It’s the end of an era. With Next already open and Aviary supposedly very close, it looks like we’ll be able to end our lookout for articles that praise unopened Grant Achatz projects. There have been a lot of them over the past year. You may remember when Epicurious selected Next as the best new restaurant of 2010 even though it didn’t open until three months into 2011, or when Food and Wine picked Aviary as one of the best new bars in the country well over a month ago. Luckily, Haute Living seems to have snuck it at the very last second, as it just released a list of the “Top 5 Cocktail Menus in Chicago” and placed Aviary at number one. We already pointed out that it isn’t yet open, but, more importantly, we’re not sure if anyone has actually seen its cocktail menu. Had the publication waited just a day or two, it would have been fine. As it stands, it probably has the honor of being the last publication to get a little greedy with its Achatz coverage. [Haute Living]
