Repeat performance

Pan-roasted veal porterhouse with braised baby artichokes and sweet basil butter

Food Styling: Liza Brown

Jackson Park | 444 N Wabash Ave, 312-644-7200

Jason Paskewitz has been out of the restaurant scene for almost three years, only popping up occasionally to consult on a few projects—including the bar menu at Five Star—and then quickly fading away again. But anybody who really wants to find him should just head to the former Jazz Record Mart space, which is where he’s been the entire time, working on his new restaurant, Jackson Park.

Jackson Park is going to be big, both physically—it will seat 260—and on the plate. “I’m a big fan of not doing little plates of food,” Paskewitz says. “I hate the small-plate thing, man.” (For the record, he won’t be doing any of that molecular, “test tube” stuff, either.) But just building a big space isn’t what’s taken so long. The building had structural issues and then turned out to have electrical problems, too. “It’s driving me fucking crazy,” he says. “I just want to get it open.”

But before it does open (he’s not comfortable getting any more specific than “fall 2008”), he wants to make sure the restaurant is running as smoothly as possible. He wants the food—down-to-earth American classics, with an emphasis on steaks—to be on point, the service to be polished and every one of the 500 wines he’ll be serving to be in its right place. In other words, he wants people to “feel like we’ve been around awhile.” After all, technically, it has. —David Tamarkin

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