Perhaps you've heard it a thousand times, but that quote from Brillat-Savarin's classic 1825 treatise, The Physiology of Taste, is what the restaurant Savarin is all about: "The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star." John Hogan no doubt shares this sentiment, for he named his stunning one-year-old Chicago restaurant for the 19th-century gourmand. Appropriately, Hogan's Savarin serves classic French food, both rustic and refined, and, equally apt, the food is out of this world.

"This exhilarating new French restaurant is the best thing to hit the Chicago dining scene in the past year," Dennis Ray Wheaton wrote in Chicago, where he listed it among the city's best new restaurants. "Chef-proprietor John Hogan's mastery of the cuisine dazzles." The Chicago Tribune's Phil Vettel stated simply, "Savarin may be the best new restaurant to open in 1998."

Considering Hogan's rigorous training, we're not surprised at the acclaim. A graduate of the Dumas Père Cooking School in Glenview, Illinois, Hogan is also a graduate of some of the Windy City's best French kitchens, and one of France's top kitchens, too. In 1983 he completed a short stage under Roger Vergé at his Michelin three-star Moulin de Mougins. Back in Chicago, Hogan worked at L'Escargot, Le Perroquet, Everest, Park Avenue Café, and Kiki's Bistro. "No serious discussion of French cooking in Chicago can exclude this man," Vettel wrote of Hogan. While Hogan was the chef at Kiki's, the restaurant earned three stars from both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. And perhaps most telling, Chicago chefs voted Savarin as their favorite place to eat in town.

"After cooking at some of Chicago's best restaurants, chef John Hogan finally steps out on his own, with plats du jour that just knock you out," Anya von Bremzen wrote in a Travel & Leisure piece that listed Savarin as one of America's "Top 50 Restaurants." Step out to the Beard House this month, and prepare to go down for the count.