Alejandra Rivera kept burning the pastéis de nata. The flaky Portuguese egg custard tartlets, known the world over, should have a bit of dark-brown caramelized stippling on top, but the numbers on the old oven in her little flat had worn off, so she kept scorching the iconic pastries. Rivera and her husband were reluctantly […]

The post Cadinho Bakery explores the dazzling world of Portuguese pastry appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Thirty-one years ago, the Leo Burnett Company, on behalf of Michigan Avenue’s erstwhile National Live Stock and Meat Board, branded cattle flesh onto the American brain with the slogan, “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.” That’s not a bad run by advertising standards, but it’s nothing compared to “One head with a hundred tastes,” or “일두백미,” […]

The post At the upcoming Bonyeon, chef Sangtae Park will have a hundred tastes in his head appeared first on Chicago Reader.

A 25-gallon oak barrel sits upright on a pallet among hundreds of others in a former furniture factory in Hammond, Indiana. Drew Fox lays it on its side, yanks out the bung, and inserts a long, copper whiskey thief into its depths. From that he drains a luminous, tobacco-colored liquid into a pair of juice glasses […]

The post 18th Street Distillery brings weird, wonderful new spirits to the midwest appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When Max Mirho, a Lakeview resident, lived in Pittsburgh three years ago, he found himself at a secret party. It was a gay, techno sex club downtown, next to a tiny ATM, underneath a gay bathhouse, “in the middle of frickin’ nowhere.”  To get in, Mirho used a passcode found on a Facebook page called […]

The post Not-so-secret speakeasies appeared first on Chicago Reader.

As one of the featured titles at this year’s Reeling Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival, FORKED shows a different side of the restaurant industry.

The post From Le Perroquet to STREET  appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Years ago, at the height of the craze, I bought an Instant Pot. Of course I had to have the largest size possible—the eight-quart. If I’d read any reviews, I might have learned that this hissing countertop monster had a few technical liabilities that the smaller ones didn’t. I was particularly annoyed that I couldn’t […]

The post Local food books you might have missed—and some you shouldn’t appeared first on Chicago Reader.

One Off introduces PM at PQM, a casual after-hours cafe featuring a debut menu of plates that is at once hauntingly Mado-esque and evolved, coming from a chef who’s done a lot of eating, cooking, and living since 2010.

The post Publican Quality Meats butcher Rob Levitt returns to the kitchen—but don’t call it a comeback appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Punks love waffles, and Andy King has proof. At the release show for Cut Your Losses’ self-titled debut Reflections of Ghosts at Schubas Tavern this past spring, local podcast producer and DIY chef King only had a few minutes to talk with acoustic punk artist Joe Costa, professionally known as Tourist Season, and rising punk […]

The post Punks love waffles appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Last November, chef Matteo Lo Bianco took a crash course in Persian food. Each day he’d show up at Farzad Shahsavarani’s house and begin cooking under the eye of his former boss, and his sister Farideh. They made all the classics: the intensely herbaceous lamb and bean stew, ghormeh sabzi; the fruity egg-stuffed meatballs, kofte […]

The post Maman Zari has the only fine-dining Persian tasting menu in the country appeared first on Chicago Reader.

For more than a year, Flour Power has produced almost no food waste. It all gets tossed into two large Amazon courier totes Wilson Bauer stores just to the right of his toilet.

The post From the finest kitchen scraps in the city, Wilson Bauer summons the best worm poop appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The first Sri Lankan Panda Express quietly opened in Rogers Park late last March. That’s what Kiso Sivarasa and his partners hoped when they launched Café Nova on the ground floor of Loyola University’s Granada Center, just a few doors down from Subway and across Sheridan from Taco Bell and Potbelly. “We want to grow […]

The post Café Nova has a strategy for Sri Lankan food in Chicago and beyond appeared first on Chicago Reader.

By creating a wine club for residents of the Pilsen neighborhood, Rodriguez and Sanchez knew they could make a bigger impact in the beverage space and positively contribute to the community. And so Bummer Wines was born. 

The post Bummer Wines brings natural wine to the neighborhood appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Middle Brow’s Pizza Wine has the dark ruby-red color of a Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon, like something you’d want to drink with a thick porterhouse: jammy, tannic, boozy. With that on your mind, your first sip might come as a surprise. Sure enough, it has a rounded, full body, but it’s simultaneously ethereal, with a […]

The post Logan Square’s Middle Brow Beer is now a winery, naturally appeared first on Chicago Reader.

