Void restaurant offers grown-up, playful take on SpaghettiOs
The chefs at Void like to play with their food. And while they may have a dish called Spaghetti Uh-O's, make no mistake: They take food seriously.
“We have lasagna and chicken parm, but we also have confit-grilled octopus with bitter greens and stone fruit," said Dani Kaplan, co-chef at Void. "We have tuna crudo and things like that. So it's this meshing of things that are familiar, comforting, as well as something that gives us the opportunity to stretch our creative legs.”
The neighborhood-focused restaurant, which opened in mid-August, is the brainchild of co-owners and friends Pat Ray, who is the general manager, and Tyler Hudec, who is the co-chef. The two bought the former Moe's Tavern space at 2937 N. Milwaukee in Avondale, in 2021.
Hudec and Ray met years ago when they worked at the same charity fundraising company and stayed in touch over the years. Ray has worked at some of the city’s top food and drink destinations, including Violet Hour, Sepia and Claudia, while Hudec has led the kitchens at places like the Winchester and Wyler Road. The two had originally thought about doing “a tropical goth tiki thing,” Hudec said, but when Kaplan came on board, the idea of Italian American took shape.
Kaplan and Hudec met while both were working, as sous chef and line cook respectively, at the former Analogue restaurant in Logan Square about a decade ago.
Kaplan has worked for 20 years at various restaurants cooking different types of food, from French and Cajun to Argentinian and new American. But it's Italian American that makes Kaplan the "happiest and most nostalgic."
As a kid, Kaplan would celebrate special occasions with the family at an Italian American restaurant in Buffalo Grove, the type of spot that had two sweet servers named Rose who remembered their orders; for Kaplan the go-to dish was chicken Parmesan.
Kaplan would make mezzi rigatoni and tiny meatballs in vodka sauce at home on a regular basis.
"And one day, I was like, how do I do this in a more elevated way for the restaurant, something that is a little bit more eye-catching and interesting?” Kaplan said.
The team fully embraced the idea of grown-up SpaghettiOs, right down to the cans with the label inspired by the old Franco American branding that are affixed by hand every day (Kaplan’s sister, Adrianne Hanley, is an artist and designed the artwork).
The house red sauce, which is the base of several Void dishes, starts with garlic, oregano, chili flakes and pepper sauteed in olive oil. After that’s cooked down, hand-crushed canned tomatoes, red wine, onions and a generous handful of fresh basil are added to the pot. After a brief simmer, the sauce is transferred to the oven set to cook for six hours; the low and slow process caramelizes the top of the sauce, giving it sweetness without having to add baking soda or sugar to take the sharp edge off.
The red sauce is transformed into vodka sauce after it’s fortified with caramelized tomato paste, butter and olive oil, then finished with cream and a shot of vodka.
O-shaped pasta is tossed in the sauce along with a hearty portion of tiny meatballs, a mix of pork shoulder and beef chuck roll ground in house, and then served tableside with a shower of Parmesan cheese (the real kind, not the green can stuff).
After years working for others and now running a place of his own, it feels “surreal,” Hudec said, “to be able to look at the past 10 years and think that I made good choices for myself and my friends along the way to the point where it got me to where I needed to be, to be able to provide an opportunity in life for some of the people that I'm absolutely closest to in life. ... I couldn't have picked a better set of friends.”