The Purple Pig

Pig ears at the pass

Pig ears hit the fryer before Jimmy Bannos Jr., chef at The Purple Pig in Chicago, sends them toward the pass as one more cut in a pork-focused Mediterranean kitchen. Bannos Jr. came to this station with a long family restaurant background, but the work here took its public shape in 2009, when The Purple Pig opened on the Magnificent Mile with a brief that was plain enough to hold: cheese, swine and wine. He was one of the founding figures, working alongside Jimmy Bannos Sr., Scott Harris and Tony Mantuano, and the restaurant became the address most closely tied to his bold, pork-led style.

The lineage matters because it shows in the menu’s construction. Bannos Jr. had worked at Al Forno in Providence, interned at Emeril’s in New Orleans, worked for Gabriel Viti at Miramar Bistro, and assisted with the opening of Mia Francesca in Chicago. At The Purple Pig, those systems met a more direct appetite for off-cuts, cured meats, smears and shared plates. His own description holds the center of it: “The basis of what I do and everything that I study and practice has to do with Mediterranean roots.”

Cheese, swine and wine as method

The menu is built in sections that keep the table moving: Antipasti, Smears, Fried Items, Panini, Cured Meats, Cheese, Salad, A La Plancha and Dolci. That architecture gives the kitchen room to move between salt, fat, acid and char without turning the meal into a procession. Pork Belly with Ginger Glaze, Crispy Fried Pig Ears, Milk-Braised Pork Shoulder and Spanish Octopus sit beside Salt-Roasted Beets with Whipped Goat Cheese, so the hand of the cook is not only in the animal but in contrast.

Nose-to-tail cooking does the main work here. The restaurant’s housemade charcuterie and cured meats are not side details; they are part of the place’s original argument. The small-plate format lets a table take in several cuts, textures and temperatures in one sitting, with the wine program set beside the food rather than above it.

A loud room for shared plates

The room works at a high register. Communal tables, bright modern light and a coastal European ease give the pork and wine program a setting that feels more like a crowded counter than a hushed dining room. The noise is part of the material. Plates cross the table, bread arrives for smears, glasses move in and out of the conversation, and the pass has to keep pace with groups ordering across the menu rather than along a single line.

That energy suits the food. Pig ears need their crackle, pork shoulder needs company, beets need the cool lift of goat cheese, and the charcuterie needs a table willing to share. Bannos Jr.’s work here rests on that exchange: the Mediterranean frame, the swine, the cheese, the wine, and a room loud enough to keep every plate in motion. The clearest thing on the menu is still Milk-Braised Pork Shoulder.