his grandparent’s home in North Carolina. At age 15 he began working at

Pauline's Passion Pit, a Harlem soul food restaurant. A dozen years

later, having amassed a solid cooking background that included

Culinary school, stints in elegant San Francisco and New York City

restaurants, and terms as food and beverage manager at several large

resorts, he opened Wishbone in a storefront on Grand Avenue in July

of 1990. His "southern reconstruction cooking"--Dixie standards like

baked bone-in-ham, blackened catfish, and Carolina crab cakes,

prepared with a minimum of heavy oils, deep frying, or added sugar--

with its mix-and-match menu of side dishes such as
sautéed spinach,

mashed sweet potatoes, and macaroni and cheese, caught on fast. Not long

after, a second Wishbone was opened in 1992 with 170 seats at 1001 W. Washington-- at a time when Chicago's West Loop seemed an uncharted territory. Wishbone was an early participant in the emergence of the neighborhood from a commercial area to one of the city's culinary hot spots. Now, over twenty years later the Wishbone is still going strong. Wishbone celebrated its 
25th anniversary in July.

 

Gift Certificate good for dinner for two Thursday-Sunday 5-9 pm