Esquire's November issue features a list of the country's top 20 restaurants, and Chicago's Mercat A la Planxa, which opened in the newly renovated Blackstone Hotel in March (and which we featured here) makes the list. With chef Jose Garces at its helm, the restaurant's menu focuses on fare from the Catalan region of Spain, or what Esquire critic John Mariani described as "fragrant gold-green olive oil, the finest hams in the world, and an abundance of seafood like turbot and red mullet."
And speaking of seafood, Lincoln Park's L20 (which we featured here) also makes the list. Open since May, the restaurant earned praise from Mariani for chef Laurent Gras's "finely honed precision, [which he brings] to every element of seafood cookery—from the texture of the skin to the slicing of the flesh."
