Publican remains the apex of One Off Hospitality’s feats: casual and close (sitting at one of the banquet-style tables, you’ll likely bump elbows with a stranger at least once during the meal) but joyfully immersive in its food and drink experience. Publican is casual and close but joyfully immersive in its food and drink experience. It turns uproarious every night, but somehow the crowds don’t feel crushing. When its doors unlocked in 2008, the restaurant synthesized two of Kahan’s obsessions (pork and beer) and drew the hordes into a long beer hall of a space. The heartland’s vastness defies an all-purpose classification, but Publican is one affirming interpretation. "What is Midwestern cuisine?" is a question that’s been percolating in the food media for the last couple of years, as pundits seek to uplift the region’s diversity - and perhaps spark the next major national food trend. And the company’s moneymaking blockbuster, it turns out, simply didn’t appeal to my tastes. But it’s clear some are operating at the height of their creativity and some could use a refresher. I’ve ranked them in order of my impressions. Every place exudes a sense of individuality. Kahan is named as executive chef at all of the restaurants, but one gets the sense that his chefs de cuisine exercise a fair amount of autonomy. That triumph stood out to me when I recently visited each of One Off’s establishments. The quartet maintains a sweet spot rare for restaurant groups: Their concepts, whether they lean fine dining or casual, hit big with diners, but they never spiral into kitsch or ubiquity. Kahan and Madia eventually joined forces with sommelier Eduard Seitan and cocktail guru Terry Alexander (the mind behind award-winning speakeasy The Violet Hour) to form One Off Hospitality. Five years later, the restaurant’s gonzo success begat Avec, an instantly mobbed wine bar serving ambitious small plates in a slim space next door to Blackbird. The snugly spaced tables at Blackbird recalled a delicatessen’s communal chumminess, but every other aspect of the restaurant skewed upscale: the space-age interior, all whites and geometric angles Kahan’s love of pure, forthright flavors and gutsy meats.
Their collaboration became Blackbird, which opened a year later in the same transitioning neighborhood where Kahan once pulled kipper from racks in his dad’s fish plant. Kahan signed on as chef, with the agreement that he’d also be a partner. In 1997 Kahan met Donnie Madia, a career front-of-house maestro who was planning his own venture. His formative restaurant gigs were with chefs who also ran their own operations he was first a line cook and then sous chef for Rick Bayless at Topolobampo when it opened in 1989. His exposure to culinary entrepreneurialism came early: His father owned a deli and also a salmon smokehouse factory in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood, where Kahan (pronounced "con") worked before and after college. In his eighteen years as a chef-restaurateur, and with seven restaurants and a cocktail bar currently run by his One Off Hospitality Group, Paul Kahan has built a local empire by anticipating and gratifying Chicago’s evolving tastes.
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