There’s no such thing as brunch in Vietnam. . . . Nevertheless, Argyle Street’s DaNang Kitchen recently started offering a “Vietnamese brunch,” featuring a few relatively uncommon dishes that can address a Western appetite for hangover-mitigating egg skillets.

The post Worlds collide with DaNang Kitchen’s Vietnamese brunch appeared first on Chicago Reader.

"Soba connects people. I invite people to the performance table and they share the moment to smell ingredients and taste the freshly made noodles together.”

The post Mariko Kallister knows the way of soba appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In the early 90s, Dead Rider guitarist Todd Rittmann moved into a three-bedroom apartment with an attic on the corner of Paulina and Grace in Lakeview. He’d recently left DeKalb, where he’d studied at Northern Illinois University. Rittmann shared his Lakeview apartment with three musicians, including Tom Mioducki and Pat Samson, who’d formed a noisy […]

The post The accidental postrock diner appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The fishermen of Montrose Harbor are keenly aware of the presence of PFOS and other forever chemicals in the fish. (It came up in conversation with nearly everyone I spoke to.) But what interested me was that, instead of repelling them from the water, this knowledge drew them closer to the lake.

The post Fishing, family, and other things that are toxic but life-giving appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The idea of a “cocktail deli counter” came to Tim Williams during the pandemic.

The post At Pour Souls Cocktail Counter, Tim Williams goes the extra mile appeared first on Chicago Reader.

There’s big talk about a little chef in Chicago.

The post Dinner and a Petit show appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Paul Stern is a born schmoozer. Walk into his restaurant, Fritzi’s Delicatessen, a small well-lit place in Oak Park, and chances are you will find Stern schmoozing at one of the tables in the dining area.

The post Fritzi’s Delicatessen is a complete statement appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In June 2020, Raeghn Draper and Leah Ball founded the CHAAD Project, which stands for Chicago Hospitality Accountable Advocacy Database.

The post Whisper no more appeared first on Chicago Reader.

You have to be fast to eat the seekh kabob at Helmand. “If it gets cold it’s going to be like rubber,” says Wahid Tanha, the owner and chef of this new Afghan restaurant in Albany Park. No matter what else comes to the table, “the first thing you have to do is eat it […]

The post With elegant dumplings and meaty mountains of rice, Helmand channels the cradle of Afghan culture appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Fedora’d men in butchers aprons hoist hunks of wobbling flesh aloft like sacrificial offerings. Stationed before a bank of smokers—meat vaults loaded with parchment-and-tinfoil-swaddled briskets, beef ribs, and lamb shoulders—they slowly tug glistening bones from steaming muscle, smiling as it collapses. The meat smacks against wooden cutting boards, quivering under downpours of salt and spice […]

The post Meat Moot smokes low and slow, and its cleaver-flipping ‘butchers’ steal the show appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In the video for the song “Agege Bread,” the late comedian Sir Kay Kamoru plays a naif—a rural, Igbo visitor to the UK who, when confronted with a full English breakfast (bacon, sausages, eggs, beans, tomatoes, etc.), embarks on a madcap quest across London in search of the soft, squishy brioche-like staple bread of Nigeria. […]

The post Meet the rising bread queen of Chicago appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Despite the popularity of the wine bar in Mariano’s locations across the city, nobody knows who Nob is or how the grocery store bar got its name. Regulars call it the M bar, for Mariano’s. And at the M bar, neighbors love to hang out and grab a drink—or three.

The post M is for Mariano’s appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The parking lot is full, illuminated by a fading yellow sign adorned with a tiki drink and a palm tree. Unassumingly tucked away in North Riverside, just west of Chicago, Chef Shangri-La is preparing for a lively night—not uncommon for the suburban mainstay. The entire restaurant is bustling, packed with families that fill the festively […]

The post <strong>Boozy tiki drinks, Cantonese cuisine, and Elvis Live!</strong> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

There’s no restaurant opening in 2023 more desperately anticipated than Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto’s transformation of his brother’s venerable but grotty River North beef joint into a fine dining destina—uhhh, wait. No. I’m thinking of season two of The Bear, the fictionalized heart-attack-on-a-plate that might be the most harrowing depiction of life on the line ever […]

The post Watch the Cambodian Bear forage Indian fruit pies this winter appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Cristina Torres, the owner of Bendición Dry Bar, is forging a new path among the sober and sober curious.

