Consider the new Lagunitas bar a beer geek challenge. If you can find the secluded spot in Douglas Park (hint: enter through the parking lot at 16th and Rockwell), you’ll be rewarded with a 16-tap bar overlooking the massive facility and a chipper staff eager to recommend a brew. Soak up the suds with standard … Read more
Founded by local fiction writer Victor David Giron in 2010, this DIY press started out as a semiserious way for him to publish his autobiographical novel Sophomoric Philosophy. But thanks to a 2012 deal with the publishing collective Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, Curbside is now churning out works by a long roster of top-notch … Read more
Say hi to the Field Museum’s winning in-house taxidermist.
You bet you’re going to look dumb using both hands to lift this 34-ounce chalice. But once the smooth mix of rye, Scotch, bourbon, vermouth, moonshine, and bitters hits your lips, the part of your brain that cares about such things will pipe down. Named for the much-revered, never-seen drunken legend of a few Saturday … Read more
When this newcomer announced itself as an artisanal market and a farm-to-table fast-casual restaurant with communal tables made of reclaimed wood, yawns were stifled from one end of Lincoln Park to the other. And then it opened, and darned if the soups (poblano and corn), sandwiches (turkey and aged cheddar), grilled cheeses (fig and arugula), … Read more
Last November, Neil Firstenleit, a local “kindie” music celebrity known as Mr. Singer, opened a school for tots that has become the one parents clamor for. Operating out of a storefront beneath his Lake View home, Firstenleit runs group music classes in which kids from six months to six years old sing, dance, and, best … Read more
Expectations soared when the Dawson opened in October, thanks to hotshot Alinea alum Rene De Leon running the kitchen, Annemarie Sagoi (Charleston, Big Star) behind the bar, and a beautifully designed space with a massive patio. Ten months later, the space is one of the few things left intact. Thank goodness, because the patio is … Read more
Of the eight or so hotels that opened here last year, none have perfected the vertical resort like the 316-room Langham. Purists may quibble that the decor is too florid for Mies van der Rohe’s spare architecture. But there’s no denying the luxury of the 13 floors, from the shimmery lobby to the Chuan Spa, … Read more
Founded in 1971 as a cultural refuge for displaced Ukrainian artists, the UIMA has changed as much as its surrounding neighborhood. “Modern art has no nationality,” says the museum’s curator, Stanislav Grezdo, who is Slovakian. Behind the façade of the building by architect Stanley Tigerman, half the space is dedicated to the bold geometric shapes favored … Read more
What do you think is best in the city? To find out, Chicago
conducted an online survey in May, which resulted in nearly
1,000 responses. Here, your 52 winners and the runners-up in culture, dining, and shopping.
