Food

Parachute re-opens as a listening bar focused on music paired with casual food and drinks. Lula Cafe debuts a creative space for various ticketed events. In an adverse environment, independent restaurateurs are experimenting with new ways to succeed and survive.

While summer festival season winds down, there are still a handful of fall food festivities to savor this October before winter sets in, with wine and beer taking center stage. 

Filbert's Old Time Root Beer was started by Charles Filbert in 1926. His grandson Ron continues to run it today, producing pop on old-fashioned machinery on the Southwest Side. 

Try a simple, warming dessert perfect to make with a child. 

Make a customizable, fun snack or dinner with kids that's inspired by the PBS KIDS show Rosie's Rules.

As Cook's Country launches its 17th season and its editor in chief releases a book called When Southern Women Cook, try a recipe for extra cheesy grits.

Three new artisan cafés and bakeries have opened in the same zip code around McKinley Park in the past couple months, feeding a hunger on the near Southwest Side.

In the thirteenth season of Pati's Mexican Table, Pati Jinich explores Mexico's largest state, Chihuahua. Get a sample with her recipe for skirt steak nachos.

As America's Test Kitchen celebrates 25 years on public television with a new season and new special, try their recipe for plov, a Central Asian rice dish spotlighting beef and carrots. 

The South Shore Cultural Center was once a country club that excluded Black people. Now it's home to a soul food restaurant owned by a Black entrepreneur.

As summer transitions to fall, there are still plenty of opportunities to get outside for food festivals in Chicago and the suburbs. Taste of Chicago returns in September. Plus, there are several Oktoberfest celebrations across the area this month. 

Plenty of convention business and hobnobbing takes place in the lobbies, bars, and restaurants of the luxury hotels like the Four Seasons where attendees stay. "I was kind of surprised by the amount of grilled cheese we sold," says the chef of the hotel's restaurant, Adorn.

From cramped corner stores to big local chains, our audience shared memories of grocery stores in the Chicago area both extant and long-gone. The reminiscences track the changing landscape of grocery stores over the decades. 

In a new book, Chicago author and beer journalist Josh Noel chronicles the rise of Malört, Chicago's loathed and loved liquor.

The neighborhood of Dunning may be unofficially known as Chicago's other Little Italy, but new businesses serving Vietnamese-inspired beer, Turkish delights, and scratch-made tamales and tacos have recently sprouted up as well.