The post Say yes to Bendición Dry Bar appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Much like last year (and the year before) I continued to look to the underground and gray market food economy as the place to spot the most interesting, creative, and groundbreaking chefs and foodlums in the city. 

The post The chef underground ain’t dead yet appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Taylor Hanna taught herself to cook on the job. “I don’t have formal training,” says the 17-year veteran of nine restaurant kitchen lines, and one half of the pickling power duo Vargo Brother Ferments. “Chefs would give me tasks to do and I wouldn’t know what they were talking about. I’d go into the walk-in […]

The post Alt Economy offers mutually aided instruction for hospitality workers appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Texas was once Mexican. Texas is Mexican again this November 14 when Heffer BBQ returns to Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at the Kedzie Inn in Irving Park. I’m sure you remember back in September, the last time someone parked a 500-gallon offset smoker outside the bar and the sweet haze of […]

The post Texas returns to Mexico with Heffer BBQ at the next Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

There are some 38 uninhabited islands in Norway,* and three in Humboldt Park. Of course, there are the two in the Lagoon, but these days Ørkenoy—the two-year-old Nordic-inspired brewery, cocktail bar, and restaurant—is “deserted” in name only. (The word is a rough mash-up of two Norwegian words: ørken, for desert, and oy, for island.) But […]

The post Ørkenoy is deserted no more appeared first on Chicago Reader.

(A)Part: A Recipe Guide-book to Chicago (if you will) is meant to introduce the reader to different restaurants, recipes, neighborhoods, and cultural landmarks through the eyes of 27 different Chicagoans. 

The post A new kind of recipe book appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The invasive fish formerly known as Asian carp was renamed “copi” earlier this summer by the Department of Natural Resources. Short for “copious,” the state hopes that a vaguely Mediterranean-sounding rebranding will entice consumers to eat more of the bony, obscenely prolific, freshwater filter feeders that have outcompeted native species for all that good Illinois […]

The post Chả Cá Nuggs takes a nose-to-tail fin approach to eating the invasive copi appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Four titles dropping over the next four weeks—by a quartet of heavy hitters—offer plenty of projects for the cold weather kitchen-bound.

The post Food books are falling this month appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Ollyvia Putri insists on only canned Wijsman sweetcream salted butter for her “bacon cake.” “I cannot change that,” she says of the imported Dutch butter. “My grandma would kill me.” “For problem-free use in tropical countries,” the distinctive red cans of Wijsman can run up to $10 for less than half a pound. But that’s […]

The post Pastry chef Ollyvia Putri’s 20-layer cakes are legit appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Bernardo Medina’s mother chased him into art with a foam rubber flip-flop. “Latina mothers call it a chancleta,” says Medina, a San Juan, Puerto Rico-based pop artist and publicist. “It is the weapon that they use against you as a kid. I was very hyper, and since there were no medications for it, it was […]

The post Bernardo Medina’s <i>Sofrito Manifesto</i> slaps like a flip-flop appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Colonel came out of retirement to make KFC at the Kedzie Inn. OK, Thom Padanilam does not have an honorific title from the Indian state of Kerala. Someday, probably, but for now he’s back in the game as the boss man of Thommy’s Toddy Shop, the pandemic-born Malayali food pop-up and podi peddler he […]

The post Like a blazing fried chicken, Thommy’s Toddy Shop rises from the ashes at the Next Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It’s a common refrain in the city: Chicago summer is so worth the wait. Newbies and transplants can feel the buzz of opportunity in the air when the weather starts to turn. Visceral summer memories fuel locals through even the coldest, darkest months. And many of those memories involve food and drink—cookouts, summer cocktails, farmers’ […]

The post The tastes of home appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Food has been the thread, through hope and grief.

The post If you teach a girl to pickle appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Many people are starting to refocus on wellness and realizing that their relationship with alcohol isn’t particularly . . . sustainable. And as is the case with all toxic connections that have run their course, it may be time for a break, babe. 

The post Drink less, party more appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Vivid green fluid silently courses down a vertical stack of cascading glass tubes on the third floor of the Plant, the sustainability-oriented Back of the Yards small business incubator where the meat-packer Peer Foods once processed industrial quantities of ham, bacon, and sausage in cavernous stainless steel smokers.  Nearby, spirulina-spiked Beyond Burgers sizzle and char […]

The post Something magic’s growing at Back of the Yards Algae Sciences appeared first on Chicago Reader.

