Chicago: You're my kind of town

I know there's more to you than hotdogs and pizza...

Mark Twain once wrote, “It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago – she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them. She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you passed through the last time.” 

He was right. 

I recently returned from a trip to Chicago to visit our son and his partner who live there. Over the last seven years, I’ve been there more than a dozen times. And, like Twain, I have found that each trip has been different from the one before and showed me new things to love about the Windy City. 

Just like I always tell people who visit New Orleans to see Bourbon Street for a minute, then explore the rest of the city outside of the French Quarter, I always tell people who ask me about Chicago to walk the Magnificent Mile then get out into the rest of the city. (Don’t even bother with Navy Pier unless you just loved the food court in the mall when you were a teenager.)

That’s because one of the great things about Chicago is its unique neighborhoods. Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, Old Town, China Town, Wriglyville, Hyde Park, Logan Square, Pilsen, West Town, Ukrainian Village…there’s so much to see and do and eat! 

Then there’s the museums. Of course you have to go to the Art Institute of Chicago, but don’t sleep on the Museum of Contemporary Art. Go to the Chicago Cultural Center to see the world’s largest Tiffany dome. See the big ones like the Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry. And check out smaller ones too like the International Museum of Surgical Science. 

As you may know, one of Ricky’s and my favorite things to do is collect vinyl records, and Chicago has some fabulous record stores. Reckless Records, Shuga Records, Dusty Groove, and Laurie’s Planet of Sound are some of our go-tos. 

(Subscribe to our music and cocktail zine, The Popskull Penumbra, to find out what we currently have on our turntable.)

Aside from museums and shopping for records, our other favorite thing to do is eat, hence this very Substack. There’s not enough room to name all the places we’ve eaten in Chicago, and frankly I probably can’t remember every single one. So this list will just feature the places we visited on this last trip which includes some old favorites and, now, some new favorites. And not even one mention of hotdogs or pizza.

• The Drawing Room at the Chicago Athletic Association – dark wood, leather sofas, like going back a century or so

• Russian Tea Time – real high tea, real good time

• pingpong – inspired by 1930’s Asian-American food, great cocktails with flowers floating in them

• Salonica – this little Greek diner is so old school they don’t even have a website and I’m pretty sure somebody’s granny waited on us, and I’m also pretty sure other grannies were back in the kitchen turning out some of the best food I’ve ever eaten, including the Greek “gumbo”

• Sayat Nova – Authentic Armenian cuisine just off the MagMile; this is one of the few times I’ll tell you to eat in this area which is otherwise filled with chains chains chains (the other two are Marisol and Star of Siam)

• Topo Gigio – great Italian within a couple blocks of The Second City

• The Hi-Lo – fun cocktails in the Humboldt Park neighborhood; get the Popcorn Masala Daiquiri (just trust me on this one…you won’t be sorry)

• Heritage Restaurant & Caviar Bar – oysters and champagne, ‘nuff said; well, not quite enough…you know I had to order something the menu called “Study of Asparagus”

• D Cuisine – affordable dim sum every day, all day; I could eat my weight in the baked barbecue pork buns

• Bistro Monadnock – thought I was in France, but I was still in the Loop (fun fact: the Monadnock Building is the tallest load-bearing brick building ever constructed – 215 feet) 

• Spoken: A Cafe – both of the owners are from South Louisiana so along with your coffee and bagels, you can get boudin and gumbo

• Barba Yianni Grecian Taverna – Sit by the wide open windows or on the sidewalk and enjoy authentic Greek food, Greek wines, and Greek hospitality

• Goddess and the Baker – this was one of the very first places I ever went to in Chicago, and I always have to make a nostalgic trip back for avocado toast and a latte

This post is obviously just a very brief overview, just a snapshot of a few days. I could erally write volumes about Chicago! I still haven’t talked about shopping or bookstores or parks or architectural tours or the lakefront or public art or “da Bears!”

Suffice it to say, you just need to go visit…maybe twice…probably three times…even ten times! Chicago is one of the best cities in the world, and everything good is there, just waiting for you to come and experience it.