Charleston bar: review
BETTER BETA?: A Bucktown favorite gets a controversial face-lift
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Cooking from Rick Tramonto’s new book, “Steak with Friends”—for Rick Tramonto
TURNING THE TABLES: The idea was simple: I would invite Tramonto (a complete stranger) to our West Town condo to join me, my wife, Jen, and a few friends for dinner.
Dish Flash: Where the Cupcakes Are
Monday is the inaugural trip for Flirty Cupcakes, the mobile cupcake seller that managed to find a way to comply with Chicago’s strict food-truck laws. Here’s where the Flirty van plans to stop…
Find Me An Apartment (and a bar): The Chaser Faces a Chicago Real Estate Quandary
It’s Friday, so I thought I’d take a break from frantically searching apartment listings on Craigslist to kick back and consider one very important real estate question: which bars could I stand living near? You see, the new owner of my longtime building on Mohawk Street has some pretty wild ideas about how much a certain writer…
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Burgers in Bloom
Three weeks ago, we reported on a new, more upmarket second location of Poag Mahone’s planned for 195 North Dearborn Street. Dan Rosenthal, Poag’s owner, tells us a more downmarket Poag is in the works as well…
Dish Flash: Chicago's Priciest Burger?
When you buy a wagyu burger, you enter in a cycle of pampering. The cows legendarily get their massages and beer, and then you indulge yourself by spending a mint to buy the burger. A new menu item at The Bad Apple (4300 N. Lincoln Ave.; 773-360-8406) puts that cycle in a whole new gear…
Dish Flash: Come Fly with Them
When Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas, business partners at Alinea (1723 N. Halsted St.; 312-867-0110), drop even a few crumbs of information about their future projects, people become like teenage girls around rock idols. (Case in point: Normally intelligent journalists thought Achatz and Kokonas were opening a bar called Boom.) Well, get ready for unbridled screaming. Achatz and Kokonas plan to open Next, a restaurant with a concept unlike any we’ve heard of before…
Weekend Photos: Blue Frog 22
From a tadpole comes a frog: Now open, from the mother-and-son owners of Blue Frog Bar & Grill (676 N. LaSalle St.; 312-943-8900), River North’s charmingly scruffy go-to karaoke dive, is Blue Frog 22 (22 E. Hubbard St.; 312-527-1200), a more polished and spacious second location stocked with board games, 14 flat-screen TVs, an expanded menu—and, yes, karaoke…
Dish Flash: In a Tizi
Adding to the string of good restaurants closing lately, Tizi Melloul (531 N. Wells St.; 312-670-4338) will shut its doors May 15th after 11 years of business. One of Tizi’s owners, Steven Ford, says it was sold to as-yet-undisclosed parties for another restaurant concept.
And They're Off!: Where to Watch the Kentucky Derby in Chicago
Yes, the Kentucky Derby still bills itself as "the fastest two minutes in sports," despite the fact that the not-so-recent invention of motorized vehicles left the poor ponies in the dust a good while ago. And with the Louisville forecast calling for an 80 percent chance of "strong storms" all day tomorrow, the bound-to-be-muddy 136th Kentucky Derby isn’t likely to break any land speed records…