Porkless bacon

The battle among chefs to win the hearts and minds of bacon lovers continues.

But these days, the classic—pork belly, cured and smoked—isn’t cutting it, and chefs are turning to beef, veal and lamb instead. Chef Paul Virant, who buys whole sides of beef for his Western Springs restaurant Vie, started curing beef belly to save the cut from a more anonymous fate: sausage filling. (As he sagely puts it, “Would you rather have bacon or sausage?”) He uses the smoky, sorghum-sweetened bacon (pictured) on burgers and in the occasional BLT.

Not to be outdone, chef Chris Pandel of the Bristol tops rashers of unsmoked, maple-cured veal bacon with mackerel. And at Sepia, Andrew Zimmerman is taking on lamb bacon: The chef fuses a few bellies together to form a three-inch slab, which he cures, braises, slices and wraps around lamb loins.

Is any of this really bacon? Sort of. Without smoke, cured belly meat is more like pancetta, Zimmerman concedes. That doesn’t mean he’s above calling it bacon on the menu. “Diners’ minds go straight to the words they like,” he explains.

Vie, 4471 Lawn Ave, Western Springs, 708-246-2082
The Bristol, 2152 N Damen Ave, 773-862-5555
Sepia, 123 N Jefferson St, 312-441-1920

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