Advice for a new Chicago resident?

Hi everyone,
I heard about your forum from Don Rockwell, the founder of a board like this for dining/food enthusiasts in DC. I just moved to Chicago and have enjoyed reading about the scene here and now I would love your advice. I am a new teacher and as such haven't had too much time to explore.. but now my parents are visiting for labor day weekend and I need places to take them. I am looking for places that feel like an experience (hole in the wall is great along with fine dining as long as delicious) with entrees up to the low $20s..

Thank you all for your advice! I am so excited to live in Chicago and need to make sure I find the time to enjoy it!
Ali B

Hi- It might help if you tell us where you live in Chicago. You are not going to get fine dining for the amount of money you are willing to spend. There are lots of ethnic places on Devon and Argyle you can take them to for under $20 though. You can also take them for pizza. It might help if you tell us what kind of food they like Do they like Indian or middle eastern food? You can frequently purchase that for under $20.

If you parents are not into exotic food, Ann Sather and Tre Kroner are two Scandinavian restaurants that are very good.

Hope this helps, Nancy

Three letters. GNR You may click on that link as I run for cover.

nr706 wrote:Three letters. GNR You may click on that link as I run for cover.

GNR stands for "Great Neighborhood Restaurant" list - it's a good place to start when you don't know what you want or where to find it. There's a lot more that is great, this is just one of many guides out there, but it's ours.

Thank you! I will certainly be digging into that GNR list! If anyone has favorites.. my parents are staying downtown off Michigan and I live in East Village.

My mom and I like everything.. my Dad probably everything in the standard ethnic (thai, chinese, mexican, italian, other european) but short of Indian, Ethiopian etc.

I'll check through your lists but if anyone has a particular favorite I'd love to hear it!

Thank you all for responding so quickly.

Ali B.

I suggest you check out the West Town Tavern. I think it's homey with strong Chicago flavor and food that's several notches above the average at a pretty decent price for big city fare. They do switched up comfort food with many decent wine suggestions.

here's the link:

http://www.westtowntavern.com

Service is friendly and efficient and I just think of it as a nice place to spend a great night.

West Town Tavern
1329 West Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60622

tel 312-666-6175

Mich Ave, loop or Mag mile, just tell us the hotel? The more specific you are the more we can help. Really, people on this forum, can get you where you need to be within a few blocks...

Welcome to Chicago!

Foods every Chicagoan should know:

* Deep-dish and stuffed pizza
* Italian beef sandwiches (and beef/sausage combos)
* Chicago-style hot dogs
* Maxwell Street Polish
* Shrimp DeJonghe
* Chicken Vesuvio
* Jibaritos

Most of these are low cost.

The city is also rich in a variety of ethnic cuisines that need not go beyond your budget -- most notably Mexican, Polish and Italian -- and searching this site should point you at plenty of options.

Happy exploring.

Thank you everyone! When I said fine dining, I really meant more traditional restaurants. West End Tavern looks perfect and I'll start looking through everything else! My parents are staying by the Mag Mile.

Another question for you. is the wait for Frontera Grill worth it? I'd love to go, as would my parents, but its prob a 90 minute wait on the weekends right?

It really depends on Frontera as far as the wait goes. If your going on a weekend at luchtime, i'm sure there will be a wait. There have been numerous times on weekdays that I just walked right in or only waited 10 min. I'd just say to go around 11:00 on an off day. Either way, I'd say it is well worth it. I also feel it is a good value for the price.

Not sure when your parents are coming in but Open Table is showing that there are reservations available during lunch at Topolobambo on Friday the 3rd (you can order off either menu there). I actually really love both Frontera Grill and Topolobambo for lunch and find that if you can amuse yourself in the area, it is worth the wait for either meal!

A couple of other suggestions (since the GNR guide is good for a lot of things but I don't find it that useful for downtown dining): Purple Pig is terrific for sharing small plates of interesting food in a lively environment and very reasonably priced, particularly given the location. It is a small place and they don't take reservations but they have a very nice outdoor seating area that I think more than doubles their capacity. When I've gone during prime time, I put my name in and go across the street to Eno, a lovely wine bar in the Intercontinental Hotel, to wait. Makes for a really nice evening.

If you find yourself down by Millenium Park, The Gage is a fun gastropub with good upscale pub food (the mussels are wonderful!!), nice cocktails and a good wine list. The Gage is great for lunch or dinner in that area. Continue a bit further down Michigan and Mercat a la Planxa is a lot of fun--beautiful space; delicious, innovative tapas and grilled meats; great drinks. Further up the other end of Michigan Ave by Water Tower, Cage Spiaggia is the less formal version of Spiaggia. Well turned out Italian in a nice atmosphere.

Closer to your neck of the woods, I would definitely go to Mado--which is a GNR --it's a lovely intimate space with great food and BYOB. I also really like Le Bouchon in Bucktown for solid Bistro French in a very intimate room.

