Introducing Chicago
The line spills out the door and curls clear around the corner. You do the right thing and wait with the mod crowd, stomach growling with each warm spicy waft of the air. Finally, you’re in! But ordering presents a challenge –will it be the blue cheese pork with cherry cream sauce and dried apricots, or the sesame-ginger duck?
The former, you decide, and when it arrives you almost faint after the first flavor-packed blast snaps in your mouth. The national press has been hinting that Chicago is the country’s new culinary star, and you couldn’t agree more. Funny thing is, you’re eating at a hot dog stand.
Granted, it’s a gourmet hot dog stand (called Hot Doug’s and beloved by foodies everywhere), but it sums up Chicago’s essence in a bite – this is a city that loves and seamlessly merges high culture and earthy pleasures. Take the Art Institute, revered house of impressionism and more than a quarter million works. What happens come Super Bowl time? The museum straps giant fiberglass Bears helmets onto its front entrance lion sculptures. Or look at Crown Fountain, another creation that design critics laud. Venerated as high art by locals? Nope, it’s just a water park to splash around in.
That’s not to say Chicago doesn’t take its greatness seriously. It gets irritated by the whole ‘Second City’ thing, the name implying inferiority to the cities on the coasts. Please. Didn’t Saveur magazine just rank Chicago over New York as having the nation’s best restaurant scene? And didn’t Chicago just kick LA to win the US 2016 Olympic bid? Thought so.
Last updated: Nov 5, 2008
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Cityscape behind the 'Bean' sculpture.
- John Sones
- Lonely Planet photographer
