Walking into Intro Chicago restaurant on Belden and Lincoln Park West – a restaurant featuring rotating chefs – you are greeted by a simple blue and white sign with the single word, “pith.”

“Pith” to many chefs is regarded as the part of the fruit that nobody cares about. The zest is treasured, the fruit is devoured, and the white pith, the underside of the peel, is thrown out. Yet pith has another definition. It means “the essence.”

Jonah Reider, 21 year old recent graduate, entrepreneur, and owner and chef of Pith restaurant has become a phenomenon in the culinary world. Reider, an economics and sociology major at Columbia University, graduated in 2016. As any college student knows, money is hard to come by, as is excellent food for a reasonable price, so, being an economics major, Reider discovered that having his friends pitch in was the only way he could afford the quality ingredients needed to make the ambitious food he liked to make. Cooking for four to six people turned Reider’s exotic ingredients and gourmet meals into social events.

News of Reider’s food– an assortment of fried purple potatoes, chard tarts, scallops, greens, and pear sorbets – quickly excited Columbia students, making Pith a ticketed restaurant. By word of mouth and through instagram, Pith quickly became the hottest ticket in New York City with more than a thousand reservations of parties of four on a wait list to his small dorm room. Yes, out of his dorm room!

To pay homage to Pith is to realize a highly creative, forward thinking young talent. These days, Reider is stationed exclusively in Chicago as the chef in residence at Intro restaurant. Reider has taken the stage to bring his taste as a chef to the two-Michelin-starred space of restaurant L2O. Replacing his dorm kitchen are top-of-the-line appliances, a full staff, and a gorgeous eating space. Despite the appeal of a fancy fine dining aesthetic, however, Reider has given Intro a taste of his dorm room. A friend’s figure drawings line the walls, and the pottery diners eat off was sculpted by another friend.

The first taste in Reider’s nine course tasting menu is an oyster dish of red currant and black peppercorn. Next follows a chard phyllo pastry with chèvre and white peppercorn. A scallop sits sliced and topped with flower buds and roe in a bright grass green sauce. The dish is wide and circular with a small rectangle in which the piece is set. What follows is an arrangement of dishes composed of ingredients purchased from the Green City Market by Jonah that very morning. Dishes such as the benison tartare, a dish titled “carrot” (probably my favorite dish of the night arranged with harissa, ricotta, almond, lemon 2008 roja reserva, la antigua clásico), a duck leg confit, mustard greens, and a berry gallette each feature what Reider bought at the market. While dining at Pith, senior Margot Hahn pointed out that she’d tried the yellow raspberries from his berry galette the same morning at the farmers market.  

Although only 21 years old, Reider proved a startlingly great chef and also an intensely kind and interesting person. In the beautiful sleek wooden and metal dining room, occupied by 20 or so parties, Reider made his rounds to check in on how everyone was enjoying the meal, and to answer any questions or talk about the happenings in Chicago. Reider swears excitedly when explaining to diners his inspiration at Intro, his appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and his upcoming web series. Reider is the hottest new chef with a taste for community dining, a commitment to the finest ingredients, an extreme sense of cool, and a knack for hospitality.

To end the night after a two and a half hour meal, Reider led me into the kitchen for a full tour. Everyone leaving Pith gets a bag of three cookies with a handwritten note by Reider himself. It’s up to you to squeeze a seat at the hottest restaurant in town to see what he wrote.