What would you do with 22.4 pounds of treats?

The post Sugar and snacks and everything nice appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chui does exactly what you tell it to do. That’s the name of Mike “Ramen Lord” Satinover’s gleaming, new, half-ton Yamato Richmen Type One ramen noodle machine, currently in residence in the living room of his West Loop apartment. It’s named—or at least I’ve named it—for one of the minor AI drones in the classic manga […]

The post Ramen Lord returns to the next Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Update: an earlier version of this post included an incorrect email address for ordering. The correct email is: Deesrotichicago@dsroti.com Most days the freshest, flakiest, most diaphanous Trinidadian roti in the city must be consumed al trunko on the 2500 block of South Wabash with your blinkers on (it’s the only spot for roti, in fact). […]

The post Dawn Lewis wants you to “try meh hand” at the next Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Last Saturday night at the House of Wah Sun in North Center, Mark Chiang lingered at the table of a few of the night’s last customers. His wife, Young Ja Kim, had already wheeled over the egg rolls, crab rangoon, and heaping platters of crispy chow fun, cumin lamb, and Sichuan green beans, but Chiang […]

The post The House of Wah Sun abides, in Irving Park appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Her name is Odesza. Charles Wong’s bright red, 22-foot, 500-gallon mobile road pit comes from Texas, and so does the barbecue she smokes—at least in terms of method and material. But the flavors and textures of his brisket banh mi and smoked crab rangoon come from other lands. “I’ve always wanted to marry the Asian […]

The post Umamicue brings Texas barbecue—via Asia—to the next Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

“I’m really trying to think of ways for us to take the trauma that’s linked to our food and uplift it in ways that makes us feel good and connected to who we are and our cultural identity,” says Jordan Wimby, aka the Melanin Martha, the subject of my column this week. You can see […]

The post The Melanin Martha celebrates Juneteenth at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Lebanon and Armenia are separated by vast stretches of Syria and eastern Turkey, but when Mary Eder-McClure and Kat Stuehrk Talo compared notes about the heroic family meals they grew up on, they discovered that similarities in the food they ate shrank the distance. For one thing, there’s the abundance of generosity. And the stuffed […]

The post It’s a Lebanese-Armenian family feast at the next Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Jordan Wimby was the only Black kid on her Beverly block, and she ate like everyone else: Lunchables, Tyson chicken nuggets, TV dinners, and frozen potpies. “Growing up I was surrounded by this conversation of racism, oppression, colonialism,” says Wimby, whose mother and grandparents were teachers (most of them CPS) who specialized in American and […]

The post The Melanin Martha wants Black food to triumph over its trauma appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Annnnd we’re back . . . Last January when the couple behind Malaysian pop-up Kedai Tapao took an extended winter break to visit the folks back in Kuala Lumpur, Jennifer Pou-Alesi spent her first week quarantined in the comfort of her old bedroom, eating home cooking and tapao (“takeout”) of her street hawker favorites (roti […]

The post Kedai Tapao returns to kick off a summer of Monday Night Foodballs appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Nobody gets rich writing cookbooks, but I’ve always assumed that Hugh Amano wrote his way off the dole. Amano is best known as the opening sous chef at Fat Rice who, after leaving the restaurant in its first year, cowrote the acclaimed The Adventures of Fat Rice, followed by two outstanding comic cookbook collaborations with […]

The post Hugh Amano develops <i>Bon Vivant</i> at Sterling Bay appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Abuelita Dircia wanted to know why there’s no rice and beans or sancocho on her niña’s menu. You might know “niña,” aka chef Angelina Bastidas, from her work at the late AMK Kitchen Bar and BIN 36. Or maybe you know her from her turns on Top Chef or Bong Appetit; or her private, fine-dining […]

The post Angelina Bastidas does Dominican food her way at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

As recent events have demonstrated, public mockery, scorn, and derision are effective, legitimate means to achieve justice. And to that end, the Monday Night Foodball team loves a powerful pun, which is why we are right chuffed to welcome Dani Kaplan to the Reader’s weekly chef pop up at the Kedzie Inn. Up until January, […]

