Go ahead, do your wurst

bask in the glory of house-made encased meats

Hi, everyone!

*dusts off shoulders*

I’m back! I’d love to tell you I’m revitalized and more energetic than ever, but the holidays wear me out with all that heavy food and socializing. I need a post-holiday vacation in a quiet hole with nothing but green smoothies. That edition of the newsletter might be pretty boring, however.

Speaking of the newsletter, you guys know I put a lot of work into this thing, and did some thinking about it while I was off. It occurred to me that the support you provide me via subscriptions goes straight to the restaurant community, which is pretty incredible. Your subscriptions help me cover some pretty significant expenses. I simply tie our experiences up neatly into a tidy little package, which then gets delivered to you via Substack’s easy-to-use platform.

This sounds nice, but isn’t exactly cost-efficient, because Substack takes a fair cut (10%), and the payment processor, Stripe, also charges money on top of that. Then there’s taxes. I’ll chalk this all up as sort of a convenience fee, since I don’t know how to do this stuff on my own.

That means Substack doesn’t encourage you to make money in ways other than attracting new subscribers through its platform, because then the company doesn’t see a cent. So now I’m trying to find novel alternative ways to support The Party Cut better, like possibly moving it to a different platform that charges less. But I know that some of you guys are pretty damn smart and resourceful, and I’m wondering if you have any ideas on how to make it less reliant on asking you constantly for support, without shilling useless garbage to you.

If you’ve got any ideas, feel free to comment or message me! Or, I could “invest” all the money on lotto tickets and see what happens. (I’m joking, in case one of you is about to unsubscribe.)

Okay, I promise this isn’t going to be a constant hassle, just trying to start the new year off with some direction for once, hopefully to keep a bit of food writing alive around here. Now let’s go stuff our faces today with some encased meats, shall we?

Wurst Behavior opened up in Irving Park, at the corner of Irving Park and Elston, in late 2024.

It replaced a shop called Mas Tacos, but is still under the same ownership.

Wurst Behavior specializes in scratch-made sausages which run the gamut between classics like hot dogs, Italian sausages, kielbasa, and bratwurst, to other alternatives like andouille and smoked chicken sausages. But the menu leans Polish, so you’ll see things like pierogi and potato pancakes on there too.

You can get the sausages fully dressed on buns, or opt for platters where you can enjoy them with condiments and sides. There’s also alternative options like sandwiches, in case you’re not in a tubular mood.

Eater Chicago recently published a piece about the shop, in case you’d like to get the full background. The husband and wife team of Gosia Pieniazek and Artur Wnorowski also own Ella’s BBQ, Earl’s BBQ, and Pierogi Kitchen, so they certainly know how to keep themselves busy.

Davida and I made sure to start with a plate of the potato and cheese pierogis ($10), and they’re pitch perfect.

The wrappers are thinner than most handmade pierogis I’ve previously had, and the potato filling is creamy and silky without being overwhelmingly starchy. I’m not surprised that they’re so good, considering one of Wurst Behavior’s sister shops is a pierogi specialist. They’re masterfully made, and if you’re at all into pierogis, you should get an order.

The classic kielbasa ($9) comes Maxwell Street-style with beer mustard, lightly grilled onions, and sport peppers.

It’s smoked with pecan wood and made with pork shoulder, and if this is your first visit, you can’t skip it. It’s got an unabashedly coarse grind, a good snap, and lots of garlicky flavor. You can definitely tell that it’s a product that hasn’t been overworked in a massive factory, and that speaks volumes.

All the sausages come served on light hoagie rolls, which is a move I haven’t seen anywhere else. This decision ultimately makes sense, because I can’t think of any other bun that accommodate sausages this frickin’ big.

Davida being from Wisconsin and all, we couldn’t skip having a bratwurst, so we went with the mushroom truffle brat ($10).

We went with this one because it also has grated Swiss cheese on top — Davida’s favorite burger topping combo is mushroom and Swiss, so it felt like fate. It also has mustard, onion, and a tiny, barely noticeable touch of truffle oil as well. Yep, she loved it, and so did I, though I could see some people potentially not liking the unmelted Swiss cheese sprinkled on top. Swiss, unfortunately, is sort of a fickle melter, and usually seizes up quickly anyway, so could be a tough logistical detail to sort out in a kitchen setting.

My surprise favorite was the Nashville Hot Chicken sausage ($10), which comes topped with coleslaw, aioli, and pickles.

