Best thing I ate: Salmon at The Pump Room

I was 20 years old and I had just tasted my first real fish fillet. It was a breezy summer and my brother had been on a fishing trip in the Keys where he had caught a 42 pound grouper. Or at least that’s how I remember it. I was teetering on the cusp of adventurous eating so I tried some of this grouper, which had been filleted and grilled back home. It was, well, as most life-changing bites go, unlike anything I’d ever eaten before. But I was still with reservations because it was fish and psychologically fish wigged me out. I didn’t trust the sea (the sea totally still freaks me out but the deliciousness that it produces trumps everything). I was also distrustful of what went on behind kitchen doors in restaurants and mostly found myself sticking to chicken tenders and fries wherever I went.

So my friends and I decided to go to a fancy dinner out on New Year’s Day. After much deliberation we settled on The Pump Room. This legendary Chicago restaurant was about as fancy as our young minds could fathom seeing as, at the time, countless famous guests had been gathering there in the ever-beloved Booth One for decades. I mean, Paul Newman, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor (!) had all sat just a few steps away from our table at one point in time. I was swooning. We even hoped we’d make our own celebrity sighting that night. This was ten years ago and I can remember nothing but the white tablecloths, the feeling that I needed to channel my inner Emily Post, the wall smattered with photographs of all the celebrities who had dined in Booth One. I felt like royalty. And so I knew I wanted to take a chance. The menu had concoctions, yes that is what I would call them, that didn’t seem to fit together into my idea of a meal. But I ordered the salmon even though it came with a side of something that I didn’t even consider would be tasty so I ordered a side of something else that was fail proof (probably potatoes - my memory fades).

When the salmon arrived it was precisely the color of the salmon colored crayon in my box of Crayola at home. Ever so slightly cooked, it flaked with the slightest caress of my fork. I had never tasted a protein so tender, so melt-in-my-mouth, that I didn’t even have to chew. It was so fresh, I’d be willing to bet it was living just hours before it arrived, perfectly filleted, at my table. It turned out that the entire plate, including the side (I want to say it was braised cabbage), was one big spectacular course and the joke was on me. This is how I learned to start trusting chefs. It is also the first and only time I’ve ever sent the server to give my compliments to the chef. Just call me Audrey.

The picture quality is terrible but we had so much fun that night.