Once again, Forest Park has a connection to TV’s Top Chef. When Chef Sieger Bayer left The Heritage restaurant in Forest Park in 2019, he didn’t know his trajectory would include season 23 of the show. This spring he competed through to the final third on the competition show.
Bayer grew up mostly in Lake Zurich. When he was contemplating what to do after high school, nothing caught his imagination. He considered being a jeweler, going into business law.
“My mom was like, ‘Well, why don’t you just go to culinary school? You love cooking at home,’” he said. “And I was like, ‘Well, sure.’”
He graduated from Kendall College and worked all over the city, then internationally. After running several places, friends Mischa and Jacob DeHart suggested opening a spot together in Forest Park. That became The Heritage at 7403 Madison St. (now NRebozo).
“The Heritage utilized all of the relationships and partnerships that I built as a cook, a sous, an executive sous, a chef de cuisine, an executive chef,” Bayer said. “The point was to have something super approachable, very seasonal. The goal was to bring all those farmers, makers, wine folks to Forest Park to give something you would find in Bucktown or a Wicker Park. A lot of people thought of us as a special occasion restaurant, but for us, we were pricing it so you could go there fairly regularly.”
After The Heritage, Bayer worked as chef du cuisine at The Publican. Fast forward a few more years and Bayer is currently co-owner of bar Berria in Logan Square. More on that later but first let’s talk about Top Chef.
“The want to go on Top Chef was always the belief that it was the pinnacle for culinary cooking shows,” he said. Though he’d appeared on Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay those were one-day commitments. “I didn’t really know what to expect. It’s an experience that I wish I could explain, but unless you’ve lived it, it’s just so hard. You’re put into these crazy challenges with very short amount of time and you need to run through the Rolodex of ideas in your head extremely quickly because sometimes you’ve got 5 or 10 minutes to come up with an idea. Then the next thing you know, they throw you a curve ball.”
Of the 15 initial chefs, Bayer made it to the top five. His exit in episode 12 was fraught. Let’s just say that he did not go gentle into that good night. Still, he said it was a good experience, and his fellow chefs became close.
“We’re all still good friends and we all text and stuff like that,” he said.
Being on the show can super-charge a chef’s career, but for now Bayer is sticking with his current creation: bar Berria, a Logan Square pop-up that serves on the weekends.
“Bar Berria is a complete and utter creative outlet,” he said. “We change menus up pretty much every weekend. We have 24 seats. There’s three employees, myself and two folks that were actually with me at the Heritage. We’re serving the food, we talk about the food after dinner, we’re able to hang out with guests and build a community.”
Along with his partner, Emily Abram, his aim for the past two years has been to “do weird things” not necessarily optimize moneymaking, according to Bayer.
“We have a full lot in Logan Square where we have raised bed gardens,” he said. “A lot of that turns into fermented and preserved products that we use throughout the year. Then we have chickens. They lay eggs for us, not enough to support a full restaurant, but we open up the coop and they’re able to run through the gardens and they take care of our bugs.”
Reservations are made through Tock. It’s BYOB, but with each menu the team gives wine suggestions.
“I’ve always wanted to make bar Berria something that’s approachable and fun and an escape from everything else,” Bayer said. “I’ve gotten more joy from it than I’ve had from most things in my career. If someone wants to come and talk to me about investing and partnering and stuff like that, I’d love to hear it, but bar Berria is a unicorn situation that every chef wishes they had. Right now, I’m so happy.”
Bayer’s target is the human connection uniquely created through eating together. That’s what he showed on Top Chef, that he is human – and a damn good cook.