J.J. Goode, writing for Details magazine, sought to find the best breakfast restaurants in America. His final list, pared down to a dozen or so, includes Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant on old Route 66 in Chicago.
This is what Goode said about it:
It’s not because the hostesses ply those waiting for a booth with warm homemade doughnut holes. And it’s definitely not the gratis stewed prunes that appear on the table just after you sit down. No, what elevates this Greek-run West Loop diner above the rest is its authenticity, evident in the faithful execution of founder Uncle Lou’s simple cooking. Long before culinary integrity became a restaurant-industry branding tool, Lou Mitchell’s was baking its own bread and using only double-yolk eggs for its masterfully prepared omelets—which are served right in the skillets in which they were cooked.
Instead of celebrating the listing, New City Chicago sniffed at the selection of Lou Mitchell’s, saying it serves only “slightly above average diner fare.”
There are easily a handful of other independent spots serving better breakfast food in the city (see list below), and some, while not as steeped in history, still possess a great back-story. I’d lay down a hundred bucks that a vote of common “Check Please!”-like citizens and serious food enthusiasts in Chicago wouldn’t put Lou Mitchell’s on top.
Furthermore, you can look at any publication in America going back ten years about breakfast and find a rec for Lou Mitchell’s. I’d contend that food writers shouldn’t perpetuate the same-old-same-old, unless of course the same old is truly the inescapable choice, which I don’t think applies here. I think the bigger problem is, how do you change the culture of national magazines that asks writers to pursue impossible reductive articles like “Best” in America, instead of commissioning them to go out and get a beautiful story about a particular restaurant or small group of restaurants?
The funny part is the New City author sort of undercuts his own argument, saying that Goode “is not one of those insipid writers who makes his living off of press releases, as a lot of ‘best of’ writers do. He wrote some great pieces in the recent Morimoto cookbook.”
I’m not saying that Goode’s list is invalid, nor am I saying that New City Chicago’s critique of the list doesn’t have decent points. But, in the end, judgments about restaurants are mostly subjective. And my taste buds during a visit to Lou Mitchell’s a few years ago concurred with Goode that it is a genuinely great breakfast stop.