Wilco's Jeff Tweedy Partners With Daisies for the Dill-Co
Daisies partner Leigh Omilinsky teams up with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy for this savory pastry collab.
“You know, every song I’ve ever written is about pickles,” said Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy.
With that statement, however unlikely, Wilco frontman
kicked off a hilarious conversation in a just-dropped video on Instagram with Daisies partner and executive pastry chef Leigh Omilinsky that inspired the Logan Square Midwestern pasta-focused restaurant’s latest croissant collaboration.“You’re joking right,” Omilinsky replies, quizzically.
“I never joke about pickles,” Tweedy deadpans. “It’s all out there in the open.”
The two humorously banter back and forth in a deadpan quick-fire chat, Omilinsky throwing out Wilco songs — ”She’s a Jar,” “I’m the Man Who Loves You,” “Impossible Germany” — and Tweedy shooting back quips like, “I wrote that song about a gherkin. I love those little guys.”
Forward to Omilinsky knocking on the door to Wilco’s Northwest Side Chicago loft studio to hand off a box with the Dill-Co, the newest in a now-growing line of fun and delicious collaborations she has been doing for a year. Omilinsky passes the box to Tweedy through a barely open door, eagerly trying to explain the final result. The seemingly disinterested Tweedy takes the box and slowly closes the door on the excited-yet-deflated chef. Cut to a final shot of him grabbing the pastry off a plate.
The savory Dill-Co comprises Daisies flaky, buttery croissant dough that Omilinsky filled with dill cream cheese, chopped up pickles, giardiniera, dehydrated pickle powder, and dill. The pastry, which she said resembles a Bear Claw in shape, gets topped with more pickle powder along with dill powder and sliced fresh pickle chips.
So why the abundance of pickles? “He likes pickles,” Omilinsky said. “There’s no deeper meaning than that.”
The day they recorded the video at the band’s loft studio with Streeterville Productions, Omilinsky said she brought a samples in different shapes with variations on the ingredients to let Tweedy’s pick his favorite. The end result?
“I believe the reaction was, ‘fucking delicious,’” she said, laughing.
The Tweedy/Wilco partnership arrives a year after Daisies kicked off this cross-restaurant promotion with pizza spot Paulie Gee’s. That was followed by collaborations with a range of Chicago chefs like Kasama’s Genie Kwon, Boka’s Lee Wolen, Good Ambler’s Meg Galus, and Monteverde’s Sarah Grueneberg.
The biggest splash likely came last January when Daisies teamed up with the crass-yet-hilarious folks at iconic hot dog joint Wieners Circle. They’ve also worked with the likes of the Chicago Blackhawks for a St. Patrick's Day pastry and rap duo Run the Jewels to tie into Lollapalooza.
The Dill-Co debut coincides with Tweedy’s solo acoustic headlining set at the free Chicago Live! performing arts festival on Navy Pier Sept. 21. Tweedy will also broadcast a live pre-show from his green room that day for subscribers of his newsletter,
, at 8 p.m. ET.The pastry will be available at Daisies starting Sept. 20 for $8.50. The restaurant will continue selling the pastries through the end of the month. Proceeds from the Dill-Co will benefit Nourishing Hope, which provides groceries, mental wellness and social services to Chicagoans in need.
Getting to work with Tweedy and the band was a fan-girl dream come true, Omilinsky said. And that well-known saying to never meet your heroes? Not always true.
“It was just super cool and they’re just really nice people,” she said. “I can’t stress that enough. It was good to hang out with nice people, especially ones I’ve known who they are for so long.”
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