Rustic Tart's Tarts Have Perfect Crust | Chicago

The best way to take advantage of local fruit: Rustic Tart

Rustic Tart's Stephanie Lock learned the tart trade from an estimable mentor: her mother, an Iowa State Fair blue-ribbon-winning pie champion.

Lock's description of the process brings sushi training to mind. She spent years on the sidelines, watching and learning before even handling dough.

And what dough it is. Golden and crisp on the outside, flaky and chewy within, it is folded over a filling of peak-season fruit sourced from familiar Green City Market names: Mick Klug, Seedling, and Ellis and Nichols farms.

Lock's summer tart subscription ($250 for four months) begins Friday, with rhubarb or strawberry-rhubarb, depending on the rhubarb supply. Stretching through September, with two tarts per month, it will feature blueberry and raspberry tarts in the early summer, sour cherry and stone fruits in the mid- and late summer, and apple in the early fall.

We tried the tarts last summer, when Lock was operating an underground pie-delivery service, and have since dreamt of her superlative sour cherry and dark, teeth-staining blueberry.

The fruit is top-notch. But it's the crust–packed with as much Plugrá butter as it will hold, brushed with local cream, and sprinkled with crunchy turbinado sugar–that wows, and does its fillings proud.