You may think you don’t know the Mayor.
But if you pay attention to restaurants, or cooking competitions, or pop-ups in Chicago, you’ve probably eaten his food, or eaten the food of some chef whose ass he’s saved in one way or another.
Like Batman, he keeps to the shadows; everywhere and nowhere at once.
But he’s no industrialist playboy hiding behind a rubber mask.
He is peripatetic pitmaster Hipolito Sanchez, aka Hip, aka the Mayor, aka the Dark Knight of the Chicago restaurant industry.
And this August 3, after years of me pestering him about it, he steps into the light when his alter ego Slow Motion for Meat makes its debut at Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at Thattu.
Sanchez was born into it in southwest Texas learning from his father and uncles, cooking whole javelinas or cow heads underground, barbacoa-style. When he was a lad, the family relocated to Chicago’s western suburbs, and when he came of age he took a detour into the corporate world, managing a handful of Verizon stores. That world he abandoned in 2008, adopting his alias, and diving headfirst into the catering and competitive barbecue circuit, with a focus on low-and-slow whole smoked animals. But every opportunity to help another chef, technical support in particular, was an opportunity to learn; and he’s stepped in everywhere from Toon’s to Café Marie Jeanne to Finom to Smoque, whose jefe Barry Sorkin once described him as “an enigma.”
Sanchez donated Kimski’s first smoker after he and Chef Won Kim joined forces to rescue a foodless Bridgeport barbecue competition, with a last minute purchase of chicken quarters and a smoker built out of milk cartons and paper clips.
Sanchez has even thrown down on the fly for several Foodballs, dragging chef friends out of the weeds when they needed him most.
This is why I’m not worried that he has not yet supplied me with his Foodball menu for Monday. His excuse? He’s cooking backstage for a bunch of big shots at some giant music festival this weekend, though he promises me that the menu will be informed by what he’s cooking for the swells.
Here’s what I know so far: he promises quail, smoked and grilled boneless one-biters with a salsa verde and Alabama white sauce hybrid (aka “Mexican ranch”), served atop esquites. He’s also planning something with Danny Espinoza’s new chicken chorizo verde. There will be something for the vegetarians also, but the headliner will be a limited number of set boxes including all of the above, and much more, that will feed four.
I’ll give the Mayor the last word: “I think a lot of people don’t give themselves an opportunity to get side by side in things that are outside their regular realm or domain. I seek that out. If I have an opportunity to go work with somebody that I’ve never worked with before, but I really respect what they do, then I’m gonna do it.”
He’ll be the hero Avondale deserves starting at 6 PM, this Monday August 3, at 2061 W. Fletcher in Avondale. As always, happy hour runs from 5 to 7 PM, with $5 beers and nonalcoholic drinks, plus $12 bespoke cocktails by Melanie Hernandez.
Meanwhile, check out the full Foodball schedule. . . .
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