If you make it a bit farther north, Riccardo Trattoria is wonderful. It's just at the southern end of Lincoln Park on Clark Street so still very close to Mag Mile. Sweets & Savories is another terrific GNR/BYO spot in Lincoln Park--although on the western side of the neighborhood--they do a $29 prix fixe, 3 course meal that allows you to choose from options on the menu--a great value for well-prepared and creative food. They also do a nice brunch.

If your parents are anything like mine, while they enjoy great food and are fairly adventurous diners, they DON'T much care for waiting around so I tend to favor places that take reservations or where I know where and how I'm going to spend the wait (Purple Pig being a good example). Of the spots I mentioned, all but Purple Pig take reservations and they all can be made on line via Open Table (http://www.opentable.com) except for Le Bouchon.

Happy eating and be sure to report back about where you went and what you thought!

Jen

Another option - from now until the end of the month, there's a dine around program related to the upcoming - and very pricey - Gourmet Chicago festival. A lot of the top restaurants are doing set menus for $33 and $55 for three courses. Take a look at the listing and you may well find a good deal in the $33 offerings ...

http://www.illinoisrestaurants.org/asso ... /?page=200

Just to add a few points to the good advice others have already posted.

Regarding Topolobampo and Frontera Grill... Frontera Grill accepts reservations, so that's something you might consider doing. Although they hold most of the restaurant available for walk-in customers, they do accept a handful of reservations, but only over the phone (not on Opentable.com like Topolobampo and most nicer Chicago restaurants). The other strategy is, you can arrive 10-15 minutes before they open the doors, and then you'll be seated when they open. As for the difference between Frontera Grill and Topolobampo (which is in another dining room at the same location), Topo is considerably more expensive for dinner, but they prices are very similar at lunchtime, so if you're going for lunch, make a reservation and go to Topo. Topo has been filling up several months in advance for dinner, but getting reservations for lunch is not as difficult.

There's another Mexican restaurant near you in West Town that I really enjoy. It's called Mexique, and serves creative Mexican food with a French flair (the chef has trained at French restaurants). Reservations accepted on Opentable as well as over the phone.

Your request for entrees up to the low twenties isn't all that restrictive, and would include some of our better Italian restaurants (some already mentioned here) as well as some of our contemporary American restaurants (e.g. Deleece, Sweets and Savories). Nothing against all the less-expensive places that people have mentioned here, which are good recommendations as well, but entrees in the low twenties would include some nicer places, not just the cheap storefronts and ethnic places.

Some very good places have deals on certain weeknights, so if that works into your schedule, consider those. For example, French bistros La Sardine and Le Bouchon both offer any three courses for $25 on Tuesdays, and Cafe des Architectes has their "neighborhood friends menu" Sundays through Tuesdays, with 3 courses for $32. You can find out more about various deals on the restaurants' own websites, on the Metromix website (click on the calendar at the right), and in articles like Chicago Magazine's "30 under $30".

As in most cities, Saturday nights book up fast, and advance reservations are strongly advised. The "peak" reservation time (first to book up) in Chicago is 7:30 pm.

One thing newcomers need to be aware of is just how big, and diverse, and excellent our restaurant scene is. You need to accept that there are so many restaurants here, most of us (even long-time residents) never get to try every place we'd like to. Ask for a recommendation for a good restaurant of a certain type, and you can often hear about 10 or 20 or more such places, and you can only eat in one at a time. So don't agonize when choosing a restaurant; just pick someplace, and pick another place some other time.

You'll also want to try places that are close to home, for the convenience factor. Try them, even if you don't know anything about them, and you'll undoubtedly find some local gems, and some others you will keep in your personal rotation when you don't want to go far (especially in bad weather).

Welcome to Chicago!

I am sorry about the very late delay recapping my parents visit! (did I mention I'm a first year teacher..) First, thank you all for your wonderful advice. I am so excited to have found your forum and look forward to continuing to participate.

The first meal my parents wanted upon arrival was pizza, and they requested Lou Mahnati. My only experience with chicago pizza had been giordano's which I wasn't thrilled by because it is so cheese heavy, I like the crust/cheese/sauce/topping ratio at Lou Mahnati's much more. We followed up the pizza with hot chocolate at XOCO, which was amazing.

Later in the weekend we attempted Frontera Grill, but my parents were appalled by the hostess telling them that the wait would be 3.5 hours. I should have heeded the advice of lthers to be there right at 5! I'll try again when I can get there earlier.

We ended up at Cocopazzo which was fine for our purposes but I don't know I'll return. I really liked the appetizer of bresaola with shaved asparagus and feta sauce. Spring vegetables made a lot of appearances on the menu (fava beans in august?) but were well prepared. The calamari was fairly standard but had a nice crunch and sauce, and was enough for 4. My fresh rolled pasta with shrimp and the aforementioned favas was fine but could have used a lot more kick from some garlic or hot pepper. My Dad's eggplant tortellini was much tastier with very light rolled pasta. Mom's pasta special with seafood and a spicy tomato sauce must have been 1/3 seafood by volume and well cooked. The restaurant is beautiful and I can see why it is popular with all of the big groups we saw there, I am sure there is something for everyone on that menu.

