Brunch options, Portillo's for breakfast and spotlighting Duck Sel

SAVORY news for the week of April 13, 2025

—Rosemont’s Parkway Bank Park entertainment district will welcome the Tunnel to Towers 9/11 “Never Forget” Mobile Exhibit on May 9-10, offering visitors more insight into the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Created by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, this traveling tribute features an 83-foot tractor-trailer transformed into a 1,100-square-foot interactive exhibit, showcasing artifacts from Ground Zero, audio recordings, video footage and more.

And now on to culinary items…

—Bar none: Food & Wine released its top 10 bars in the country—and one Chicago spot made the list.

Congrats go to Kumiko, which was third on the list. In part, the publication stated that “bartender Julia Momosé opened this elegant ode to her Japanese heritage in Chicago’s West Loop in 2018. Kumiko quickly became a hit with its omakase-style cocktail tasting menu. Japanese whiskies, shochu, and sake take center stage, with drinks that quietly nod to changes in micro-seasons, a very Japanese concept. Low- and no-alcohol drinks get equal care, as Momosé was an early advocate of spirit-free drinks. The bar hasn’t lost its luster, lauded for its calm, intimate space; warm yet precise hospitality; and creative food and drinks.”

New Orleans’ Cure was the top-rated bar, with L.A.’s Bar Flores at #2. Some of the others on the list included NYC’s Sip & Guzzle, San Francisco’s Trick Dog and Albuquerque’s Happy Accidents.

—Air apparent: And in another Food & Wine poll of 400 industry experts, Chicago O’Hare International Airport came in second in having the best food and drink options in a U.S. airport, per The Hill.

Since 2023, the James Beard Foundation has partnered with the airport to bring pop-up food festivals to some O’Hare terminals. Last year, new restaurants came to the airport’s Terminal 5, offering even more options for travelers.

Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport—the country’s busiest—came in first, with New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport finishing third.

Chef Donald Young. Photo courtesy of Young

—✨✨SPOTLIGHT ✨✨: When I first met Michelin-starred chef Donald Young a few years ago, he was the executive chef at Venteux, making his mark with items such as tuna nicoise and Eggs 5 Ways—which included the cow’s-milk cheese Delice de Bourgogne and was topped with shaved egg yolk.

Since then, he has become known as the force behind Duck Sel (originally called “Salted Duck”), which somehow has become well-known but still secretive. It’s a unique experience where attendees—who must RSVP in advance—typically don’t know the location of the incredible meal until a day in advance (and the actual menu may be a surprise as well). Here are some things to know:

• Young has the chops—and the internet has helped: Young has had many years of classical French training from chef Roland Liccioni of Les Nomades (back in 2007), and in France with chef Simon Scott of Bistrot de Saveurs. And, believe it or not, he has learned avant-garde techniques from Google. “Toward the end of my time at Les Nomades, I would make specials for this couple two or three times a week,” he told SAVOR. “I started exploring a lot of different techniques, but if I had any questions I would visit Google. … Then I started to explore different cuisines. When I got into Duck Sel, I really started to explore Asian cuisines, like Japanese cooking. But I don’t hold back on any cuisine. That’s what I love about Duck Sel—it focuses on the duck and not the cuisine. But we’re contemporary American so we do what we want to do, right?”

• Retro is in: “With Duck Sel, it’s about how we can add a nostalgic flair to it,” Young said, who added at the time we talked that he was looking into making “white people’s tacos.” He said, “I want to take yellow corn tortillas with Ortega sauce and shredded cheese, and I’ll take iceberg lettuce and impregnate it with an actual flavor—anything that would be so familiar to a lot of us.”