I won’t lie: I love Top Chef Master Rick Bayless. If he cooked liver for dinner, I would probably eat it – but that’s because he could probably cook up a meaner liver than anyone else in the room. So needless to say, a trip to Chicago wouldn’t have been complete without a stop-in to at least one of his Clark Street restaurants – or, in this case, two.

XOCO

The latest of Bayless’ eateries, XOCO, opened last September, a few months after our last visit, and I’d heard so many rave reviews of the place that I had to go there the first opportunity I got. And I did. I was even willing to let lunch interfere with the opportunity to kiss the Stanley Cup (though, let’s face it, the Cup was probably nasty by that point in the day anyway).

The menu at XOCO is pretty straightforward: a few salads, an assortment of tortas and a half-dozen or so delectable desserts. Caldos are available after 3 p.m., but I’m not so much of a soup person during the summer, so I was fine with getting what I could get in the noon hour.

Ahh, yes, the woodburning oven. It exists!

When you manage to peel your eyes away from the thing of beauty, you also notice that the food prep area is also very cool and staffed with cheery faces, including the guy who photobombs you with a big grin:

If you like to watch food prep, that’s a good thing, because if you go at lunch (between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.), you’ll get to see a lot of it while you wait in the 20- to 25-minute line. Right now, they’re not doing takeout lunch at all, and the dining room only seats maybe 40 people, so the line moves forward for ordering as other diners move out.

Back to lunch itself: It’s hard to pick just one torta when they all sound so good – well, at least for some people. Todd, not being a big adventurer, pretty easily narrowed his choices down to the Gunthrop Chicken Torta:

Although I was very tempted by the Special of the Day, which included guacamole, I couldn’t pry myself away from the idea of suckling pig between two slabs of woodburning oven toasted bread, so I went with the Cochinita Pibil:

By the way, that prominent pink stuff is the pickled onions, not the pork. Here’s a better picture with the pork, after I’d taken a bite:

:o) Say it with me, now: Mmmmm . . . Yes, it was that good. And that’s even without the habanero sauce. I can take some heat, but the idea of authentic Mexican habanero sauce kind of scared some sense into me, so I asked the cashier whether I’d be safe with it. While she assured me that the sauce came on the side (whew), she added that she always cautions customers to be careful with it because “they are not foolin’ around with that stuff.” Boy, you ain’t kiddin’. This stuff will linger in your oral cavity for a full minute after you drip a little bit onto your tongue. It looks harmless, but it is not. You have been warned.

Anyway. The Cochinita Pibil = awesome. If you don’t like pickled onions, you can take ‘em out and not really lose much of the essence of the torta (mostly because some of the flavor stays behind on the pork anyway, HA!). Suckling pig is, of course, one of the best ways to enjoy, well, pig, so naturally it’s delicious. And, ooh, that bread, all crusty and crunchy from time it spent toasting in that woodburning oven – that just makes all the difference. Don’t get a toasted torta if you’re one of those people who can’t take a little scrape on the roof of your mouth. Better yet, just don’t be one of those people: Have the freaking torta.

But you also need to save room for dessert. Two reasons:

1. Mexican hot chocolate:

2. Churros with soft serve for dipping:

The chocolate actually comes in several varieties, the most authentic of which is apparently just ground chocolate and hot water, but I wanted a little more, so I opted for the Aztec, which also includes some chile and allspice. Delicate perfection in a little cup, with just enough chocolatey goodness to put a smile on your face. Oh, and they grind the chocolate right on the premises, so it doesn’t get any fresher than that!

The churros are also fantastic. It’s interesting that a dessert so hackneyed in Mexican American cuisine that they sell it at the Costco food counter alongside faux Polish sausages, would be served here at XOCO. But these are not your mama’s airy churros. These have body, but are not super doughy. And while they’re yummy all by themselves, the chef doesn’t suggest soft serve for dipping just because it sounds cute.

Go. Go now. Not that there’s any chance XOCO will be going out of business any year soon, but the word is already out about how great it is (and at much lower prices than Frontera and Topolobampo), and you will have to stand in line for that torta. Rick Bayless’ creations will make that wait very worth your while!