gilt bar's truffle pecorino pasta
Back when I was 23 and stupid about money and life and everything else, I would count minutes til 5:31pm when I could shed my work skin down to the spaghetti straps and step out into the humid, electric golden haze of Friday evening in Chicago. That afternoon-evening cusp hour was usually sticky with chocolate from the chocolate factory and sulfur from the subway and the infinite potential for something to happen, and being weak-willed I’d pass the stairs to my train and instead walk 3/4 of a mile through steadily-intensifying cocoa fumes to a bistro right on the edge of the riverfront dead zone that borders Fulton Market. It’s called Gilt Bar.
Back then they had 3 or 4 tables set up on the sidewalk, which is where we’d smear baskets of homemade country bread with balsamic-roasted garlic heads and drink Vodka Smashes. Then we would people-watch the blue-shirted business elite leaving the Merchandise Mart til about seven or so, at which point we’d wander inside to spend too much on dinner. Back then, the vintage steampunk-y, chandelier-heavy French industrial maximalism look was Very In, Aesop was not the default bathroom hand soap, and there were no social expectations to share any of your plates. I don’t think it would quite fit in with today’s cultural aesthetic. There is nowhere in Los Angeles like it for a reason.
Yet this place, despite being unchanged by time and trends, is still exactly as good as when it first opened. I check every few years just to make sure.
The atmosphere is what it’s known for, but the menu is why I’m so attached. Back then I didn’t cook at all, and so I actually learned a lot of what I know about food from their kitchen. The smoked whitefish Caesar with fresh herbs introduced me to the concept of homemade dressing and using potato chips as croutons. I tried bone marrow here spread on garlic-rubbed pan-fried bread, and was floored to find I actually liked it. Manchego was what Brussels sprouts had been missing. Salmon skin wasn’t just edible, but delicious. The secret to the best fries was to fry them in duck fat. And despite not being an Italian restaurant, it was juuuust Italian enough (MAYBE THAT’S WHERE THE NAME REALLY COMES FROM?!?!) to pull off an edited mini-menu of hand-cut fresh pastas, one of which was a creamy truffle pecorino chitarra that I ordered almost every time. It was somewhat a cacio e pepe, somewhat an alfredo, somewhat a buttered noodle with a huge amount of truffle, but also not really any of those things. It just was what it was.
this dish never quite manages to find its light
But the real reason for romanticizing it as I do is not really about the pasta. In part, I think being there so much spawned the longing I still feel for the kind of person I wanted most to be: someone comfortable and easygoing but also low-key awe-inspiring; the kind who can effortlessly pick music to match the mood and has such mastery over simple elements that they become casually incredible; someone who thinks about everything just enough and who affects people deeply without really trying. Whenever someone describes this place as a “me restaurant,” I take it as the highest compliment.
But another part of me knows that what I really miss is just… being that young. When you’re 23 nothing is certain, so everything can still be. The 3/4 mile walk could be leading to a night with infinite outcomes, or it could end where it started at Gilt Bar. Who knew? Not you!
That electric charge of potential in the air, though, affects you more when your footing in life is unstable. Believing “anything is possible” is just a means of coping with the truth underneath: that you are lost, and you are terrified. At that point I was broke, stagnating, impatient; my mental health was hanging by a dental-floss thread. But I have always been a fantastic performance artist, excellent at pretending to Have It Together while shoving all my mess into my mind’s closet ten seconds before company arrives. I lived and spent and acted as the person I wanted to be because I figured eventually reality would align. But sashaying into the dark cave of Gilt Bar, anyone would’ve been convinced my reality is as it appeared. I know I was. Until I grew up and realized I wasn’t.
This recipe is the memory of that pasta, another photo of a photo of an original that isn’t quite the same as what I know to be real. But it’s also a memory of what I felt as a younger person—of the doubt I have since shed, of the unmaterialized aspirations I haven’t. Years later and I’m still not the person I pretended to be when I ordered it like I owned the world. Many days I’m not even close. But when I do make the truffle pecorino, no instructions and all intuition, I remember that I may still have it in me to get there.
One day, anyway.
RECIPE
Inspired by the signature truffle pasta at Gilt Bar in Chicago, this simple dish is ultimate restaurant luxury with a few of the best ingredients: fresh egg pasta tossed in a rich pecorino cream sauce and showered in shavings of real black truffle.
Effortful time: 5 minutes
Total time: 10 minutes
Serves 2, scales easily
YOU NEED
9 oz. fresh spaghetti or linguine
3 tbsp. high quality truffle butter; use regular butter if you can’t find it
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup grated fresh pecorino Romano cheese
1 oz fresh black or white truffle, OR if you can’t find this / don’t want to front the cash, you can substitute 1 tsp of Sabatino Truffle Zest. I used Urbani truffles in a jar
Thin shavings of pecorino, for serving
Salt to taste
Freshly cracked black pepper, for serving
maKe it
Get prepped. Boil salted water for pasta in a wide flat skillet. Grate your cheese and shave a few pieces for garnish. Get your other ingredients ready. Using a sharp vegetable peeler, shave about half your truffle and set it aside. Finely mince the remaining half and keep separate.
Cook your pasta. Cook your pasta for 1-2 minutes. Use tongs to pull it from the pot into a bowl. Reserve 1 cup pasta water. Drain.
Create your sauce. Over low heat, melt the truffle butter. Add the cream and let cook until bubbling and starting to thicken, about a minute. Add half the pecorino and stir until smooth. Toss in only the minced truffle, saving the shavings.
Toss together. Add your pasta back in and start tossing to shake and loosen. Add pasta water and cheese bit by bit until you’ve used all the cheese and have a creamy, luxurious sauce.
Top and serve. Plate and top with shaved truffles, shaved pecorino cheese, and a little black pep.