June 2023 Issue: Big Heat Food & Drink 50 (Digital Edition)

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Unburdened Beauty

Allana Clarke pursues Black futurity

" With an impressive oeuvre and a litany of accolades to her name, Allana is on the precipice of something huge. But let’s focus on the art. Using her body as a conduit, she layers performance art with sculptures and photography to create powerfully intimate explorations of Blackness. Her current solo exhibition consists primarily of her show-stopping hair glue sculptures. Through these dark, visceral, undulating sculptures, Clarke explores layers of Blackness both literally and figuratively." (Jen Torwudzo-Stroh)

Fungi Fantasia

A visit to Windy City Mushroom is a trip

"Matt Lopez was just a little kid when his dad started growing mushrooms in and around the family home on 76th Street. 'He didn’t have much luck with buttons,' Lopez recalls, 'but he got really good at growing oysters.' Fascinated, young Matt learned what he could from his father, and then went so deep with his own research, the mycology exhibit he entered in the school science fair got disqualified. (Monica Kass Rogers)

Big Heat

The Food & Drink 50

"This year, Newcity’s Big Heat feature focuses on those who stand behind the chef in the kitchen. To compile our list, we confer with people who’ve been on the Big Heat Food and Drink 50 in the past, and then we research the growing list of candidates and speak to them. This list includes restaurateurs and restaurant groups, and sometimes chefs themselves; the support people behind those restaurants, including farmers, investors and designers; the people who make beverages, like spirits and beer; and, of course, members of the media." (David Hammond)

Arts & Culture

Art: Emotion and color in the art of Emmett Kyoshi

+ My afternoon as a stone carver

Dance: Mandala Maker Festival moves to Devon Avenue

Design: The Curio wants to lift up the Chicago fashion scene

+ Mood: NeoCon highlights

Dining & Drinking : What I learned while writing an oral history of Chicago restaurants

Film: I lost it at the chat prompt

Lit: Thomas Leslie offers a new history of Chicago’s ever-evolving tall buildings

Music: A music tradition born in the Blitz of London lives on in Chicago

Stage: A victory against invisibility in “Being Seen”

Reviews

Some of the culture's best this month

Comics

"Three Sisters: Welcoming Spring at Star Farm": A new comic by Anya Davidson

Poetry

“Time Heals All Wounds”: A new poem by Eve Ozer