Grillomania is all the rage in Chicago - restaurants, cooking food over wood fires

Let's consult the Dictionary of Taste Trends.

Grill-o-mania (gril-o-ma-ne-a) n. 1. A passion for food cooked over wood fires. 2. A pyro-culinary craze. In Chicago, a profitable bonfire for restaurateurs.

With the opening of Roger Greenfield's American Grill in north suburban Glenview, the California-to-Chicago express has arrived on track--even ahead of schedule. It's Grillomania and more.

But the simple/complicated tastes of California are hardly new to Chicago. Long before the fresh, natural artifices of Los angeles, Berkeley, and San Francisco were recognized anywhere east of the Chicago River (to say nothing of the Hudson), the Windy City replicated them with a Heartland twang. Charcoal-grilled goodies are well beyond the rage stage in Chicago. The cognoscenti now talk of the relative merits of mesquite,-applewood, hickory and kiawe in the hushed tones once reserved for California varietals.

Whether imitation is the sincerest form of flattery or not, the Prairie State has been a profitable breeding ground for Golden State cookery methods, dishes, ambience and presentation, going back to 1979 when the Levy Organization's Tadich-like Chestnut St. Grill opened. For five years CSG's display kitchen has held sway, and the restaurant remains Chicago's premier seafood grill.

Since then Grillomania (and California cuisine in general) has seized Near North Side and "smarter" North Shore establishments with a ferocity. Display kitchens are galore from Morton's downtown to La Grillade in suburban Highwood. Pale or pinkish underdone items--displaying bold or subtle grill thatchings--are to be found everywhere from Tango and Le Perroquet (yes, indeed) to John Stoltzmann's Winnetka Grill. And also everywhere in chic Chicago restaurants are those "adorable" but pallid baby veggies, cilantro, enoki and shiitake mushrooms, buffalo mozzarella, sundried tomatoes, cold and hot pasta spirals and angel hair.

Then in the last year came the expensive California brick pizza ovens--a la Spago, Prego and Chez Pannisse--to the Levy's Spiaggia and Rich Melman's Lawrence of Oregano.

Now with Greenfield's American Grill, the California influence has arrived in full force with grillings and charrings, exotic thin pizzas, sublime if curious mixed platters and higher-than-ever high-style pastas. In Greenfield's handsomely restyled restaurant (formerly a Samboo's), there is the look of the west and southwest, thanks to open spaces, natural woods, bright Mexican tile, with an occasional cactus plan or two. But more importantly there is theater--the drama of a busy grill kitchen open to the dining room. A play of must-see voyeurism.

The restaurant's long horizontal work space highlights the activities of five or six grill chefs and kitchen workers. It is quite a show, with mesquite and other hardwood grills, flat tops and a rotisserie turning chickens, ducks and squabs to a golden crisp. And it contains the area's third high-fire wood burning brick pizza oven. Yah-ho, this is California with a vengeance in Glenview, Ill.!

The American Grill offers a return engagement for Roger Greenfield. Esthete, trend-setter and impresario of fine dining, Greenfield startled Chicago seven years ago with his Le Ren-dez-Vous on the Gold Coast, the city's first complete and picture-postcard-perfect nouvelle cuisine establishment, alas destroyed by fire in 1978.

Now Roger's back in a flamboyant Performance. If he is a dilettante in the restaurant business, Greenfield surely knows his show biz, and can strut his stuff on the boards, groaning or otherwise. After all, his mentor is Gordon Sinclair, who has diminated Chicago's esoteric dining scene since 1976.

Greenfield's immediate challenge is whether his labor intensive, high-food cost operation can hack it at the restaurant's present moderate prices, and at its present location. After all, Roger's immediate competitors are local familiar's--Matty's Wayside Inn, Walker Bros. Original Pancake House, Brown's Chicken and Chuck's Auto & Repair, directly across the road. Hardly Sun Tan Country.

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