

But the food is less successful incongruous with the resaurant's other merits. It’s so warm and sweet you might almost want to protect it. It is a happy place that seems great for those multi-generational groups. Its aesthetic and the less tangible atmosphere not only achieve, but exceed apparent designs on the family-friendly category. The corner location’s large windows let a lot of light in. The 70-seat space is schoolhouse chic and with pops of primary colors, geometric shapes and board games stacked into cubby shelves.

) It also seems to be grasping for another less-defined dining genre: The sort of so-so moneyed family spot with plain enough food to please grammom, kids and the parents who are just trying to drink it out between those loveable bookends. Patti Ann’s official self-designation is Midwestern comfort food. Maison Yaki caught the skewer wave of 2019 right on time. Olmsted tapped into the settling down of the once straightforward but eventually vexingly nebulous farm-to-table trend. Patti Ann’s came next at the same address last month. It occupies a few hundred square feet on Vanderbilt Avenue, where all of Baxtrom’s operations collect mail. Nearly another three years later, but with much more distance given which three years those were, Baxtrom opened Evi’s Bäckerei with pastry chef Alex Grunert to tons of attention before it even became apparent that the shop’s pastries were as good as they are. Both were quick to accrue accolades and the crowds that follow when they first launched, three years apart. It follows his highly regarded seasonal ingredient bastion Olmsted, which opened in 2016, and his 2019 followup French yakitori, Maison Yaki. Patti Ann’s is the latest in a prudently slow-burning dynasty from the talented chef Greg Baxtrom.
