Behind the Pass: Chef Kristine Schoenberg

It’s not every day that you see a menu with Croatian dishes and wines. In 2021, Chef Joe Flamm, winner of Top Chef, opened his first restaurant in his native Chicago and paid homage to two cuisines and two women that he loves. Tapping into his own Italian roots and his wife’s Croatian heritage, his vibrant restaurant is named after his grandmothers: Rose and Mary Rose, as well as the rosemary herb that grows natively on both sides of the Adriatic Sea.  

Rose Mary is a bustling restaurant in the historic Fulton Market district of Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood. Bright, light, and open to evoke the casual and rustic atmosphere of Italy and Croatia, the restaurant offers both depth and simplicity. The blonde wood, tile, clay, whitewashed walls, and abundant plants create a welcoming and homey dining room.  

At the center of it all is an open kitchen with a custom-built wood-fired oven, inspired by the charcoal grills Flamm admired in Croatia. This is where you’ll find Chef Kristine Schoenberg, the chef de cuisine, intently engaged in her work. 

“My passion for food started at 15, watching the Food Network and getting into cooking classes in school. That led me to the Culinary School at the Art Institute of Minneapolis, where I earned a bachelor’s degree in 2013,” she told us.   

Her culinary journey in Minneapolis included stints at the Argentinian-inspired Martina, highly rated Borough, and Sea Change, a seafood concept. At each kitchen, she sought to learn as much as she could and discovered that she truly connected with pasta. When she moved to Chicago in 2019, she scored a position at the pastificio at the James Beard Award-winning Italian restaurant Monteverde. This “pasta factory” is dedicated to making all manner of fresh pasta by hand, and Chef Kristine was in pasta heaven there. With 7 different pasta dishes on the Rose Mary menu today, she gets to flex those skills. 
 

The Menu 

Chef Joe calls the menu at Rose Mary “Adriatic drinking food”—rustic, approachable, boldly flavored, small plates for sharing and pairing with Croatian wines. Joe believes they have the largest selection of Croatian wine in the country, including his favorites Graševina, Refošk, and Pošip. These bottles are hard to get; sometimes, he can only purchase a dozen bottles of a varietal, making them all the more precious. 

As chef de cuisine, Kristine leads a passionate, driven team to create seasonal menus that blend local ingredients with the culinary traditions of both sides of the Adriatic Sea. Croatian flatbread, all types of pizza, whole branzino, and more, get kissed with smoke on the wood-fired grill, which lends depth and complexity to even the simplest of dishes. Charcuterie is made in-house, and of course, so is pasta.   

When we visited, Chef Kristine made her seared duck breast served with cider jus, grilled endive, balsamela, and fennel pollen. It begins with our whole Rohan duck, which is lightly smoked over the wood fire; the breasts go into this dish after being pan-seared, the legs are destined for the duck ragu dish— pasta alla Norcina. Nothing is wasted; the giblets go into charcuterie; the carcass makes stock and sauces. 

We are proud to work with the team at Rose Mary to make sure they have the freshest seafood, our exclusive duck, and any other ingredients they need to create their special brand of magic.  Rose Mary has been recognized as one of the best restaurants in Chicago, the country, and even the world, and Wine Spectator gave them the Award of Excellence in 2022 and 2023. Reservations are necessary if you want to experience Chef Kristine’s cooking. Trust us, you do. Živjeli! Cin cin!