Review: At Split-Rail, Midwest Potluck Food Gets A Clever Makeover
It's not that Zoe Schor doesn't respect Midwest comfort food. She just doesn't think it tastes very good.
"There are dishes you see all the time that never quite reach their potential," said Schor, last seen as opening chef at Ada Street. "I've never found them really satisfying."
And so at Split-Rail, Schor's six-week-old restaurant in West Town, familiar dishes are turned upside down.
Take, for instance, the classic loaded baked potato. "Everything on top of the potato (cheese, bacon, sour cream, etc.) tastes good — until you get to the potato itself," Schor said. "Then you have the empty, flavorless starch of the unseasoned potato."
Her solution is the "loaded baked potato gnocchi," which is part deconstruction, part elevation. Crispy-edged, yielding nuggets of gnocchi mingle with bacon, sour cream, onions, Hook's 5-year cheddar and fried-potato-skin chips, all of which inform every bite of potato gnocchi. If I owned a steakhouse, I'd pay Schor for this recipe.