Philip Foss’s buffalo wing with Corona and lime foam.
We had starred a particular entry on the blog of Philip Foss, exec chef at Lockwood — it was a quick photo/caption entry, entitled “Buffalo Wing, Corona with Lime Foam,” because it reminded us of the iconic buffalo wing dish at graham elliot.
Interestingly, when we clicked over to Chef Foss’s blog this morning to investigate the similarities in more detail, the post was gone! (Also: The call came from inside the house!) We’re always curious about post-retraction, and here the coincidence struck us as, well, a bit too coincidental — Chef Foss’s blog has been getting a lot of attention lately: it held a presumably low-radar position when we broke the story of its very existence in September, but when Hungry Mag called Foss out on his critique-the-critic bit on TOC’s Heather Shouse, folks started taking notice of his little corner of cyberspace. And in the wake of ravioligate 2008, Foss might not want to attract more of Mike Nagrant’s ire with yet another copycat dish.
Bowles’s version: Budweiser foam and celeriac slaw.
In Foss’s defense, the flavor set of a buffalo wing (buffalo sauce, blue cheese, celery, beer) isn’t exactly palate-shattering in its uniqueness, and it’s plausible that he and graham elliot chef Graham Elliot Bowles came up with their platings entirely independent of one another (in fact, that seems to be the case with most great ideas). But while Foss’s version is different (instead of Budweister foam, it’s a little shot glass of Corona), Bowles’ rendition has earned him so much attention (both at his current resto and at his previous gig at Avenues) that we think it’s safe to say that, at least in Chicago, an haute-deconstructed buffalo wing is strictly Bowlesian territory.
Still, we’ve speculated before on an item on Bowles’s menu — the “deconstructed snickers” — that was unnervingly reminiscent of one of Thomas Keller’s famous recipes. So perhaps all’s fair in love and kitchens. But nota bene to Phil Foss: You can delete a blog post, but an RSS feed is forever.
Chef Philip Foss [Official Site]
Lockwood [MenuPages]
Lockwood [Official Site]
graham elliot [MenuPages]
graham elliot [Official Site]
