with a white soy espuma and the micro shiso garnish. The citrus gelée was nice but ultimately this was just as unconvincing as the amuse bouche.

Parting gift on leaving the restaurant was a small quince cake providing a very pleasant way to start the day the following morning.

Overall verdict
The tasting menu was a good way to get a handle on Graham Elliot restaurant. The overall impression was good but there were some dips that let the whole experience down. I don’t completely buy in to the approach of plates revolving round multiple treatments of the same core ingredient particularly as the best dish (sturgeon) was a very successful exploration of complimentary flavours and textures.  I did not like the addition of items on the plate for effect – see the clam and beef courses.

Would I revisit Graham Elliot?
Overall this was a very good meal. I would be very happy to visit Graham Elliot again. 


Overall Rating - 3.5/5