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  • Best restaurant that's been around forever and is still worth the trip
  • Best fancy restaurant in Chicago
  • Best bang for your buck
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  • Best ampersand restaurant
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  • Best restaurant with a view
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  • Best neighborhood restaurant
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  • Best seafood restaurant
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  • Best Thai
  • Best vegetarian
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  • Best Italian steak house where my dad felt at home in the 60s and I do now
  • Best case of nostalgia, bordering on time travel
  • Best restaurant empire founded the same year as the Reader
  • Best restaurant
  • Best bargain Michelin chef
  • Best chef downshift, animal division
  • Best chef downshift, vegetable division
  • Best venerable restaurant alongside the el
  • Best new food truck
  • Best buffet
  • Best game day
  • Best dairy product to camp out in front of the cheese shop for
  • Best use of alcohol at breakfast
  • Best university coffeehouse
  • Best bakery you've never heard of
  • Best place to see bakers at work
  • Best place for ambience and egg sandwiches
  • Best bagel
  • Best tubular collaboration
  • Best sausage
  • Best place in Chicago to sample salumi from Mario Batali's papa
  • Best broccoli and shells con patio
  • Best fancy-pants pizza special
  • Best Polish-Mexican-American $1.50 taco
  • Best tater tots
  • Best spinach pie
  • Best som tam
  • Best soundtracked strawberry shake
  • Best newly minted (if loosely defined) neighborhood for destination dining
  • Best hangout after a day at Rogers Park's beaches
  • Best few square blocks to eat really well, and cheaply
  • Best place to feel bad about gentrification but good about your meal
  • Best restaurant staff bent on making your day
  • Best one-woman kitchen
  • Most underrated James Beard Award winner
  • Best new food blog
  • Best food blog written by a linguist
  • Best place to eat and drink for a good cause
  • Best CSA farmer to swoon over
  • Best canine control at a farmers' market
  • Best craft brewery that doesn't exist yet
  • Best cocktail book club
  • Best barbecue
  • Best burger