Parachute HiFi, the creative Korean American restaurant and cocktail bar in Avondale, retains its original Michelin-starred DNA, but has been reimagined beautifully with casual cuisine and amplified style by James Beard award-winning chefs, owners and spouses Johnny Clark and Beverly Kim for the world we live in right now.
Kim describes the newest incarnation of Parachute, which just celebrated its 11th anniversary this month, more specifically as a listening bar. These bars trace their lineage back a hundred years or so to jazz kissa cafe culture in Japan, where listening to jazz records through high-fidelity equipment brings music to the forefront.
Clark’s eclectic audiophile collection inspired Parachute HiFi, which opened last August, yet their food and cocktails can’t help but claim the spotlight.
The new Parachute cheeseburger, unlike any other iconic burger in the city, almost didn’t exist.
“It was kind of ridiculous that we would put a burger on our menu, I mean, for us anyways, it’s something we said we’d never do,” said Clark, especially since their last incarnation leaned more Korean. “I’ll never say ‘never’ again.”
The burger was just supposed to be playful and not serious, said the chef, and he didn’t think it would become the best-selling item.
“Just because we’re a Korean American restaurant,” said Clark, who drew from contemporary Asian influences. “I’ve noticed in Japan, there’s some places serving burgers in a pool of cheese.”
His cheeseburger gets cut in half, placed cut side down in its own pool of cheese, a cheddar beer sauce to be precise, plus a pour of bordelaise, the classic French red wine sauce typically reserved for steak.
“It’s kind of a wet mess, but since we do like fully dipped Chicago Italian beefs here, I figured it was something that was acceptable,” said Clark. “If you can eat a Chicago Italian beef, you can eat this burger.”
I found the Parachute cheeseburger indeed ridiculous, and a delicious declaration, subtly sweetened with silky sauteed onions, plus crisp bread and butter pickles. It’s saucy, but surprisingly not a mess, a testament to its careful construction. The buttery bordelaise further sets it apart.
That bordelaise inspiration came not from France, said the chef, but videos where demi-glace is poured over omelets in Japan.
And their burger is loaded up with lots of pickles, he added, because that’s a Korean thing it needs.
“It needs acid,” said Clark, since just salt and fat fall flat. “And we’re trying to keep a Korean perspective, even though the burger doesn’t have Korean ingredients.”
Plus, it’s a huge half-pound burger. Made with ground beef, said Kim, from Slagel Farms.
The burger delivers on their plan for a more approachable menu, and at prices I can confirm that are comparable to everyday neighborhood restaurants.
And they’ve brought their beloved baked potato bing bread back as promised, served with a sizable scoop of soft sour cream butter, but on Wednesdays only.
Demand for their bing, a labor-intensive bread, became so overwhelming in the last iteration of the restaurant that they took it off the menu. Now they’ve found they could simply serve more people if they sell it by the half. You can always order a whole.
“It’s a rich bread,” said Kim. “And we want to make room for other things.”
It’s a hearty half that seems bigger and softer, like falling into the arms of a long-lost loved one. A golden sesame-seed crisp crust reveals a fluffy heart filled with roasted potatoes, smoky bacon, sharp cheddar and green scallions. A swipe through the tangy butter evokes layers of cultural nostalgia.
“We wanted to give ourselves some space to do other things, but we also realized that it does have a nostalgic factor with a lot of people,” said Kim, even for herself and their three sons. “Trying it again with my kids after so many years, they’re like, ‘Whoever makes this needs to get a raise.’”
Her bing bread is really a mishmash of culture, she added, that highlights a lot of the feeling of Chicago.
“It’s a Korean American taking a spin off of Chinese bread with Midwestern ingredients,” said Kim, who knows that hits home with comfort for a lot of people.
The pristine salmon nigiri with wasabi cream cheese and a shiitake umami glaze has become another signature item with an unexpected backstory.
When the chefs were building the new menu for Parachute HiFi, said Clark, they were also working full time at Anelya, their modern Ukrainian restaurant named for his grandmother.
“I realized that all the Ukrainians love cream cheese sushi, because the Ukrainians love cream cheese in all forms,” he said. “And they love salmon cream cheese sushi. They’re one of their favorite things in the world.”
The salmon nigiri hides a compound cream cheese with lots of scallions and wasabi paste for a luscious bite.
And the glistening umami glaze comes from a sauce Clark learned to make from the late chef Im Ji-ho at Sandang restaurant in Korea.
They save fruit and vegetable scraps, with lots of Asian pears, boil them with dry shiitake mushrooms, then simmer with mirin and tamari to make something like a savory tea, Clark said. That’s brushed onto the unlikely Ukrainian-inspired salmon nigiri for a delicate finish.
The tteokbokki pad thai uses the irresistibly thick and chewy Korean rice sticks instead of rice noodles found in a classic Thai dish.
I was curious if they made or sourced the terrific tteokbokki.