I think we were missing the pickles, but I could have cared less, because the sausage is really what hooked me. Normally you wouldn’t catch me eating chicken sausage, but the smoke flavor on this one was so pronounced that I was too distracted to notice. And no, it doesn’t quite evoke a proper Nashville Hot chicken, since it’s not absolutely doused in a punishing paste of spices (though that would be incredible), but that doesn’t bother me at all. The Nashville Hot part is really just an inspiration, and the execution here made me forget I was eating chicken sausage altogether.

I did feel the need to give one hot dog a whirl, and though a Chicago dog is on the menu, we went with the unconventional-looking pierogi dog ($10).

It’s dressed with sauerkraut, onion, and sour cream, along with a crown jewel of a single whole potato and cheese pierogi on top. I’m not entirely sure this one works for me. It might have needed something more acidic, and the fact that the pierogi is just sort of just on there makes it pretty, but a little hard to eat.

If you do end up ordering a hot dog, don’t expect a smooth emulsified sausage, though.

This is more of what I’d think of as a regular sausage, with a slightly finer grind than the previous bigger ones. I will note that all of the sausages we had that day felt relatively lean and weren’t brimming with juice, but this fact leads me to believe that they aren’t inflated with filler or scrap.

We thought we’d try a non-sausage option as well, which is why we tacked on an order of zapiekanka ($12, comes with fries).

If you’ve never had one, a zapiekanka is sort of like a French bread pizza or open-faced sandwich with melted cheese, mushrooms, and other toppings. They’re often dressed with ketchup, but this one comes with an aioli on top.

Though it looks heavy, this one’s not terribly so. It’s made with the same airy hoagie buns that the sausages come on, and with mushrooms, onions, and provolone, it’s the lone meatless entree on the menu (though you can sub all sausages with a smoked seitan one too). It reads more like a snack than a full meal, so if you’re not super hungry, this one’s for you. Interestingly enough, I think I’d have preferred the traditional ketchup on it, but the aioli still does the job anyhow.

In terms of sides, we tried a few things including the the mac and cheese ($4.95).

I’m not a huge mac and cheese person, so your mileage might vary on this one. This one’s generously cheesy, with a fun lightly stringy cheese pull, but despite that fact, it’s somehow lacking in salt, either in the pasta cooking water or in the cheese sauce. I’m having a tough time telling you to order it, so you’ll likely be better off with something else.

Like the truffle fries ($4.95), for example.

None of the sausages come with sides included unless you order a platter, so if you want something to pick at with your brat, you’ve got to tack that on separately. But if you order fries, truffled or not, don’t expect particularly crispy ones — though these are cooked to an appealing dark golden brown, they’re relatively floppy.

That being said, we loved them, because their interiors were cooked to a uniformly smooth center, almost like mashed potatoes. The russet flavor was deep and rich, and reminded me that natural fries shouldn’t just taste like plain oily starch, they can be earthy and flavorful too. If you get the truffle version, just know that the truffle oil is lightly applied and not obnoxious.

And some interesting side details to note. The prices at Wurst Behavior are fantastic. All sausages are $10 and under except for one lone $12 brat, which has extra pulled pork on top. I’d say they’re about one-and-a-half times the size of a standard grocery store sausage, for reference.

Service here is sort of an easygoing blend of counter and table as well. If you want to order takeout, just sidle on up to the bar (in fact, we ran into reader Mike at the restaurant ordering this way!). And if you want to dine in, there’s menus at each table with dedicated servers too. We didn’t drink any alcohol since it was midday, but there’s also an extensive cocktail, beer, and wine list, which is cool to see for such a small space.

Lastly, Davida had a cool observation of the food menu selection that I hadn’t noticed on my own. She likened it as a “love letter to Chicago,” by pointing out how it not only featured Italian sausages, Chicago-style hot dogs, and brats, things all Chicagoans love, but the focus on Polish and inclusion of things like elotes feels like a snapshot of our neighborhood. It’s a charming reminder of what makes Chicago so great, even through the wurst.

(Sorry, I couldn’t help it.)

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Happy new year, all, and thanks for returning to The Party Cut with me. When I posted a few pics of the food here on my Instagram stories, I got a lot of inquiries about Wurst Behavior, which means that I think there’s a lot of people curious about it.

Since today’s is a free edition, I encourage you guys to share it with those who’ve wanted to know what it was like:

And like I mentioned earlier, paid subscriptions just go to cover expenses for the newsletter. I’m at what I’d call a rough net sum of zero right now, where subs pay for expenses, and I write for free, so I can always use your help:

But that does mean that every other newsletter drop is behind the paywall. Double the volume at just over a buck per edition is more than a screaming deal, if you ask me. Okay, I’m biased.

Anyway, I’m getting back into the swing of things, but I’m glad to be back and at it. Have a great first full week of January. Love you guys.