Best Place to Buy Secret Ingredients
The Spice House
1512 N. Wells
312-274-0378
One trip to this emporium of high-quality spices and somehow the peanut butter some people slip into chili doesn’t seem to qualify as a “secret ingredient” anymore. Save that for something like Saigon cinnamon—ground on-site, it’s more than twice as strong as the stuff sold at Jewel—or the house-blended Back of the Yards Garlic Pepper Butcher’s Rub meat seasoning, made with both finely and coarsely cut pepper so as to stagger the flavor release. This is also the place to find the powdered sumac called for in Middle Eastern cooking, molecular gastronomy necessities such as agar agar and calcium citrate, and a handsome lineup of salts, including black lava salt from Hawaii and a Portuguese version of fleur de sel. “Every high-end chef in Chicago has been in,” says co-owner Tom Erd, though he prefers not to name names: “I don’t know if the big guys want everybody to know where they get their secret ingredients.”
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I'm from North Carolina and I frequently buy my spices online from the Spice House! If I don't have the spice I need in my pantry, then I don't cook the food until I can get it from them! They are genuinely the salt of the earth - pun intended! A cut of eye of round roast rubbed with a little olive oil and their Back of the Yards blend in a 325 degreed oven until 145 degrees internally makes for the best roast beef you can make at home!
I lived in Chicago for 10 years and discovered this little gem of a shop while out on a walk one day. It completely changed the way I cook! Their spices and blends are out of this world and their gift boxes make great birthday/Christmas/housewarming/wedding gifts. And I love that you can go online and find recipes for the various blends, I've used several recipes and have yet to be disappointed. I have since moved to Ohio but I still buy my spices and blends online from the Spice House, wouldn't think of doing it any other way!
I live in Oklahoma and I am not a cook and yet I am a tremendous fan of The Spice House. Why? The reason is simple. I am a professional writer and their newsletter is one of the best written newsletters in the country! Even if you are not a cook, you can experience a gourmet feast with words when you read their publication! I wish they would write a book on the history of spices. What a verbal culinary treat that would be!
Hyla Hope Harder, Ph.D
I live in Dublin, Ireland and get to visit the city of Chicago every year where my first port of call is the Spice House. Many years ago on my first visit to Chicago I went on a food walking tour of the north side of the city and of all the wonderful food stores we visited the Spice House was my favourite. We were treated to a talk on the history of spices by the owner of the store in the lovely back garden of the store, it was Halloween and we were lucky that the weather was so clement. Although our time was fairly regimented on the tour I managed to purchase several items of which my very favouite is the pork chop rub, talk about bringing a pork chop to life! Just add a little apple sauce and feel those juices flow! Bon appetit!
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