GQ: Chicago is the Best Restaurant City in America

I guess if GQ says it than it's so. The focus of the press release was Moto, Alinea and Avenues. Three chefs from Trotter's and three restaurants I have yet to try.

The irony is that I've been saying Chicago is the best restaurant city all along for another reason. I can't think of another city that has such diversity and authenticity of ethnic restaurants. Almost more importantly, I can't think of any other city where there is nothing better to do than eat. New York has art and theatre, L.A. has the movies, Boston has colleges, New Orleans has the French Quarter and while that definitely includes restaurants it's very specific restaurants. Closer to home, Milwuakee has bars, Indianapolis has the raceway but what does Chicago have? I'd say restaurants. You could start to name them. Start with A - Alinea and Avenues sure, but there are 26 letters in the alphabet.

Alinea, Avenues and Moto are all on the short list but they're also on the short list of international eaters. Grant Achatz from Alinea says,

"I'd say 50 percent of our customers are from out of state, and we get a lot from London, Spain, and Japan.  We have become a destination city for food."

The big competition is NYC. GQ's Alan Richman writes

Wylie Dufresne, chef-owner of wd-50, a New York restaurant that features creative cooking similar to what's percolating in Chicago says, "Why does it seem an easier road for the Chicago boys?  I don't have an answer.  Maybe my food sucks and theirs doesn't."  The more likely answer, Richman writes, is that New York landlords are making spontaneity unaffordable, New Yorkers seem unresponsive to innovation, and too many successful new restaurants project an image that is the very opposite of inventive.  Bowles points out, "If we have it in Chicago, we support it.  We want people to succeed.  New York wants to crush you.  Nobody has it easy in New York. There it's about kicking the oven door closed and slamming the lid down on the pot.  It's all testosterone."

I could agree with that. It definitely fuels the "New York City as Myth" idea. I would consider an alternate possibility. Chicago has a large group of diverse eaters who are more interested in tasty food than good looking food, glamourous food. Being seen is cool but not the reason most of us go out. In New York I'd guess that people are out on a weekend fantasizing about being a star. Out on the town in New York City. The City IS myth. You go out at night and that night the city owns you. What show did you see? Who was in it? I saw them in the village las year... blah blah blah. Wow this food is pretty.

In Chicago when people go out they fantasize about the food. Out on the town in Chicago, you're seeing a play? Great! Where'd you go for dinner? Congrat's on your birthday/anniversary! Where'd you go for dinner?  New York city may be myth but Chicago is food.

Comments

[Chargenda]

The article was interesting, but still sort of condescending towards our city. I mean, we know what a great city it is, but the tone was like, oh wow, can you imagine that, good food in Chicago....

[Dana]

New Yorkers love good food, and if the food, like anything else they want, is not exceptional, the seller won't last. The idea that Chicago has anything on NY when it comes to diversity and authenticity is laughable, and while the food is OK here (yes, just OK) chefs from all over the world come to NY to make it. The city might be mythical to those who don't live in it, but it is very real and raw, and the energy is created not by where it places on a map but the people who live there.

I am so sick of reading self-congratulatory articles by Chicago authors who just want to hate on NYC. Chicago residents are so unwelcoming to NY'ers and have such chips on their shoulders about being "the second city" that articles like this are dripping with envy.

Be Chicago...that's it. Stop trying to convince people you're better than another city already.

[josh]

Dana- I wasn't hating on NY I was comparing Chicago to the rest of the country!

It bears to mention that this post was originally written in May of '06 and it just so happens that for the past 6 months I've been sharing time between an apartment in Edgewater and one in Chelsea. I've been eating out in NYC as often as I have been here. My opinion hasn't changed. That said, I do appreciate the volume more. If you want to eat a certain kind of food every night you could do so at a different restaurant every night.

That said, I stand by my opinion...
(more is not always better)

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[DCI77]

Although this article does have a somewhat hostile tone, I see Dana's comment as a double standard.

Dana said: "I am so sick of reading self-congratulatory articles by Chicago authors who just want to hate on NYC. Chicago residents are so unwelcoming to NY'ers and have such chips on their shoulders about being "the second city" that articles like this are dripping with envy."

Are you a transplant from NYC? Show me more than five articles that show Chicago "dripping with envy." Quick history lesson: the Second City moniker isn't due the inferiority complex but due The Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

I mean, isn't NYC and its residents (transplants & natives) guilty of boasting The City's famous moniker and that believing anything outside of its grounds is looked at as second tier and watered down? C'mon. To say that Chicago can never top NYC in terms of diversity and authenticity is ridiculous. Why can't Chicago borrow some of that swagger NYC has? Did NYC take out a loan on swagger that only she can use? It seems you've been drinking NYC Kool-Aid like it's water and think "well, it ain't in NYC so it's just okay at best." Get real.

Dana also said:"Be Chicago...that's it. Stop trying to convince people you're better than another city already."

I find it absolutely laughable that Chicago can't boast itself, and it's parameters of boastfulness is "just be Chicago" when in fact it is just being Chicago every single day. There was an article on Chicago being heralded as "Best American City for Theater" or something like that and of course an article comment was that only NYC could ever achieve such a thing, and that although there was good theater to be found in Chicago there was good theater to be found in other American cities.

You see, this all speaks of insecurity on those who think NYC is the pinnacle of everything. It creates suspicion and makes eyes roll when such statements of heralding Chicago are written and when bitter eyes read upon the article, is taken by the calf and slammed down twice as hard as it were praised. If Chicago is praised it better do so in the must self-depreciating way or else the contents and the city's residents will be seen as envious.

It's bad enough that most of the world and America have a bi-coastal mentality. When Chicago boasts it boasts and rightfully so.

In trains & buses people don't talk about NYC. The Trib or Sun-Times don't talk about NYC on its front pages. Only on the internet do I see people misconstruing the Second City moniker and turning it into something else entirely; and those people are usually A) transplants from NYC thinking the city is trying to live up to its east coast cousin or B) Chicago residents who really didn't actually