We read about some of the offerings at the hippest of hip new restaurants, Alinea, when Tribune restaurant critic Phil Vettel told us about “. . . a dish that quite literally floats on air. It arrives to the table on an Irish linen pillow filled with lavender-scented air-the weight of the shallow bowl gently forces out the vaporized lavender so it wafts around and above the plate.”
We decided to hightail it over to Valois.
This is a steam-table cafeteria at 1518 E. 53rd St., a Hyde Park gathering spot since 1922. It was opened by a French-Canadian named Valois who surely pronounced his name “Val-wah” and so might be mystified that regulars refer to it as “Val-oise” (as in “noise”) or “Val-oy” (as in “toy”).
It moved twice before settling into its current location decades ago. It was a favorite of Bill Veeck and Harold Washington; was the setting for Mitch Duneier’s remarkable sociological study “Slim’s Table” (see Stopsigns) and was praised by Dawn Simonds, restaurant critic for Cincinnati magazine, in her 2004 book, “Best Food in Town: The Restaurant Lover’s Guide to Comfort Food in the Midwest.”
But it has withstood these periodic flings with fame to remain what it has always been, a no-nonsense spot with a charmingly direct slogan, “See Your Food.”
What you see is corned beef and cabbage, roast beef, short ribs, butt steak, all manner of breakfast foods; generous portions, accompanied by bowls of vegetables, hot corn bread and grits. And the prices: You could feed a family of four for what you might pay for an appetizer at one of the city’s chic culinary playgrounds.
The clientele is a lively mix of neighborhood families, U. of C. students, cops, cabbies, retirees, black and white and everything in between. (Those are regulars Frank Davis, left, and James Brown in Osgood’s photo.)
The place is, as Tribune writer Ron Grossman put it many years ago, “a Noah’s Ark of human diversity.” Lines can get long at peak hours, but some people eat three meals a day at the place and others spend hours lingering over coffee and conversation. These people are just fine not knowing anything about vaporized lavender.
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rkogan@tribune.com
