Chicago’s Hottest Dining Experience Is Primed For Michelin-Star Chasers

18.12.2023 - 18:09 / forbes.com

Bestowed on high performing restaurants that present exceptional cooking, a Michelin star can shake up a chef’s entire culinary ethos. The rating considers five important factors: quality of ingredients, agreement of flavors, mastery of techniques, menu consistency, and, interestingly, the personality of the chef as experienced through their fare.

One of the youngest chefs in the U.S. to earn a Michelin star, Donald Young (Les Nomades, Temporis, Woodwind, Venteux), has created something truly distinctive with Duck Sel, a concept that began as a pop up in 2016 and has evolved into a stirring dining journey like no other.

Here's this youthful guy, with imaginative ideas swirling around a Midwestern bent, and a shining Michelin star in his pocket, who fashions fanciful multi-course tasting menus based on a blend of classical French training and self-taught experimental methods. The concept with Duck Sel, launched in 2020, is that anyone can enjoy Michelin-quality cuisine, presentation, and service anywhere—in their own home, or, remarkably, the chef’s.

You’ll be in the dark with regards to the location and building access codes until right before the immersive event, but that’s all a part of the allure for a single table dining opportunity that caps the guest list at 18. Once inside the unpretentious locale, a Chicago dwelling that has been transformed into the most intimate chef’s table you’ve ever seen, you’ll meet the other invitees and find your seat. Everything is a beautiful paradox—a super casual atmosphere, yet it’s the setting for fancy fare; a success-driven chef, yet he’s decidedly unhardened with elevated ideas; a table of strangers, yet the dialogue flows.

“Feel free to shoot the soup and lick the lid,” Young says as first courses begin to delight guests. “The syringe isn’t blood, it’s watermelon nuoc cham (Vietnamese dipping sauce); shoot it in the spring roll, shoot it in your mouth, shoot it in your neighbor’s mouth, but don’t get it on my [obscenity] floor.”

The dry aged duck dish, matured with wildflower honey, fish sauce, and rice vinegar, is a fan favorite as is the custard-like fig and olive chutney omelette, which is topped with shaved black truffles and made with a technique that thumbs a nose at a former chef Young worked with who didn't appreciate Young’s ingenuity when it came to using the oven when burners weren’t available for eggs. Another stunner is the duck and waffles dish, topped with Dippin’ Dots, a nod to Young’s childhood when he would enjoy this treat at Magic Waters theme park.

Revelers look around slack jawed and wide-eyed at each course, taking their phones out to snap photographs. Ora king salmon, octopus tteokbokki, quail egg and waffle, black cod—a pescatarian