The post Chick-Feel-Gay puns in the face of oppression at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When I first tap-tap-tapped the glassy, porky exterior of Roel Estanilla’s lechón back in January, I knew he was Monday Night Foodball material. Just a shard of the crispy skin jacketing the lush roasted pork belly would be worth the price of a ticket to the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up series at Irving Park’s Kedzie Inn. […]

The post Pig & Fire present Filipino pork belly tacos and sizzling pig face at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Whether you’re trying cannabis for the first time or an avid consumer, edibles are seen as an approachable method of consumption. They are clearly dosed and straightforward to use- no additional papers, fire, or gear required. There are options for everyone – vegan, gluten free, sugar free – as well as a wide variety of […]

The post Drink Your High: Cannabis Beverages v. Traditional Edibles appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Ricky Hanft is the sausage king of northwest Indiana. Currently in the case at the Wurst—his Griffith, Indiana, butcher shop—he’s stocking 30 different varieties of encased meats: among them French morteau, Ukrainian kovbasa, Vietnamese cha lua and cha bo, Armenian sujuk, Irish black pudding, North African Merguez, and Cajun boudin. There not a single jalapeño-cheddar […]

The post Ricky Hanft is bringing German deep cuts to the next Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In the Before Times, Daniela Vitale and Steven Jarczyk made a name for themselves selling cheesy, gooey, deep-fried rice balls at farmers’ markets. Like many nimble food businesses, their Sfera Sicilian Street Food pivoted during the pandemic, jarring sauces and delivering their arancini chilled and ready to reheat at home. In October 2020, things took […]

The post Sfera Sicilian Street Food ghosts its virtual kitchen appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Thousands of civilians have been tortured, imprisoned, murdered, sexually assaulted, and expelled; their homes occupied and looted by an invading military that has blocked humanitarian aid from reaching those left behind. No, it’s not Ukraine.  It’s the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia, which has been under siege since November 2020 when a civil war broke […]

The post Tigist Reda feeds you for Tigray at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Annie Xiang’s son answered her morning coffee with violence. “He was just kicking me in my belly,” says Xiang, at the time a tax manager at a Big Four accounting firm downtown. Hoping to advance to partner, she worked 70- to 90-hour weeks fueled by 32 ounces of Intelligentsia coffee per day—no cream, no sugar. […]

The post Annie Xiang wants you to wake up and smell the pu’er appeared first on Chicago Reader.

During the pandemic, Shin Thompson and Liga Sigal established themselves as masters of carryout curry—specifically karē, the alluring, enveloping, Snuggie-in-a-bowl that is Japan’s great gift to global comfort and reassurance. Maybe you’re skeptical. What’s so hard about packing a thick, warmly-spiced, root veggie-stocked edible lava in a plastic jewel box and sending it on its […]

The post Become one with the bowl for the return of Bokuchan’s Curry House at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Sheal Patel’s wife Shelly does not eat beef. That’s not unless it’s the Philly Masala, the gooey Desi-cheesesteak mashup that’s the signature of the Dhuaan BBQ Company, the weekly Pilsen-based pop-up he’s maintained for more than a year. I’ve flipped a couple vegetarians by barbecue over the years, so I know how satisfying that can […]

The post There’s as much Desi-barbecue, masala cheesesteak, and chocolate as you can handle from Dhuann BBQ Company and Maa Maa Dei at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Did you miss the good times last Monday, when Joey Pham (@flavorsupreme), Kelly Ijichi (Mom’s Chicago), and their Monday Snack Gathering* cohort conjured magic from the depths of the Kedzie Inn’s roiling deep fryer? Chicken gyoza showered in black truffles flew around the dining room like a flock of sizzling hummingbirds. From that you’d never […]

The post Worlds collide with Flavor Supreme and Lolo Agogo of Monday Snack Gathering at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

“Mom” is the nickname of the deep fryer at the Kedzie Inn,* so it’s a delicious coincidence that Kelly Ijichi of Mom’s Chicago will be on the baskets, dunking barbecued eel croquettes, chicken gyoza, and shrimp cutlets at the next Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up series. “The most beautiful thing for us […]

The post It’s deep-fried dopamine from Flavor Supreme and Mom’s Chicago on Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When Aaron Harris’s wife adopted a gluten-free diet he had to start from scratch when it came to tacos. He was raised on his grandmother’s homemade flour tortillas, and she was raised in Chihuahua, where wheat supersedes corn. “She and my mom would make big stacks of flour tortillas, and we would eat those with […]