Sunday they got dinner at D4 near their hotel near mag mile.. I missed that one but they were really happy with the dishes there. For our last meal monday we got dinner at Honey One BBQ in Bucktown and had great ribs. I love the sauce- a little sweet but with a kick.

I wish we had gotten to a few more of the exciting restaurants in Chitown but a lot of places were closed for the holiday and others were booked up. With family who don't love to plan ahead, we got shut out. I am looking forward to trying some of your other suggestions when friends visit in October. I am thinking perhaps Green Zebra and Mexique?

Thanks for the report!

AliB wrote:Later in the weekend we attempted Frontera Grill, but my parents were appalled by the hostess telling them that the wait would be 3.5 hours. I should have heeded the advice of lthers to be there right at 5! I'll try again when I can get there earlier.
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I wish we had gotten to a few more of the exciting restaurants in Chitown but a lot of places were closed for the holiday and others were booked up. With family who don't love to plan ahead, we got shut out.

Well, here's the scoop on reservations in Chicago, and I hate to wait in lines. If you want to eat somewhere desirable on a Saturday night around 7:30 pm (peak reservation time), a reservation is essential. Period. Without one, most of the nice places are booked solid. If you are going out with people who don't love to plan ahead, there are still ways to work around it. If you're ready to leave their hotel room to find a place to eat at 7 pm, hop on the internet - and if you don't have access to the internet, see the hotel concierge, who does - and go to Opentable.com Most of the nicer restaurants in the Chicago area accept reservations there. At a glance, you can see which reservations have openings and which ones don't, and you can make a reservation then and there, even if it's only for 10 minutes later. If you have your heart set on a particular restaurant and it doesn't show availability on Opentable, you can still phone them; occasionally they may have an opening that isn't shown on Opentable. But I would never, ever just start walking around hoping to find a place that's available, which is leaving it all up to chance.

You can do a little better without a reservation if it's not a Saturday and/or if it's not a prime time. If you can be seated before 6 pm or after 9 pm, you will find a lot more places with availability. But there are still a few places that book up solid in advance, even for less desirable seatings and on weekdays; Alinea, Topolobampo, and the Girl and the Goat are among these.

As I previously noted, Frontera Grill does accept a handful of reservations in advance over the phone, and if you want to go there, that's the way to do it without a long wait to be seated. Arriving before they open generally works too, but even that gets chancy, particularly on a Saturday night.

There are many inexpensive places which don't accept reservations at all, but only a few of the nicer places that don't. Ones that are popular and trendy, such as the Purple Pig and Avec, have long waits to be seated at prime times, even on weekdays; you can generally avoid long waits at those places by eating early or late (again, avoiding 6-9 pm).

Finally, if you can't make a reservation at all, you can at least call a place before traveling there, to ask them how long the wait is.

AliB wrote:I am looking forward to trying some of your other suggestions when friends visit in October. I am thinking perhaps Green Zebra and Mexique?

You really have to know your friends if you want to eat at Green Zebra. If you and your dining companions are vegetarians, you'll probably love it. If anyone in your group would be really, really unhappy at a restaurant with zero or one dish(es) on the entire menu that have any fish or meat, then you will probably want to go elsewhere.

As for Mexique, I really like it a lot! However, I would not consider it a substitute for Topolobampo/Frontera Grill; the menus are entirely different. Topolobampo and Frontera Grill both have creative provincial Mexican food. The food at Mexique is more of a fusion of Mexican cuisine and ingredients, along with other techniques and ingredients that you would find in a contemporary American or French bistro. Check out the menus on their websites and you'll see what I mean. In terms of pricing, Mexique is closer to Frontera, and Topolobampo is a lot more expensive. Like Topolobampo, Mexique accepts reservations on Opentable.com but does not book up solid several months in advance the way Topo does.

Thank you for your reservation advice! My friends who are visiting are not strictly vegetarian but eat that way most of the time, which in addition to it being walking distance is why I thought of it. I'll send them the sample menu and see what they think.

I'll try for a reservation with frontera or maybe we'll try XOCO for lunch. The number one thing my friends want to do in Chicago is eat! So I need to find some good places! Does anyone know of any great vegetarian places?

AliB wrote: Does anyone know of any great vegetarian places?

Do you mean strictly vegetarian?
http://www.veggiediner.com/wp/
http://www.greenzebrachicago.com/ - reservations a must
There are many great dining spots here that have vegetarian options.

Dave148 wrote:http://www.greenzebrachicago.com/ - reservations a must

They're already looking into Green Zebra - see posts above.

My friend will eat chicken but not beef, pork or anything "of the sea." so places with chicken options or veggie are good to have on deck.

Thanks All!