On restaurant superlatives

and why it's fun to cast them aside

Fire chicken (always with cheese!) at Dancen

I get asked an awful lot about “bests” where eating is concerned. What’s your favorite restaurant? What’s the best new restaurant in Chicago? Who has the best brunch? (Seriously?) Who makes Chicago’s best burger/ramen/tacos/pizza/sushi/Italian beef?

The funny thing is, the types who ask me these questions often have a few answers of their own lined up already. “But don’t you think X has, like, the most amazing carne asada?”

I realize there’s merit in asking someone who covers dining for a living to give up their favorites, especially since going out to eat has gotten so expensive. Theoretically, I bring some expertise to the conversation. But I’d also imagine if you’re enthusiastic about some food—say, egg sandwiches—then part of the fun would be to work your way through each version you come across, deciding which place has the most impeccably cooked egg, balanced ratio of fillings, squishiest (aka best) bread, etc, to suit your exacting specs. Even if you don’t care all that much about dining out, there’s joy in getting to know your hometown and places you visit through sniffing out the things you like to eat as a low-stakes form of cultural exploration.

What I find a bit strange about seeking some kind of consensus on the “best” is that each of us has a singular palate, honed through the gloriously vast and disconcertingly limiting combination of our DNA and how we were raised, what we ate when we were small (for survival and hopefully delight), where we’ve lived and traveled, our socioeconomic status, what we’ve learned to value, who we’ve hung around with, what we read/watch/listen to, and on and on. What we like doesn’t always match up with objective excellence. Consider our culture’s undying devotion to pretty much everything McDonald’s makes.

How much can we really evolve what we’re hardwired to crave? More importantly, do most of us care enough to, barring some major life shift or medical diagnosis? I find these quandaries much more fascinating than splitting hairs over “superior” smash burger caramelization—because they get at the meat of who we are as sentient, occasionally rational, messy, carnal, emotionally volatile beasties who eat to live and sometimes live to eat.

String! Bean! Salad! ‘nough said.

That said, I do understand the role of best-of lists as anchors holding down our gastronomic communities and their subcategories of sustenance—not to mention our more granular personhoods. For example, I have a (growing) shortlist of Chicago restaurants and watering holes I send to anyone coming to the city for the first time who asks. Here my motives aren’t just to be agreeable, but to show off what makes eating and drinking here so great through the lens of what I subjectively love.

…Yes, I’ll paste it below, you vultures. But I’ll do so with a glaring caveat: Though technically I’m a food writer, this compendium more accurately reflects the preferences honed by a weirdo who doesn’t feel satiated without a foundation of pasta/grains/dumplings/bread, who feels at home in low-lit, occasionally sticky neighborhood bars, who thinks eggs are the perfect food, who likes acidic things (coffee! lemon! pickles! vinegar! tomatoes!) far more than her teeth do at this life stage, who loves nothing more than a gargantuan salad, who usually only wants one cocktail and then will exclusively drink wine (preferably light and a little funky), who likes fish sauce and/or oily fish in pretty much everything, who wants to load up on the appetizers and then eat—like—five bites of steak, who firmly believes in ordering the roast chicken, who could give two fucks about dessert on most days.

What cartoonish combo of nature/nurture/noodles made this creature? Why would anyone listen to what it thinks is good?

That’s not to say I haven’t broadened my taste preferences and developed an appreciation for things outside my own personal comfort-food cocoon, which has no doubt shifted me in small ways over time, just like my digestive tract became more vocal about its demands after I passed 35.

Even so, this list woefully underrepresents all that’s great to eat and drink in my fair city—as it fucking should. I’m one person with one palate sharing some of what I like that I’ve tried. Everyone with a bit of means should take the time to learn this for themselves; after all, it is one of the very, very good parts about being alive.

A handful of my all-time favorite places to eat and drink and generally feel the invigorating joys of being alive in Chicago include:

Le Bouchon, El Che Steakhouse, Middle Brow Bungalow, Virtue, Dear Margaret, Daisies, Lula Cafe, Thattu, Nine Bar, Osteria Langhe, Dancen, MCCB, Club Lucky, RedHot Ranch, Tre Kronor, Qing Xiang Yuan, the oyster bar at Shaw’s Crab House, Uru Swati, Simon’s Tavern, Giant, the cocktail lounge at Travelle, Rossi’s Liquors, Green Eye Lounge, Nhu Lan Bakery, Brasero, Lilac Tiger, Loba Pastry + Coffee, Loaf Lounge, Webster's Wine Bar, Rootstock, Deep Red Wine Merchants, Weegee’s Lounge on a Thursday night when Mister Tom Musick is performing, Tuk Tuk Thai Isan Street Food, Anelya and Cariño’s late-night taco omakase.

Tacos: Taqueria Chingón, L’Patron, La Chaparrita, plus every corner and mid-block taco joint that’s been within walking distance of wherever I’ve lived because tacos in Chicago are TRUTH.

Alive!