Serrano chili, garlic, oregano, capers…it didn’t matter that there was no salt and pepper on the table; the dish had been seasoned to perfection. The cherry porter harkened back to the sweet berry puree under the First Course without adding an unwanted sweetness to the Halibut Veracruz.
Jessica wanted to wallow in the dish: like a luxurious trip to the spa. It was an adventure of flavor and texture. She’d done some restaurant reviewing—had chiseled out a brief niche among the new chefs of Chicago, though the niche had gone away when some New York reviewer had decided to move to town to make their name, imitating the huge splash Cassidy Knowles had made in Seattle. But in those first six months she’d learned a lot about innovative food. Greg didn’t innovate, at least not in the way most of
