HP_011917

22 | January 19, 2017 | The highland park landmark dining out
hplandmark.com
Valor brings je ne sais quoi to Glencoe
Chef Fliou serves
up French flavors
at former District
restaurant
Fouad Egbaria
Contributing Editor
On a downtown avenue
in Glencoe, diners can get
a taste of France.
Valor, 667 Vernon Ave.,
opened Dec. 31, 2016,
with new Executive Chef
Benoit Fliou, a native of
Paris with three decades of
culinary experience under
his chef’s hat. The restaurant
originally opened as
Cibo Trattoria, then rebranded
under the same
owners last June, going by
District until it closed in
August 2016.
In terms of atmosphere,
General Manager Rick
Raschillo hopes Valor will
land somewhere in between
the upscale Cibo and
the more family-friendly
District. They offer more
moderately-priced items,
while also serving as a
place for adults to enjoy a
night out, he said.
“It’s also a nice specialoccasion
restaurant,” he
added. “It fits both needs.”
Raschillo said he and
fellow co-owner Steven
Santiccioli said they wanted
to give it another shot
and strive to bring a successful
eatery to a town
with good options but
lacking in quantity.
“We’re hoping that the
Glencoe community embraces
it and loves it,” Raschillo
said.
This time, the restaurant
is opening with a Frenchinspired
menu and a selection
of 28 wines (not including
rotating additions),
assembled with help from
Richard Salberg, a Glencoe
resident and wine collector.
Raschillo said they
interviewed five chefs, but
Fliou — who previously
served as chef at Abigail’s
American Bistro in Highland
Park — was “hands
down” their pick.
While the menu won’t be
limited strictly to French
flavors, Raschillo called
the restaurant’s newest
iteration an “American-
French bistro.” Fliou’s
dishes also have touches
of Italian, Japanese and
Spanish influences, among
others, a product of his
three decades of culinary
experience, predominantly
in France.
“I’ve been through different
kinds of restaurants
in France,” Fliou said, “in
different regions, close
to the Basque region in
Spain, so I learned to cook
with Spanish and Basque
influences.”
In France alone, Fliou
said he experienced a
world of cuisines, with
each region boasting its
own vibrant culinary
identity. Beginning in the
1980s, he said he, like
many others, was influenced
by Japanese cuisine
and nouvelle (“new”) cuisine.
When we visited Valor,
we got a chance to experience
its diverse flavors
for ourselves. We started
out with a salmon tartare
($12), featuring salmon,
oysters, shallots, lemon
juice and mayonnaise,
served on sourdough toast.
That served as a nice appetizer
for the beef tenderloin
($38), one of Fliou’s
favorites, which my colleague
Courtney Jacquin
said lived up to its name —
it is definitely tender. The
cut of beef is served with
Bordelaise sauce, confit
shallots, gratin dauphinois
and shaved black truffles.
Valor’s red snapper plancha features red snapper, crab
meat, roasted potatoes and red pepper sauce. Photos
by Courtney Jacquin/22nd Century Media
“[The beef tenderloin]
talks to my memory when
I was in France,” Fliou
said.
He added that when he
eats at a Paris restaurant
carrying his name, Benoit,
owned by restaurateur
Alain Ducasse, he has the
beef tenderloin.
“I’m really happy to
have that kind of traditional
French food,” Fliou
said. “We don’t have that
much exposure in Chicago.
... [French food] is
more exposed in Las Vegas,
Los Angeles and New
York.”
Next up was the red
snapper plancha ($28), a
savory piece of fish topped
with crab meat and served
with flavorful wedges of
roasted potatoes and a ring
of red pepper sauce for
added flavor and heat. The
snapper boasts a crisp outer
layer and offers a nice
hot-cold contrast with the
colder crab meat.
The menu includes
tastes of other cuisines as
well, including the homemade
fettuccine ($20),
which comes with shallots,
tomatoes, garlic, bits
of eggplant and sprinkled
Valor
667 Vernon Ave.,
Glencoe
www.valorglencoe.com
(847) 786-4324
5-11 p.m. Tuesday-
Thursday
5 p.m.-1 a.m. Friday-
Saturday
Closed, Sunday-
Monday
with Parmesan cheese. The
pasta dish is a callback
to the restaurant’s Italian
roots with Cibo Trattoria,
but with a French spin —
Fliou called it a combination
of a ratatouille and caponata
(a Sicilian eggplant
dish).
Last but not least, we
tried Fliou’s favorite dessert,
the baba au rhum
($14), or brioche cakes
infused with a sweet rum
syrup and served with
golden raisins and pineapple
bits on the side. The
dessert’s sweet, rummy
flavors make for a unique
combination, one worthy
of trying for those who
haven’t had the chance. It
also comes with a healthy
dollop of Chantilly cream
The fettuccine pasta comes topped with eggplant,
tomatoes, shallots, garlic and Parmesan cheese.
A restaurant staple, the beef tenderloin is served with
Bordelaise sauce, confit shallots and shaved black
truffles.
— the dish is best eaten
by carving out a piece of
the cake and diving it into
the cream, combining for a
sweet bite.
The restaurant’s menu
will feature rotating items
based on the season, but
certain dishes, like the beef
tenderloin, will be menu
staples. For now, the restaurant
will only be open
for dinner, Raschillo said.
In the summer, he said
they hope to open up the
front windows and accommodate
outdoor dining.
For Fliou, who will
work with four chefs in the
kitchen, the food will be
about freshness and listening
to the customers. He
joked that early on, there
was almost a “revolution”
in the streets of Glencoe
when they planned on removing
a chicken dish
from the menu.
But other than staples
like salmon, chicken and
beef, he said they’ll keep
a pared down permanent
menu with room for rotating
items, based on what’s
fresh at the fish markets,
for example.
“We do everything from
scratch, everything fresh,
every morning,” he said.
“The way I cook with my
team is old-fashioned,
French, from scratch. Everything
is done every
day.”