Lincoln Park's Quiet Michelin Reset
Esmé opened in 2021 and almost immediately earned its Michelin star — but the more interesting fact about Chef Jenner Tomaska's Lincoln Park room is the format. Each tasting menu is built in collaboration with a single visiting artist, with the plates, ceramics, and seasonal dishes responding to the work currently installed on the walls.
The cooking is contemporary American with the kind of conceptual rigour that fine dining sometimes loses. Considered sourcing, careful technique, and a tasting menu that genuinely changes from one rotation to the next.
What to Expect
Order the tasting — that is what the room is for. Expect a long sequence of small, beautifully-considered courses, with the plating responding to whichever artist is in residence. Wine pairings rise to the format; the by-the-glass programme is unusually generous.
The Format
The dining room is small and intimate. Servers will explain the artist collaboration and how each course relates to the work; the pacing is unhurried. Bar seating handles solo diners.
Best Occasion: First Date
Esmé works as a first-date room because the artist-collaboration concept provides natural conversation through the entire evening. The intimacy of the dining room, the unhurried pacing, and the unusual structure combine into a date that almost certainly leads to a second one.