USA Trip 2016
Warning: No photos, just words. Quite a few. There's a lane way that looks a likely place for a mugger or rough sleeper to inhabit. Seemingly a street to nowhere good. It just so happens to house the hottest restaurant in Chicago right now. Don't bother looking for illuminated signage, there is none. Walk though a working goods lift, dark and industrial. Beyond the curtain veil in to a 28 seat room open to the kitchen. Effectively, every table is a chef's table. Eight hours later I left with a mind bended by outrageously great food and hospitality. Staff training in the way of Bindi beforehand, serving eight Bindi wines to guests over their degustation dinner, then three hours of tasting, vocabulary stretching conversation about impossibly fine and complex dishes and great wine pairings all was done. I said wow a lot to your excellence Oriel Restaurant, Chicago. Whilst the premise of these past two weeks was the Oregon International Pinot Noir Celebration the opportunity to be despatched nationwide by Ronnie Sanders and Aaron Meeker of Vine Street Imports was too good to pass up. IPNC is an iconic, soulful, confident gathering of passionate producers, professionals and consumers. Having been a guest winery in 2008 under the Conservation banner it was hardly entering the unknown but formally presenting 14 Australian pinots Read more ...