Top This Mac & Cheese will have you rethinking comfort food
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Sometimes a little comfort food is just what you need to start the weekend, but it doesn't have to be basic.
On this Foodie Friday, digital journalist Jamaica Ponder takes us to a playful delivery-only restaurant that will have you re-thinking macaroni and cheese.
On freezing and blustery day, Top This Mac & Cheese is the perfect spot to get out of the cold for some comfort food.
While Top This might be new to Chicago, owner and chef Erick Williams certainly isn't. He also owns Mustard Seed Kitchen, Virtue Restaurant and Bar, and Daisy's Po-Boy and Tavern.
A West Side native, he refers to himself as a transplant to the South Side. His award-winning restaurants have landed him at the forefront of modern American cuisine, and aided in keeping Chicago on the map as a major gastronomic hub.
He, along with his chef de cuisine at Virtue, chef DeMar Brown, launched Top This late last year.
"We started Top This as a pop-up, and then we quickly realized, based on demand, that we should do a delivery concept, and then now we're in the takeout phase," Williams said.
Top This has already garnered a cult following, with fans from across the city flocking to try the whole lot of their mac and cheese combos.
"People are already ordering the food more than once a week. They are personally going through, identifying what they like about each of them and why. I mean, like there are whole reports on mac and cheese in my direct messages," Williams said.
Williams said the idea for the pop-up shop turned restaurant came from a casual chat about food that he and Brown like to eat; food that represents comfort and convenience.
"The process is probably simpler than anybody would think. We literally just started writing what our favorite mac and cheeses were, or things that we love to have mac and cheese with," Williams said.
From Buffalo shrimp to roasted veggies, the options at Top This feel endless, even though there are only about a dozen on the menu. And Williams plans to keep making new combinations until he strikes out —something he says isn't likely to happen.
"It's really just trial and error, to be quite, quite frank. I haven't hit the error phase yet, but I am still trying to find something that, yeah, that doesn't work. And what we found is a lot of things work with mac and cheese. And so, as I start to think about in my own like, you know, database or memory, what things have kind of visited each other, it makes it really, really easy to start thinking about how far this thing gets expanded," Williams said.
The way mac and cheese sells at Virtue in Hyde Park inspired the flavor combinations on the menu at Top This. By fusing the popular side dish with ingredients you might only find next to mac and cheese on a plate, Williams and Brown have been able to create something unique by putting it on top, and their secret is relying on familiar flavors.
"What we've done is we've just condensed that idea that whatever that plate might be to one dish, and it offers an opportunity for people to have fun with it. That's why they get to top their own. It offers us a lot of variety. It offers us a really robust way to deliver delicious. Tou know, that's kind of what the brainchild is, you know: Top This Mac and Cheese," Williams said.