The post The best tortillas are made with Michigan (and Mexican) corn appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I can’t name two more worldly bon vivants than Eric May and Titus Ruscitti. May, caterer, executive director of Roots & Culture Contemporary Art Center, and former head chef at Ox-bow School of Art; and Ruscitti, food writer and taco scholar, have eaten prodigiously all over the world—and in every corner and crevice of the […]

The post Get it hot, sweet, and wet on Monday Night Foodball, featuring Hot Mix Beef appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Congee is for when you’re sick. Congee is for when you’re cold. Congee is for when you need to immerse yourself in the warm womblike comfort of a steamy bowl of rice porridge. Or if you’re Margaret Pak of Thattu or Jaye Fong of Maa Maa Dei, congee is for anytime. Pak eats Keralan congee, […]

The post Thattu and Maa Maa Dei unite for a congee collab at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Logan Square’s Superkhana International has been an incubator throughout the pandemic for young chefs sometimes short on experience but always long on big ideas. Chefs Zeeshan Shah and Yoshi Yamada have provided kitchen space and encouragement for all sorts of wild side hustles, and I’ve profiled some of them, like Keralan condiment king Thommy Padanilam […]

The post Château Picklebone opens its fabled gates for Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Now that the polls for Best of Chicago have closed I can say this without fear of tipping the scales of this venerable experiment in democracy: Funeral Potatoes are the great heroes of Monday Night Foodball. I’m in their corner for Best Meal Kits and Best Pandemic Pivot—which we’ll find out about on March 3—but […]

The post It’s revenge of Funeral Potatoes at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Last week, 1,900 pounds of catimor arabica coffee beans were sun-drying on a patio high in the mountains of Chiquimula, Guatemala, near the Honduran border. By the time you read this, a quarter ton’s worth will have been milled, hand-sorted for defects, and shipped via FedEx directly to their owner in Chicago, Elmer Fajardo of […]

The post Anticonquista Café roasts the only farm-to-cup coffee in Chicago appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Whenever there was a wedding or baptism to celebrate in San Luis de la Loma, Ana Mellin made the relleno de puerco. In the tiny town just up the coast from Acapulco, she and her cousins roasted banana leaf-swaddled, whole hogs for funerals too. The celebratory pig, stuffed with pineapple, plantains, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and […]

The post The Moonwalker Cafe brings a rare and porky specialty from Guerrero to Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Last September Nemanja Milunovic was on a roll. The former fine-dining chef’s pandemic-born Avondale ghost kitchen Kiosk Balkan Street Food had struggled for its first six months, until a positive review in the Tribune blew his business up. Each day he was selling out of the extraordinarily pillowy (and labor intensive) somun that he built […]

The post Nemanja and Marko Milunovic launch season two of Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Monday Night Foodball has been on a holiday hiatus for more than a month, and I’m soooooo bored. I can’t spend another Monday night pacing the empty, echoing void of the Kedzie Inn, balancing imaginary plates of curried lamb ddukboki, Cambodian fried chicken sandwiches, and pimento cheese hash brown jalapeno poppers, plaintively calling out your […]

The post Here’s season two of Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

There was a time when concessions at Chicago live theaters were pretty basic: water, soda, candy, coffee, tea, and maybe some beer in a can or wine in a box (depending on whether or not the venue had a liquor license). But as theater bars have expanded their range of legal booze options (or in […]

The post Drinks with drama, cocktails for comedy appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Sometime last summer Jennifer Kim told me she was keenly interested in collaborating with Nariba Shepherd for a proposed Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s ongoing weekly guest chef pop-up series at the Kedzie Inn in Irving Park. Kim, of course, is the ex-Passerotto chef who emerged amid the pandemic as the driving force behind Alteconomy, […]

The post Trini Zaddy and Alteconomy conjure Afro Caribbean-Korean food for Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chrishon Lampley says she was a terrible writer when she started the blog Love Cork Screw in 2013: the Love section was about being a single woman who formerly owned an art bar, Cork had Lampley’s varietal wine selections, and Screw was her take on current pop culture.  The year before, the highly successful art […]

The post The flood that birthed Love Cork Screw wines appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Stan Wash, dwarfed by towering metal shelves stocked with faucets and toilet seats, raises a small glass of butterscotch-colored liquid to his lips, takes a taste, and gasps.  “WHOO! Oh my goodness! UGH! That’s so tannic!”  We’re standing in a cavernous plumbing warehouse in Gary, Indiana, where Wash and a partner, Zach Getzelman, press, age, […]

