Chicago Chef Named One Of Best In Country

CHICAGO, IL — A Chicago chef has been named one of the Best New Chefs in the United States by Food & Wine magazine. Diana Davila was one of the magazine's top ten picks from across the country. Her restaurant, Mi Tocaya Antojeria at 2800 W. Logan Blvd, was named a James Beard Foundation semifinalist for Best New Restaurant this year, and Davila herself was named a semifinalist for the foundation's Best Chef: Great Lakes category.

Mi Tocaya Antojeria was also named one of Bon Appetit's best new restaurants of 2017.

Food & Wine called Davila's cooking "authentic to her own experience as a first-generation Mexican-American: It's confident and joyful, and each course lands like the first few lines of a story you're going to want to remember."

The magazine called Mi Tocaya Antojeria a "scrapbook," noting that Davila's dishes are "rooted" in her memories: Veracruzana "reimagined" as gremolata spooned over crisp fried sweetbreads — inspired by a Davila's summer visits to Casitas, briny mussels "popped in their shells" and covered with cabbage and radish (a nod to her mother's posole) and a steak burrito that's "all gooey cheese and salty beef griddled in a flour 
tortilla" just like the ones Davila grew up with in suburban Chicago.

Food & Wine also named chefs in Seattle, Nashville, L.A., Detroit, St. Louis, New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Helena in California.

Top photo: Diana Davila; credit: Amanda Iqbal Photography