Three Chicago restaurants joined the ever expanding group of local eateries with national recognition with the release of Esquire magazine's "Best New Restaurants in America for 2015" list.
Momotaro, Dolo Restaurant and Bar and the Duck Inn all represent Chicago on the list of 14. Momotaro serves Japanese food, Dolo Restaurant serves Chinese food (with a focus on seafood) and Duck Inn specializes in, of course, duck dishes.
The list was not ranked, but one restaurant — an Israeli eatery called Shaya in New Orleans — was chosen as "restaurant of the year." Several New York restaurants also made the list, as well as restaurants in Boston, San Francisco, Portland (Oregon), Savannah, Morristown (New Jersey) and Los Angeles. See the complete list here.
This year's list was created, in part, as a tribute to the magazine's food writer and editor Josh Ozersky, who was found dead in May in the shower in his room at the Conrad Chicago Hotel. Ozersky was in Chicago to serve on the awards committee of the 2015 James Beard Awards, which were presented the night he passed away.
Ozersky sampled food at many of the restaurants included in the "best new restaurants" list, but other staff members at Esquire finished up the sampling and chose the top restaurants.
