Chicago Dining Recommendations

[7ontheline]

Oh, I forgot about Spring. Definitely good. Probably as good as MK, but Blackbird is still better.

Anyway, there's a lot of bad advice in this thread if you're looking for a pretty nice place that isn't just a steakhouse. Citanul is pretty spot-on although I'm not a big fan of Italian as "fine dining." I don't think it's particularly impressive for the money - still, it's great for some people, especially parents.

[dogdrool]

Saw the new "trip to Chicago" thread and wanted to say that I was in Chicago this weekend and hit up Blackbird based on this thread. The food was amazing. I would recommend the restaurant to anybody -- especially young people looking to have a very nice meal (the place isn't one of those stuffy nice places).

[PartyGirlUK]

Some guys recommended Rhapsody to me today. Thoughts?

[7ontheline]

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Saw the new "trip to Chicago" thread and wanted to say that I was in Chicago this weekend and hit up Blackbird based on this thread. The food was amazing. I would recommend the restaurant to anybody -- especially young people looking to have a very nice meal (the place isn't one of those stuffy nice places).

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You're welcome. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[7ontheline]

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Some guys recommended Rhapsody to me today. Thoughts?

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Pretty meh. Food is decent but there is better for the same price in the city. I've eaten at plenty of Steven Chiapetti (sp?) restaurants and he's always put out solid but not spectacular food. They may have changed executive chefs since I went, so you could check that if you wanted.

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, I forgot about Spring. Definitely good. Probably as good as MK, but Blackbird is still better.

Anyway, there's a lot of bad advice in this thread if you're looking for a pretty nice place that isn't just a steakhouse. Citanul is pretty spot-on although I'm not a big fan of Italian as "fine dining." I don't think it's particularly impressive for the money - still, it's great for some people, especially parents.

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Spring is a little bit overrated, IMO. Blackbird or Cafe Absinthe, both mentioned in this thread, are better choices.

[7ontheline]

I'm not a huge fan of Cafe Absinthe, but it's not bad. As an aside, I kinda like Brasserie Jo and Kiki's Bistro for fairly cheap French food, although those aren't what OP is looking for.

[citanul]

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Some guys recommended Rhapsody to me today. Thoughts?

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Dean,

Rhapsody is an interesting place. The food is competent but not stellar, but it is incredibly convenient to the CSO. The food is similarly overpriced. It does have a neat thing where the diningroom is entirely soundproof, so though it is at the intersection of 2 major streets and 50 feet from an El, none of the noise comes in. The interior is again a fantastic piece of work, where even when crowded your conversation does not travel to other tables nor does the sound of other groups flood yours. Basically, Rhapsody+CSO is a good thing, though not necessary to do multiple times. Within 2 blocks, I'd recommend Russian Tea Time over Rhapsody.

Blackbird, mentioned several times in this thread, is of course fantastic food. The Chef/Owner (team or single person, I can't remember) has/had another restaurant that was supposed to be very good (I can't remember if it was Pluton, but Pluton is gone now, so whatever). The thing that got me about Blackbird was the totally over the top-ness of the pretentiousness when I was there. Having a big label on the menu saying "servers' attire provided by Joseph Abboud" is just a bit much. I think that some of the feeling I got that my date and I were being kept away from the other diners was because someone who was likely Russel Crowe was coming in halfway through our meal,and they didn't want to seat anyone within 2 tables of him. Not a simple task at a 12 table restaurant...

Spring I think is overrated, but that's not because it's not really, really good food. It's just because people totally sweat Shawn Maclain (spelling terrible I'm sure)'s nuts. Personally I was unimpressed by Green Zebra, his other no-red-meat restaurant. Last night I took some friends to Custom House (Dean, this was in the same building as your hotel! But you moved already from what I understand?) his semi-new steakhouse. While slightly more expensive than average steakhouse, not much more. The food was not as copious as at other steakhouses either, but no-one was hungry at the end of the meal. Except or my friend who think that anything with salt in it is salty, everyone thought the food was terrific. A good choice for steakhouse if you have people in your party who don't like steak. Most, if not all of the steakhouses in Chicago I've been to aside from this one have shown themselves to be incompetent at preparing seafood. A shame.

Seafood restaurant I recently went to that had me very happy was Scylla. I don't know if I already mentioned that in this thread.

Maybe sometime after I get back from Vegas we can set up some kind of 2+2 nice meal in Chicago thing. Who knows.

citanul

[citanul]

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I'm not a huge fan of Cafe Absinthe, but it's not bad. As an aside, I kinda like Brasserie Jo and Kiki's Bistro for fairly cheap French food, although those aren't what OP is looking for.

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7,

Check out Bistro Campagne. Good, inexpensive French food, high quality. Good beer selection. Good atmosphere. Good, reasonable, wine list. etc.

citanul

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

[ QUOTE ]
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I'm not a huge fan of Cafe Absinthe, but it's not bad. As an aside, I kinda like Brasserie Jo and Kiki's Bistro for fairly cheap French food, although those aren't what OP is looking for.

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7,

Check out Bistro Campagne. Good, inexpensive French food, high quality. Good beer selection. Good atmosphere. Good, reasonable, wine list. etc.

citanul

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Cafe Bernard isn't bad either. Generally, as far as comfort food goes, Italian is way overrated and French is way underrated, at least in Chicago.