Maxwells Trading
Erling Wu-Bower grew up half Chinese and half Cajun in Chicago and named this after his oldest son. The rooftop above the dining room is a working farm with three greenhouses, and it stocks the kitchen.
Why go
Wu-Bower cooked at The Publican, Avec and Nico Osteria, then ran Pacific Standard Time as chef-owner for three years before he and Josh Tilden left the group in 2020.1 He told the Tribune at the time he was going to lay low and be a father. This is what he came back with, on Carroll Avenue among the warehouses west of Ogden, and he picked the address on purpose.1 His mother Olivia Wu wrote about food for the Daily Herald and took him through Vietnamese markets; his father took him through Europe.1 The kitchen he built out of that runs pappardelle with Chinese braised lamb under cinnamon, star anise and soy, finished with house chili crisp and Parmesan.1 The Michelin inspectors add turbot with Swiss chard and kombu beurre blanc, and soup dumpling tortellini with maitake.2 There are record players on both floors, and you can bring your own to the private room upstairs.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the griddle bread with the french onion dip. The Infatuation calls it
essentially a very doughy scallion pancake
and says toresist the urge to eat it plain with a spoon.
3 - Order: the Japanese sweet potato,
like a vegetable crème brûlée swimming in a clove-heavy Thai-style curry.
3 - Order: the clay pot rice, and use the house sriracha and chili crisp. The rice comes underseasoned on purpose.3
- Order: the royal milk tiramisu for the black tea mousse against brown sugar hazelnuts.3
- Avoid: the stuffed pappardelle. The same reviewer who scored the room 9.0 called it
a not-so-stuffed stuffed pappardelle.
3
What locals & experts say
- The Infatuation Chicago (Veda Kilaru, 10 September 2024), scoring it 9.0:
Much like Sade's catalog, each seemingly straightforward dish contains multitudes.
3 - Erling Wu-Bower, on refusing a category (Block Club Chicago, 15 November 2023):
I wish that I had an off-the-shelf Italian or Chinese or Thai to throw, but I don’t. It’s the kind of food I want to eat and the kind of food I want to cook. It’s very personal cuisine … personal to me and the heritage that I was born with.
1 - MICHELIN Guide Chicago, on the room:
It can feel as if half the city is dining in this quiet pocket of West Loop.
2
Good to know
- Hours: Tuesday to Thursday 4:30pm to 9pm, Friday and Saturday 4:30pm to 10pm. Closed Sunday and Monday.2
- Booking: reservations open a month out and prime weekend slots go. Book two or three weeks ahead, or walk in before 5:30pm and sit at the bar, which is first come first served.3
- The check: a service charge goes on every bill and is distributed among the staff. Wu-Bower's stated reason is a smaller team paid more.1
Verdict
should-visit — A chef who will not name his own cuisine is usually hiding, and Wu-Bower is doing the opposite: he told Block Club it is largely Italian with specific Asian explorations dish by dish, and the plates back him up, from soup dumpling tortellini to turbot in kombu beurre blanc. The Infatuation scored it 9.0 in September 2024 and named its own misses, which is a stronger signal than a clean rave. It is one rung short of the top because the restaurant is barely two years old and no long-form critic has published on it.