Review: Valhalla is Stephen Gillanders’ biggest statement yet

Does one want to hear “The Humpty Dance” while sipping a $35 frozen martini at Valhalla?

Digital Underground’s 1990 single is an undeniable jam, if also deliriously juvenile. (Key lyric: “I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom.”) Yet, this was the soundtrack while sipping the most expensive cocktail I’ve ever ordered in Chicago, one that starts with vodka frozen to the consistency of a slushy in a Pacojet, a multi-thousand dollar chef tool specializing in micro-purees. Oh, did I mention the drink also contains both Kaluga caviar stuffed into an olive and cured caviar shaved on at the end?

You’d think the double dose of caviar would do nothing but inflate the price, but the brininess breaks through the steely edge of the vodka. Close your eyes, and you might be sipping on some scenic seaside … except this locale also features “The Humpty Dance” bumping loudly from a nearby speaker. (“I’m spunky / I like my oatmeal lumpy”)

To be fair, no one at Valhalla picked that song to match the food, because the restaurant has no control over what plays at Time Out Market.Valhalla is carved into the mezzanine of the massive Fulton Market food hall, in full view of the crowds below. While chef Stephen Gillanders probably could have hidden the project behind a heavy curtain, he embraced the setup. “Instead of covering it up, we said, ‘Let’s own it and do something really different,’” Gillanders said. “We want people to laugh out loud and take pictures.”

Valhalla asks a lot of questions about what it means to be a fine-dining restaurant in 2023. Its prices certainly put it in the same realm as nearby neighbor Next, if not as much as places like Ever and Oriole. But the atmosphere couldn’t differ more.

Fair warning: Do not visit if you demand a serene evening in a room of neutral colors and hushed conversations. At Valhalla, you’ll undoubtedly need to lean in to hear your dining partners and politely ask the waitstaff to repeat themselves if more than a few feet away.

But I also can’t think of a meal I enjoyed more over the past year.

Valhalla is Stephen Gillanders’ biggest statement yet, the one where his mercurial ingredient combinations hit the hardest and surprise the most. The kombu-cured fluke is one of the most visually stunning dishes I’ve encountered as a restaurant critic. Gillanders ages the fluke for a few days to soften the texture, pairs it with funky fish sauce and creamy pine nuts, and then lightens the flavor with tart green apple cut into crunchy matchsticks. This is a very early entry for the best dish of 2023.

Currently, to experience this dish you’ll have to order the $185 tasting menu. The 11-course menu starts strong, with the Snacks to Start featuring a succession of immaculately constructed bites, before the fluke dish and a few other seafood preparations arrive. The heavier dishes aren’t quite as memorable, though the pastries at the end finish the meal on a high.

Valhalla’s a la carte menu is ultimately more exciting, allowing you to linger longer on the restaurant’s most creative dishes. According to Gillanders, this was deliberate. “I wanted to make sure the a la carte menu was as enticing as the tasting menu,” Gillanders said. “With a tasting menu, someone comes in, says that’s great, and then you don’t see them again. Guests don’t have a lot of reasons to come back. We wanted to be a place you can come and have a dish, a glass of wine and a dessert.”

I’d return just to order the maitake mushroom kebab. The kitchen amplifies the meaty qualities of the mushroom, before pairing it with sharp chevre, charred avocado and a slightly spicy Fresno chile sauce.

Even better is the Rohan duck confit. The confit is textbook, with miraculously crisp skin that encases lusciously tender meat. Yet it also arrives coated in smoked gochujang, the moderately spicy Korean red chile paste, and rests in a refreshing gazpacho made with tomatillos. On the side, you’ll find delicate scallion-sesame crepes to roll up with the meat and dip in the cooling and tart gazpacho.

Nothing about this is remotely traditional, yet the dish feels so intuitive that it doesn’t require any instructions from the server. Each bite vacillates between so many flavors and textures — spicy, acidic, salty, fatty, soft, crispy, hot and cold — it can be hard to pinpoint them all.

If you’ve been following Gillanders, this isn’t exactly surprising. After spending years with the acclaimed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Gillanders first made waves in Chicago with the now-closed Intro, before opening up S.K.Y. in 2018 and Apolonia in 2021. But when chatting with him on the phone, he makes sure to stress the importance of his team.

He’s right. Executive pastry chef Tatum Sinclair’s creations are essential to any ending here, striking a delicate balance between playfulness without slipping into indulgence. The standout is the black marble Pavlova, which really does arrive looking like a monochromatic dome of marble. But crack the top meringue and you’ll unleash a filling so vibrantly colored it seems to glow.

Along with helping conceptualize the cocktails, including the wild frozen martini, Jelena Prodan runs a lean but fascinating wine program. While you can happily order one of the wines by the glass, spring for the wine pairing if you can, which can be arranged even if you just order a few dishes from the a la carte menu.

Her enthusiasm is infectious, and each offering was better than the last, from the floral Louis Nicaise Brut Reserve Champagne to the remarkable Larkmead Firebelle 2013, a Merlot-forward red blend from Napa, supple and robust at the same time.

With all this talent, is it a shame that Valhalla is located in a food hall, or does the informal atmosphere add to it? You’ll have to decide for yourself. All I do know is that it takes an astonishing amount of talent to construct a meal so captivating that it eventually makes the roar of the crowd below fade into the background.

“Physically, I hope we underpromise and overdeliver,” Gillanders said. “You walk into this fun casual place, but we take ourselves seriously. But we also aren’t (expletive) around. We want to show you the best of what we got.”

nkindelsperger@chicagotribune.com

Time Out Market, 916 W. Fulton Market

708-222-7971

valhallachicago.com

Tribune rating: Between excellent and outstanding, 3½ stars

Open: Wednesday to Sunday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Prices: Tasting menu $185; a la carte menu, $26-$48 per dish

Noise: Mostly very loud, though they have a quieter dining available if asked.

Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible, with elevators to the second level.

Ratings key: Four stars, outstanding; three stars, excellent; two stars, very good; one star, good; no stars, unsatisfactory. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.