Otom - Best Classic-Contemporary Combo

He makes edible paper! He cooks fish in a box at your table! He serves tricked-out Styrofoam peanuts! Sure, Moto chef Homaro Canto does a lot of crazy stuff, but how often can you afford to dine at his patience-testing West Loop science lab? A couple times a year, maybe. At the adjacent sibling spot, Otom, Cantu protoge Daryl Nash is a bit more restrained in applying his chemistry lessons, and the food succeeds because of it. While there’s still a bit of frothing, foaming and dehydrating going on, the majority of the dishes deftly dress up classics-mac and cheese gets double-smoked bacon and truffled white cheddar, braised short-rib meat is stuffed into ravioli and coupled with candied sweet potato, and its banana split is somewhat deconstructed, isolating the flavors to remind you just what makes up a classic in the first place.