Chicago Restaurant Week is just around the corner! Make your plans and reservations early for these great deals:
FIRST TIME RESTAURANT WEEKERS
Bar Biscay
Chef Johnny Anderes starts his first RW menu with a favorite appetizer – gougères – before moving onto a comforting clam and jamon Fabada and the West Town restaurant’s sausage-stuffed peppers. The menu finishes with a new dessert, a light coconut cake with pumpkin puree and toasted pepitas. Don’t forget to add on a porron of wine and ask the friendly staff for a demonstration.
Menu here. $48 for four-course dinner. Available Tues-Sun.
Funkenhausen
Chef Mark Steuer offers up one of Funkenhausen’s top sellers to start. The Charred Broccolini was inspired by his childhood loathing of the version his mom and grandmother made and his motivation to reinvent it. He removed the bacon and lets the smoke flavor come via the grilled broccolini, which replaced the original broccoli. Golden raisins are rehydrated in cider vinegar to provide an acidic balance, while buttermilk dressing subs in for mayo. Toasted hazelnuts and a drizzle of chili oil finish the dish. For mains, he offers a pork schnitzel or ruby trout filet, before the black forest donut as a final sweet treat.
Menu here. $36 for three-course dinner. Available all seven days.
mfk.
This Lakeview restaurant is participating in Restaurant Week for the first time since opening in 2014. Expect Spanish fare with a twist from Chef Alisha Elenz, a 2019 nominee for Jean Banchet’s Rising Star award, from Boquerones to start to roasted cauliflower to mussels and clams.
Menu here. $48 for four-course dinner. Available Tues-Sun.
Walton St. Kitchen & Bar
This new Gold Coast restaurant is offering both lunch and dinner menus, with multiple options for each course. Try a lighter lunch entree from a French vegetable omelette, open-faced Caprese sandwich or Chinese Chicken salad, or pick a classic dinner entree like the steak frites, Berkshire pork chop or lamb Wellington.
Menu here. $24 for lunch, $48 for dinner. Available all seven days.
Wells St. Market
For a taste of everything for commitment-phobes, Wells St. Market is the place to go. Their Restaurant Week menu involves a token system purchased at Grand Central Bar that allows you to mix and match courses between some Chicago dishes at the variety of stalls. Pick a charcuterie board or arancini at Tempesta Market, before moving onto Piggie Smalls for a gyro or Pork & Mindy’s for a slider trio, finishing with a donut ice cream sandwich at Firecakes. The combinations are endless.
Menu here. $24 for lunch, $36 for three-course dinner. Available Mon-Fri.
RETURNING RWs
El Che Bar
Steak lovers need look no further than Chef John Manion’s Argentinean steakhouse in the West Loop. Starters include a light arugula salad or French onion empanada, before the second course of Patagonian Locro stew. The Asado course highlights the impressive open fire grill at the back of the restaurant, where you’ll find Manion prodding almost every night of the week. We’d recommend the 10oz grilled bricklayer ribeye served with housemade chimichurri sauce, or the salmon fillet for pescatarians. The meal is complete with a dulce de leche tres leches cake.
Menu here. $48 for four course dinner. Available Mon-Sat.
Gemini
Lincoln Park neighborhood spot is serving up both brunch and dinner. For brunch, start with the sticky cinnamon buns, before moving to a sweet strawberry and creme waffle or chorizo chilaquiles. The three-course dinner menu has highlights like grilled Spanish octopus, steak frites and an orange-tarragon creme brûlée.
Menu here. $24 for brunch, $48 for dinner. Brunch on Sat and Sun. Dinner available all seven days.
La Sirena Clandestina
At Chef John Manion’s first restaurant, he’s been holding down the fort on Fulton Market since opening in 2012, serving up his version of Brazilian beach food. Kick off your dinner with an empanada, before trying their kale salad or comforting black bean soup, and then the white fish biano or flat iron steak for mains. Finish off the meal with a bread pudding, topped with cachaça bananas, chocolate and whipped creme. For anyone checking prices: they’re offering an extra fourth course while still at the lower $36 price point.
Menu here. $36 for four-course dinner. Available Tues-Sun.
Smyth + The Loyalist
Fans of Chef John Shields’s food will love this affordable menu at the cozy Loyalist basement. Start with either a beef tartare or mussels before moving onto your choice of three entrees — and yes, the cheeseburger is on there! Finish off the meal with the finest hazelnut praline puff in town.
Menu here. $36 for three-course dinner. Available Mon-Sat.
Split-Rail
The bar was set high by Chef Zoe Schor with her wildly popular Friends vs. Seinfeld menu last year, so she picked a Netflix sensation to inspire this year’s menu – Queer Eye. Choose from two menus, either inspired by the show’s food & wine expert, Antoni Porowski, or “The Other Guys” aka. Tan France, Bobby Berk, Jonathan Van Ness and Karamo Brown. Fans of the show will love the quotes tied to each course, like these few:
- ‘You have to create little pockets of joy in your life to take care of yourself’ from Jonathan, which translates to a Bean and Cheese Empanada
- ‘When you’re feeling buried, you’re actually just planted’ from Bobby takes the form of a Shaved Vegetable Salad
- ‘Everybody looks good in a French tuck’ from Tan, translates to “It’s a French Tuck” chocolate creme puff dessert
Menu here. $48 for four-course dinner. Available Wed-Mon.
