Tour de Fat Was a Wild Circus in Logan Square
New Belgium’s traveling bike and beer fest didn’t let a sticky afternoon and a muddy venue slow down the madcap fun.
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What to Eat and Drink in Chicago This Week
Get fancy tea for cheap, cake with Marie Antoinette, and a night of beer, boxing, and burlesque in Logan Square.
Analogue
Come here for a before-dinner drink—it is, after all, a cocktail den from Violet Hour vets Robert Haynes and Henry Prendergast in the hot nabe of Logan Square. Then stay for a meal. You’d never guess it, but the slick bar is home to some of the best Cajun food in the city. That’s thanks … Read more
R. Franklin's Original Recipe Bësk
This wormwood-based liqueur is not technically Malört—not since last October, when Jeppson’s, the original maker of Chicago’s mascot Schnapps, blocked other local distillers from using the name. The effort from Letherbee reaches back to the mother tongue for its name—bësk means “bitter” in Swedish—and is a shade less harsh than the gasoliney shot most Chicagoans … Read more
Tavernita
The recent boom in handcrafted nonalcoholic beverages has produced its fair share of fun experiments with sugar and spice but very few drinks that you’d actually want to sip with food. At Tavernita, the housemade fizzy sodas—including a kicky ginger ale flecked with guindilla and a spa-appropriate blend of fresh cucumber juice, lemongrass, and pure … Read more
Parachute
Johnny Clark and Top Chef alum Beverly Kim vanished for a while after their short-lived stint at the now-departed Bonsoirée, where the husband-and-wife duo’s attempt at an upscale Korean menu never quite stuck. They’ve resurfaced at a new place in Avondale. Here, they’re putting high-end touches on classic Korean comforts: dolsot bibimbap mixed with savoy … Read more
Freddy's Pizza
Yeah, sure, Eataly is impressive. But for old-school Italian goodness, you gotta go west. In 1968, long before Mario Batali came to River North, Naples-born Giuseppe Quercia came to Cicero and landed a job working for Frank Deluca at a neighborhood pizza joint called Freddy’s. The business grew from a place to get thick rectangular … Read more
CH Distillery
The city’s first-ever vodka distillery opened last August, and in just a few short months the West Loop business’s flagship product has become a household name among spirit enthusiasts because of its perfectly smooth taste and its makers’ pledge to use local ingredients. The triple-distilled vodka—made of winter wheat from Kaneville—has a peppercorn sibling and … Read more
Marcel's Culinary Experience
If a date-night cooking class sounds like a throwback to the ’80s, Marcel’s, opened in 2011 by a former insurance executive craving fun, wants to prove you wrong. During these evenings, you’ll share a table with friends or new acquaintances in a state-of-the-art kitchen, practicing tricks of the trade with top-notch culinary tools. At worst, … Read more
The Radler
Bavarian beer halls can be total schlock fests: comically oversize mugs, lederhosen-clad servers, oompah music on blast. Not here. Vie veterans Nathan Sears and Adam Hebert took the best parts of the Teutonic tavern experience—sausage, beer, and a no-frills place to enjoy both—and optimized them. The wursts are stuffed by hand and topped with seasonal accompaniments, … Read more