Mac and Min's

Photo: Martha Williams

Even in the midst of a Gulf Coast seafood catastrophe, Mark Bires and Mindy Friedler have pressed ahead and reconcepted their West Loop location of Jerry’s Sandwiches into a New Orleans–inspired sandwich shop. In light of the oil spill, Mac & Min’s menu could be read as elegiac: an ode to po’ boys, chicory coffee, Zapp’s potato chips, gumbo and muffulettas. Never ones to streamline, Bires and Friedler’s menu lists dozens of po’ boys, filled with everything from classic fried-shrimp-and-oysters to warm roast turkey to alligator sausage. Those shrimp and oysters (incidentally, not from the Gulf) are plentiful, and fried in a crunchy cornmeal coating, but the breaded-seafood-on-big-bready-roll combination calls out for loads more of the hot-sauce-and-mayo combo. On the flip side, the muffuletta is a juice-bomb, layers of ham, mortadella, coppicola and salami dripping with olive relish between chewy La Farine bread. These sandwiches are meals in themselves, but a cup of the rich seafood gumbo can help kill the time before they arrive—you just have to have one of those New Orleans-size appetites. 1045 W Madison St, 312-563-1008.

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