The post Overgrown Orchard makes the best wine in Gary, Indiana appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The “sober curious”—individuals who abstain from drinking to explore the positive effects of sobriety—have a new enclave in Andersonville. Eli Tea Bar, an alcohol-free social space, offers options for those rethinking their relationship with alcohol, including more than 100 loose leaf teas and special in-house blends, bubble tea, and kombucha on tap. Bar owner Elias […]

The post Social and sober appeared first on Chicago Reader.

There’s a tasty surprise in 3,000 copies of the Reader this week. It’s the fourth and final issue of the Chicago Foodcultura Clarion, the zine by Spanish food artist Antoni Miralda, University of Chicago anthropologist Stephan Palmié, and their marauding horde of ravenous, sugar-crazed foodlums. This issue features Palmie’s fascinating history on Reese Finer Foods, the erstwhile […]

The post Catch the new issue of the Chicago Foodcultura Clarion appeared first on Chicago Reader.

There’s been an earthshaking development in the current schedule for Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop up series. Barbecue Life Coach Gary Wiviott has canceled his November 22 stand at the Kedzie Inn in order to, as they say, “spend more time with family.” Something like that. We’ll have him back next year […]

The post Hold the Banana Phone for Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Palita Sriratana moved to a building with a nice bright balcony last year. By summer she’d filled it with pots that sprouted cilantro, holy basil, and morning glories all of which found their way onto the vibrant Thai menus she continued to pop up and cater around the city ever since exiting her brick-and-mortar stand […]

The post Pink Salt’s northern Thai food sweeps Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Mike Satinover’s doors of perception were blown wide open some ten years ago when the 21-year old study abroad undergrad was sent to a famous noodle shop in Sapporo, Japan, for a bowl of miso ramen: “What arrived was ethereal. A scalding hot bowl of rich, intense miso and pork soup, with punches of garlic […]

The post Ramen_Lord teams up with Maa Maa Dei at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The post Get you some good gumbo from Bumbu Roux at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

T he Reader has covered food and restaurants in Chicago throughout its half-century existence, though not nearly as consistently or comprehensively as music, film, drama, or most of the other arts—certainly not every week when I came on as a starving editorial assistant way back in ’95. Back then there was a very occasional visual […]

The post The <i>Reader</i>’s first food critic was a diabetic undergrad with an appetite for the undiscovered appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The nights are getting colder. Your body, sensing the darkness ahead, craves warmth, reassurance, fat. It’s finally pozole season. But for Javier Garcia it’s never not pozole season. He grew up in Guadalajara, eating bowls of the thick, sticky, hominy, and pork stewy-soup (stoup?) for every event, birthday, and celebration. His mom’s pozole ruined him […]

The post Limón y Sal launches pozole season at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Pablo Soto has delivered empanadas to me on two different occasions. Each time these plus-sized, Chilean-style pockets of pleasure have tasted as if they were pulled directly out of the oven or fryer and delivered straight into my greedy gob. I don’t know what sorcery Soto uses to maintain the extraordinary flaky freshness of his […]

The post Get down with Don Pablo’s big Chilean empanadas at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In 2016, Darryl Hicks shuttered the city’s first and only Trinidadian restaurant, Cafe Trinidad. It was a serious responsibility to stand as the sole representative of a Caribbean cuisine that synthesizes centuries of contributions from African, Indian, Indigenous, Creole, Syrian, Lebanese, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese cooks. And it wasn’t an easy decision to close. But […]

The post The return of the roti at Cafe Trinidad appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Earlier this summer I sat down to one of the most exclusive tables in town. No, not Alinea. Not Ever. Nor was it The Crib, (RIP). It was an eight-course blowout at Hermosa, Ethan Lim’s tiny sandwich shop by day, six-seat “Family Meal” prix fixe by night. Lim’s ongoing nocturnal pop-up—during which he buries his […]

The post It’s Ethan Lim’s Khmerican bar food vs. your wolfish hunger at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Nemanja Milunovic became a chef because he didn’t like his mother’s cooking. “I just wanted to be better,” he says. “Growing up, her food was not that good. She was working all the time. She cared, but not really. She was always cooking fast. She didn’t have passion.” Operating out of an Avondale ghost kitchen, […]

