Nomi, Not to be confused with the world’s number one restaurant in the world, Noma, you can find this Chicago based restaurant in the Park Hyatt Hotel offering effectively regionally sourced foods with the theme of being served from the “Kitchen” as you would make at home. Of course, it’s a lot fancier than that.
They served us a few rounds of some lovely crusty bread and butter. Unusually the butter tasted a lot more creamy than what you get in most other American restaurants (a good thing). I remember the bread being especially warm as well helping the butter to melt and to start our appetite for the things to come.
Opting for a theme of mushrooms, I started with the Forest Mushroom Soup. It arrived drizzled with truffle oil, and the perfect use of sourdough bread to provide crisp croutons to contrast the soup’s texture. Although still welcome to provide bite, the use of goat’s cheese to add salt and a melting creaminess seemed a tad excessive although the additional pan fried mushrooms were very good. The others split a plate of jamon iberico ham and cheese to begin.
The mushroom theme continued with the hand cut linguini served with black truffle cream, parmigiano-reggiano and fresh herbs. A generous serving of pasta with lots of cheese, but surprisingly light on the flavour. I expected more saltiness or sharpness from the cheese, and a rich earthy flavour from the truffle but both were a little bit too subtle for my liking. The truffle aoili chips we ordered to share was good and the pasta aided by a side of foraged mushrooms pan fried in probably a little bit too much butter.
My fellow diners ordered a wide range of dishes although I was only able to successfully take a picture of the skate ala plancha that looked amazing served atop its bed of dauphinoise potatoes and assorted roasted vegetables.
Our waiter teased us with a board filled with the offering of today’s tarts but we were defeated as a group to even attempt dessert. If I had space for it, I probably would have tried the brioche beignet although they had a huge menu to choose from. Not the cheapest of the meals I had, this one, even with two bottles of wine between the five us cost about US$98 including service.
Name: Nomi
Found at: 800 North Michigan Avenue Chicago, IL 60611, United States
Website: http://www.hyatt.com/gallery/nomi