Dale Levitski to start brunch at Sprout on March 20

Photo: Joe Wigdahl

Years and years ago—before he was on Top Chef, and way before he took over Sprout—Dale Levitski was known for one thing: Frushi. Of course, "fruit sushi" sounds like a tired concept now, but when Orange (which still serves frushi at multiple locations around the city) first opened, it was a chef-driven concept, and Levitski was that chef.

Understandably, the chef has been a little sheepish about getting back into the brunch game. "It's kind of a long time coming," he says. "There's a little bit of an expectation, I think."

I had to ask the chef: At Sprout's new brunch, which kicks off on Sunday, March 20, will he be serving frushi? He just laughed and said: "I should so slap you..."

So don't expect pancake flights and orange-flavored coffee at Sprout. But do expect the a la carte menu to be full of items that Levitski hopes will become just as notorious. Most restaurant brunch menus "hit all the basics and then have a few signature items," he says. "We're doing the opposite."

Some of the dishes that may become signatures: A house-smoked sturgeon platter with caviar, mustard, creme fraiche, apple-cabbage slaw and pumpernickle; foie gras deviled eggs; "crab-puppy" fried skirt steak (skirt steak coated in crab-hushpuppy batter—"like a chicken-fried steak on crack," Levitski says); rabbit hash; a chicken Caesar salad omelette, which will encompass the entire salad, croutons and all ("It does taste just like a chicken Caesar salad...but on paper it sounds gross..."); a peanut butter-and-jelly Monte Cristo sandwich; the grilled cheese sandwich that has been Sprout's signature cheese course on the dinner menu ("it's the ultimate hangover cure...it's worked on a few people here at the restaurant..."); and, because he knows he's going to get requests for egg-white dishes, a Green City Market egg-white omelette.

And here's another signature aspect of the brunch: No kids.

"I guess we're adult-only," Levitski explains. "We're more of a white tablecloth resaurant. [Our brunch] is more for teenagers and above. [Sometimes you] go out to brunch and there are kids smashing Cheerios next to you. We're not that kind of place."

"It's not that we're being haters," he continues. "We just don't have a kids menu." (The restaurant also has only one high chair and no room for strollers.)  "There's a lot of places in Lincoln Park that cater to children. So we're choosing not to."

Brunch will occur on Sundays from 10:30am–2:30pm. For the first few weeks it will be sort of in soft-open mode: On the 20th, only 50 people will be seated; the next week it will get bumped up to 75.

"It's our trial-by-fire kind of brunch," Levitski says. He sounds vaguely nervous. But don't worry about him—he's done brunch before.