The post Kiosk Balkan Street Food ghosts the old ways of cooking appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Tuesday, I was still dreaming of Funeral Potatoes’s pimento cheese hash brown-stuffed jalapeño poppers from Monday Night Foodball, when I was summoned back to the Kedzie Inn’s kitchen for a secret pizza and donut conclave. Not many know this, but Miguel Hernandez, one of the Kedzie’s regular chefs, is a 15-year veteran of Marie’s Pizza, […]

The post Check the menu for Pizza and Donuts at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Last week, Eve Studnicka, with an assist from her Funeral Potatoes partner Alexis Thomas, took part in an amazing pop-up with Borneol, Texas butcher (and former Chicagoan) Kriss Abigail. Abigail had arrived in town with an axis deer carcass harvested in the Hill Country, which she broke down at Saint Emeric in front of 30 […]

The post Please line up for Funeral Potatoes at Monday Night Foodball appeared first on Chicago Reader.

While my comprehensive four-volume opus on freeganism was derailed by the pandemic, it seems like it was a particularly productive period for a whole bunch of local food writers who have books coming out this fall. I’m excited about all of them. Instantly Mediterranean: Vibrant, Satisfying Recipes for Your Instant Pot, Electric Pressure Cooker, and […]

The post Autumn is about to drop a cornucopia of local food books appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When longtime friends Angela Barnes and Renauda Riddle decided to open up a high-end cocktail bar in Andersonville, they never predicted the enthusiastic fervor that would follow. Just months after opening, Nobody’s Darling has enjoyed a word-of-mouth popularity usually reserved for the main Boystown or Andersonville thoroughfares, ones that reflect the current culture in the […]

The post Nobody’s Darling is for everyone appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Jasmine Sheth wants you to know Mumbai isn’t all about samosas and chaat. OK, there will be samosas and chaat (kind of) at the Kedzie Inn when Sheth brings her Tasting India pop up to week three of Monday Night Foodball, but if you’ve followed her biweekly thali series over the past 16 months you […]

The post Monday Night Foodball Goes to Mumbai with Tasting India appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Among the poems about common things Pablo Neruda wrote during his lifetime are a number of odes to food: “Ode to the Artichoke,” “Ode to Tomatoes,” “Ode to Conger Chowder.” But somehow, the Chilean Nobel laureate forgot to write an ode to one of his country’s most ubiquitous signature dishes. Not only are baked and […]

The post Don Pablo’s Kitchen is one man’s ode to empanadas appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Hey! It was great to see you at Monday Night Foodball at the Kedzie Inn the other night, the very first stand in our weekly chef pop-up series. How about Giong Giong’s banh mi, eh? Good thing you got one before they all sold out. Wait a minute. You weren’t there? Oh, jeez, I’m so […]

The post Eat Malaysian with Kedai Tapao at Monday Night Foodball at the Kedzie Inn appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In January 2020 I assumed I had a lock on the annual Kedzie Inn chili cookoff, with a three-day smoked brisket braised with Cremeria La Ordena mole picoson. I spent a lot of time peering into the Dutch oven, building it, finessing it—no, caressing it—making sure the judges would drown in its smoldering, head-spinning complexity. So I […]

The post Are you ready for some Monday Night Foodball? appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Along with Chicago’s many beaches and tons of interesting things to do, our city’s diverse, affordable, and appetizing eating scene is one of the main things that makes this a terrific place to live. All parts of town are worth visiting. The idea was to pick a top eatery in each of the city’s 77 officially designated community areas, along with a few runners-up: delicious destinations that reflect the local culture.

The post The Iconic Chicago Restaurants Map appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In Thai culture, the first question people ask is not “How are you?” but instead “Gin khao reu yung?” Have you eaten yet? As a kid, I’d learn this phrase from my mom, who immigrated to the U.S. from Bangkok in 1989. It just made sense: If you hadn’t eaten yet, there must be something […]

The post Thai culture thrives in Bridgeview appeared first on Chicago Reader.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine . . . they have nine different types of feta. Yeah. It’s a place called Devon Market.” The tall, white, American man drifted in front of the deli counter. If his euphoric expression and phone conversation hadn’t given him away as a first-timer, his massive, empty […]

The post Devon Market? Divine market! appeared first on Chicago Reader.