Next Restaurant in Chicago

Everything was great, but the pressed duck was overwhelming.

Most of the time, if I am lucky enough to eat something incredible, I just think “holy shit, this is good.” I am in New Orleans, and I just thought “holy shit, this is good” about my lunch today.

Every now and then, food is so good that thinking goes out the window. I’ll kinda forget where I am and not be able to talk for a while. Even more rarely, I will also have a very strong emotional reaction to whatever it is. Has happened, like, three times, ever.

When I took my first couple bites of the pressed duck at Next, the dedication and love in that dish poured over me. Everything that went into it, all at once.

Someone raised this duck in a specific way, cared for it, fed it exactly what it should have been fed, killed it carefully. Someone else took this immaculate dead duck and honored it by preparing it perfectly. The method had been tweaked into perfection by someone else who respected his own dead duck and loved food just as much as the people who used this method now, over a hundred years later and over four thousand miles away.

I teared up. I couldn’t talk. My wife was talking about how good it was, and no reflection on her, but it was like bubbity bubbity buh. Background noise–didn’t hear a word of it. When I was done with the first couple bites, I could not believe I got to eat more of it.

Plus it came with the best potatoes au gratin ever.