Chicago's food scene, explained

Like any world-class city, Chicago presents two simultaneous versions of itself: one as described by the hotel concierge, the other inhabited by those who call it home. The former is defined by deep dish pizzas, cheese-caramel popcorn and architectural cruises in an area triangulated by Willis Tower, the Field Museum and the John Hancock Center. The Chicago of Chicagoans consists of three-flat buildings, beanbag toss on sidewalks, Goose Island Green Line, rib tips grilling on aquarium smokers and tamale-selling abuelas.

Both Chicagos are valid representations of the city. But many out-of-towners only hear about one.

So what does it mean to eat like a Chicagoan? Here, now, is our attempt to encapsulate our city's restaurant scene, a Chicago beyond what's perpetuated by guidebooks and old “Saturday Night Live” skits.

Luxury dining

We begin with restaurants at the top — tops in creative verve, critical acclaim and price tag. First some context: Fine-dining in Chicago during the '70s was shaped by chefs like Jovan Trboyevich and Jean Banchet, whose cooking philosophies were ensconced in the school of classic French. Then came Charlie Trotter in 1987, who sourced exotic ingredients and preached farm-to-table kitchen before it was en vogue. Trotter's kitchen produced a coterie of Chicago's most influential chefs today.

Among them is Grant Achatz, the man responsible for guiding our city's restaurants to a new stratum of ambition. When he opened Alinea in 2005, his cooking garnered praise that went beyond local adulations. Ruth Reichl, in Gourmet magazine, called it the best restaurant in the country. Where Trotter's preached refinement and tradition, Achatz's food was altogether exacting, playful, interactive and theatrical, influenced by Spain's avant-garde cooking movement (for example, a green taffy balloon dessert suspended with helium).

For this genre of restaurant, where diners can expect to pay $400 and up per person, Alinea continues to be the standard-bearer. Others like L2O, Sixteen, Tru, Spiaggia and Grace shoot for multi-Michelin-star status. Any international gourmet with a passing familiarity of Chicago's dining scene will reference these restaurants first.

One level down in pricing, but with no less decorum, are Chicago's famed steakhouses. Gibson's, Gene & Georgetti's and Morton's have long been the go-to beef emporiums for business suits and conventiongoers. Here you'll find chicken Vesuvio, a Chicago invention — bone-in chicken with potatoes sauteed in white wine, garlic and olive oil, then roasted until crisp.

Proletariat food

What is the food of Chicago's Everyman and Everywoman? Each neighborhood has its say. In Lakeview, it might be a pub serving a two-handed cheeseburger. On the Southwest Side along Cermak Road, it's the fry houses selling breaded shrimp by the paper bag. You'll hear the phrase “tip-link combo” uttered on the South and West sides, shorthand for rib tips and hot links found in barbecue takeouts.

Most ubiquitous of all is the corner grill, found in almost every neighborhood, that'll serve a Chicago-style hot dog (mustard, neon relish, onions, pickle, tomato slices, sport peppers, celery salt). Italian beef — the irresistibly sloppy bomb of roast beef, hot peppers and jus-soaked roll — is Chicago's Everyman sandwich, and finer purveyors (Johnnie's, Al's #1, chains like Portillo's and Buona Beef) still roast and slice beef in-house daily.

Origins of the gyro sandwich are hotly disputed among a handful of Greektown restaurant magnates along South Halsted Street, but all acknowledge it was introduced to America via Chicago sometime in the mid-'60s. As for pizza, there's this false belief that Chicagoans exclusively consume deep dish pizzas. More representative of Chicago's pizza preference is the thin-crust sausage and cheese party cut: Instead of standard triangle-shaped wedges, the pie is cut crisscross into squares.

International

One in every five Chicagoans is of Mexican descent, representing more Latinos than people from any other country. The largest groups reside on the Southwest Side, in Pilsen and Little Village, neighborhoods where taquerias and carnicerias abound.

Mexicans are responsible for Chicago's most robust street food scene (in a city where regulations all but stifle the culture), and it can be found Sundays at Maxwell Street Market, a mile southwest of the Loop. You also can't mention Mexican food in Chicago without a hat tip to Rick Bayless, who elevated the cuisine to four-star status. He practically owns the entire block of Clark Street between Hubbard and Illinois streets with his trio of popular restaurants, in descending levels of formality: Topolobampo, Frontera Grill and Xoco.

After English and Spanish, Polish is the most-spoken language among Chicagoans. Some of the most popular restaurants for the Chicago Polonia can be found along Milwaukee Avenue on the Northwest Side (Smak-Tak, Staropolska, Red Apple).

Pockets of ethnic communities produce vibrant and compact restaurant rows. The milelong stretch of Devon Avenue between California and Damen avenues is home to 40-plus Indian and Pakistani restaurants. The Chinese represent the largest Asian ethnicity in Chicago, with a bustling variety of mostly Cantonese food options in Chinatown (Archer and Wentworth avenues on the South Side). On the North Side, Argyle Street between Sheridan Road and Broadway features a cluster of Vietnamese restaurants. The Filipino, Korean and Middle Eastern restaurant scenes in Albany Park are, by comparison, more insular, catering to their countrymen (some menus don't have English translations). But if you seek cuisine that won't compromise authenticity, Albany Park boasts the most diverse array of international restaurants in Chicago. (Bridgeview isn't part of Chicago but is another hub of top-notch Middle Eastern restaurants.)

Italian restaurateurs made Little Italy (Taylor Street) and the Heart of Chicago neighborhood (Oakley Avenue between 24th and 26th streets) into red-sauce gravy central. A handful of reliable German restaurants exist in Lincoln Square. Pub food is ever present in Beverly, home to the annual South Side Irish Parade. Puerto Ricans settled in Humboldt Park, where the jibarito (steak sandwich with fried plantains in place of bread) garnered much fame at Borinquen restaurant.

‘Yuppie' dining

For lack of a better term, we use “yuppie” in its literal sense — restaurants frequented by young, urban professionals. This covers a wide swath of establishments, to be sure, but by our definition these restaurants: 1) offer beverage programs; 2) have changing menus that reflect ingredient seasonality; 3) are “buzzy” spots covered by media; and 4) charge around $100 for dinner for two (by Chicago standards, this is considered a midtier price). Restaurants that fit that bill include: Girl & The Goat, Lula Cafe, The Publican, Hopleaf, The Purple Pig, Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba, Sunda, Balena, so on and so forth. The overwhelming majority of these restaurants are on the North Side, though in recent years, restaurants like Nightwood and Dusek's have thrived south of Roosevelt Avenue.