XOCO opens; chaos yet to ensue

XOCO Coffee Cake

I approached XOCO this morning fully expecting to see a line around the block. It was 9am, the place had been open exactly two hours, and I assumed that everybody in Chicago had, like me, been waiting for this moment for months.

Well, I guess people have to, like, work and stuff, because XOCO was actually quite calm. There were a dozen or so people in the place, and the wood-burning oven, though roaring, wasn't cooking anything. Chefs Shaw Lush and Rick Bayless were there, happy and relaxed. "I just birthed a baby!" Shaw exclaimed. (She did have a glow to her.)

For some reason–probably because I was a little embarassed about being such a groupie for the place— I hardly ate a thing. I bought a hot chocolate, a slice of coffee cake and a ginger-lime muffin. Like my contemporaries Monica and Kevin, I'm going to refrain from talking about the food—it would be wildly inappropriate to judge it on its first day. But we've already gotten a reader review (see the comment on our XOCO menu blog entry). If that reaction is any indication, what I experienced this morning was just the calm before the storm.