“We did make it years ago from scratch, rolling it by hand, but typically it’s best done if you have a tteokbokki machine, and we don’t have that,” said Kim. “So we don’t make the tteokbokki from scratch.”
Nor do they make their own kimchi.
“We just don’t have a lot of space to make it,” said Clark. “And we don’t have as much staff as before.”
Their kimchi Spam stone bowl rice, garnished with a garden of green onions and a glorious orange yolked fried egg, is stunning, from gorgeous top to crackling bottom.
They could easily charge $30 a bowl, but I experienced a reverse sticker shock, because it’s $14.
“We cook Korean medium grain rice, then use a preheated stone bowl, and lay in the rice,” said Clark. “And you put it on the flat top for probably 10 minutes or so, just to get that perfect crispiness.”
Then they drizzle in a little bit more sesame oil at the end to get it even more crispy, he said, and that’s before adding the kimchi, and chunks of Spam.
“We caramelize the kimchi,” said Clark. And then they season it further with more garlic, sesame oil, gochujang, lemon juice, sugar and salt.
Making kimchi from scratch would drive the cost way up, said Kim. If they were serving it fresh, they would make it, added Clark, but since they’re cooking it down, they felt like it was fine to buy it.
The dish came from the classic Korean kimchi fried rice.
“We thought we’d just put it into a bowl,” said Clark, and it is a seriously hot dolsot, or stone pot. “And now you fry your own rice at the table.”
The 1990s mandarin orange salad with fried noodles lies on the other end of the spectrum. It’s Clark’s personal favorite dish, and a sleeper hit for me too.
“I asked Beverly, ‘Is it OK if we take on this ubiquitous Asian salad?’ And she said, ‘Yeah, that’s good,’” he said. “We just serve a huge bowl of it, and it’s just really satisfying.”
It’s an exuberant yet elegant bowl with leafy fresh lettuce, juicy mandarin segments, fragrant sesame oil orange dressing and fried chow mein noodles, which stirred sentimental memories of my childhood working at my aunt and uncle’s chop suey restaurant.
Chicken karaage, served with a honey mayo plus sweet and spicy sauce, was tender and textbook Japanese style, but made me want their bolder Korean fried chicken even more.
Seasonal raw vegetables (rainbow carrots, red peppers, cucumbers, cauliflower and grape tomatoes) could possibly wait for a better season, especially with the deeply flavorful walnut ssamjang dip.
The daily dessert on my two visits was a thick slice of strong rum cake with more walnuts and a lovely bit of coconut cream sauce. Jess Lindstrom, pastry chef for Parachute HiFi and Anelya, made the rum cake from a recipe by Clark’s grandmother.
“The desserts are very random,” said Clark. “I just felt like it fit with the cocktail program.”
It reminded me of Korean hodu-gwaja, or walnut cookies, albeit missing the red bean paste center. I hope the desserts become less random, to better complement the thoughtful menu, and highlight Lindstrom’s skills.
Meanwhile, the bingsu cocktail can also serve as dessert, made with velvety Màkku makgeolli ice, a drizzle of Rum Fire dulce de leche, a scattering of Fruity Pebbles cereal atop vanilla ice cream and frozen mango.
“We use a can of Màkku run through the Snowvan that we got in Korea,” Clark said. The makgeolli, or Korean rice wine, gets frozen in the imported machine to a distinctively supple ice.
I would like the mango less frozen, though. That will change, said the chef, as soon as Mick Klüg Farms gets local fruit.
Another drink that can double as dessert is the nonalcoholic shrub soda, when you make it a float. I loved an aromatic Cara Cara orange with charred ginger, even more so with ice cream.
General manager Rodrigo Lopez makes the shrub sodas just a gallon at a time, said Clark, and helps with the whole bar program.
“It’s all a collaborative effort,” said the chef, about the menu as a whole.
The service was flawless. I did go early. And they just added limited reservations.
Then there’s the listening bar aspect to Parachute HiFi. Sound bathes your brain in luxurious waves through McIntosh amplifiers and vintage Altec Lansing Model 19 speakers.
Later in the evening, DJs spin live, sometimes Clark; for their 11th anniversary, DJ Sean Brock, the fellow James Beard award-winning Nashville chef; and at least once, DJ Adapt, their longtime architect Charlie Vinz.
Vinz designed the original Parachute space, and the most recent transformation. The open DJ booth holds a prominent place behind the bar, with Midwestern wood paneling and refined rec room vibes throughout.
“What we’re trying to do is just create a really fun community space that also reflects what we set out to do from the very first day,” said Clark. “To have fun at work and enjoy ourselves.”
It’s still the same mindset and mission, he added, that reflects who they are today.
“Ten years reinventing ourselves has been part of our own personal journey,” said Kim.
Parachute was originally named for their leap of faith when opening their debut restaurant. Parachute HiFi shows how very high they can still fly.
Parachute HiFi
3500 N. Elston Ave.
872-204-7138
The post Restaurant review: Parachute HiFi flies high with creative Korean American food and cocktails in Chicago first appeared on Voxtrend News.
