Lobster pie Photos: Jeff Marini Acadia 1639 South Wabash Avenue South Loop Contemporary $$$$ A world, if not that many miles, away from the thrum of the West Loop stands Ryan McCaskey’s consistently excellent haute dining den. McCaskey is an unabashed proponent of tweezer food, creating dishes with focused flavors and sculptural visual appeal. … Read more
From far left: bulgogi; Dak sauce wings; spicy barbecue pork bowl Photo: Jeff Marini Dak 1104 West Granville Road Edgewater Korean $ When this magazine set out on a mission a few years back to find the greatest chicken wings in the city, it jarred a few readers that the winner was not a … Read more
Beef Wellington Photos: Jason Little and Nick Murway Swift & Sons 1000 West Fulton Market West Loop Steakhouse $$$$$ It’s not a stretch to call this gleaming, neo-retro West Loop steakhouse from Boka Restaurant Group magical. As in: There’s an actual magician who can be summoned to your table and reel off mind-blowing card … Read more
From left: steamed pork-and-leek dumplings; beef skewers; fried chicken-and-cabbage dumplings; shrimp skewers Photo: Jeff Marini Qing Xiang Yuan Dumplings 2002 South Wentworth Avenue Chinatown Chinese $ Dumplings, as far as the eye can see. The several dozen varieties on offer at this sleek Chinatown destination are a beautiful sight indeed. QXY grew out of … Read more
Aged kombu-cured ribeye Photos: Jeff Marini Kitsune 4229 North Lincoln Avenue North Center Japanese $$$ Everything about Iliana Regan’s ode to Japanese cuisine is adorable: the cheery servers, the bunny-shaped ceramic chopstick holders, the giant mural of a fox in the bathroom. But don’t let the precious touches fool you. Kitsune plumbs previously uncharted … Read more
Double cheeseburger Photo: Martha Williams Au Cheval 800 West Randolph Street West Loop American $$ What more is there to say beyond just, “Eat the burger”? Seriously. That burger. No wonder that it has launched a thousand imitators, or that it has caused the hostess to quote you a five-hour wait that ends up … Read more
Aginares me koukia Photos: Jeff Marini In a city as diverse and sprawling as Chicago, there aren’t many restaurants that could rightly claim to have a corner of the market to itself. Taxim can. David Nikolaos Schneider’s Wicker Park lair pays highly focused tribute to the cooking of the Anatolian peninsula’s Greek diaspora. In doing … Read more
St. Louis–style ribs Photos: Jeff Marini When Smoque opened in 2006 and people heard that the five partners—barbecue neophytes, all—had published a 2,000-word barbecue “manifesto” on their website, the knives came out. If you waltz into the notoriously competitive and persnickety ’cue subculture with a bunch of fancy talk, you’d better bring the heat. Smoque … Read more
Scallops Photos: Jeff Marini Parachute 3500 North Elston Avenue Avondale Korean contemporary $$$ Fusion is no longer a dirty word in the able hands of husband-wife chefs Beverly Kim and Johnny Clark, who marry unlikely ingredients to create a one-of-a-kind Korean-American culinary hybrid. Think plates of bing bread (a riff on a potato loaf, … Read more
From left: ham salad; roasted summer squash; 35-day dry-aged ribeye; mustard spaetzle Photo: Nick Murway Let Boeufhaus parade itself as a refined French brasserie with a German accent all it wants. This unassuming Humboldt Park spot is, at heart, a straight-up classic steakhouse. Opening their restaurant far from the downtown big-spender shrines, Brian Ahern and Jamie Finnegan … Read more
