A Foodlover's Guide to Great Eating in Chicago

Chicago offers its visitors authentic food with history, with flavors that have evolved along with the city's immigrant roots. Knowing how to identify the real deal is an important part of the Chicago culinary experience. These Chicago originals set the standard for good eating in the Windy City.

Chicago Style Hot Dogs

Fluky's was founded in 1929 just as the Depression hit. From its first location at Maxwell and Halsted, the company opened three more locations by 1936. Fluky's success was built on its five-cent "Depression Sandwich . . . a Hot Dog with mustard, relish, onion, pickles, pepper, lettuce, tomatoes and french fries."

Fluky's website shares its classic recipe for a Chicago-style hot dog: a steamed all-beef frankfurter served on a steamed poppy seed bun with, in this order, yellow mustard, sweet relish (preferably an unnaturally bright green variety), chopped onions, a slim Kosher dill pickle spear, sliced tomatoes, hot Serrano sport peppers, and a sprinkling of celery salt.

The recipe for Chicago-style dogs is notable for what it does not include. Ketchup on hot dogs is anathema to Chicagoans.

Maxwell Street Polish

With Fluky's already established in the Maxwell Street market area, competing entrepeneur Jimmy Stefanovic took over his aunt and uncle's nearby hot dog stand in 1939. He distinguished himself by introducing a sausage on a bun that would become another mainstay of Chicago street cuisine, the Maxwell Street Polish.

Grilled, not steamed like the Chicago-style hot dog, the Maxwell Street Polish sausage is trimmed with grilled sweet onions and yellow mustard (again, no ketchup, please). Hot sport peppers are optional.

The tradition continues at Jim's Original, 1250 S. Union Street, where the business relocated due to expansion of the University of Illinois Chicago campus.

Deep Dish and Stuffed Pizza

Chicago's deep dish pizza, a thick, cheesy pie baked in a heavily oiled high-rimmed cake pan, is said to have originated in 1943 at Pizzeria Uno, an institution on the corner of Ohio Street and Wabash Avenue that is now surrounded by the trendy River North district. From this beginning came Pizzeria Due, opened in1965 just a block west at 619 North Wabash.

Now part of an international corporation operating restaurants known as Uno Chicago Grill, these two originals preserve the charm of their historical locations. Many locals, however, have perceived a change in the taste and quality of the product now served there.

Luckily, diners have numerous choices among competing establishments as other purveyors of deep dish pizza have filled the market with their own Chicago style recipes.

Nancy's and Giordano's, both with claim to best-of-Chicago titles, introduced stuffed pizza as a variation of deep dish or pan pizza. Stuffed pizza adds a circle of crust separating its base of cheese and other ingredients from the final layer of tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese.

Where to Find the Best Chicago Style Food

Today, hungry Chicagoans can find hot dog stands and restaurants advertising Vienna all-beef hot dogs all over town and throughout the suburbs. Most reliably authentic, in addition to Fluky's, Jim's Original and others, is Portillo's, a privately owned chain still run personally and with clockwork efficiency by Dick Portillo.

For pizza of all configurations in the Chicago style, thin, deep dish or stuffed, Giordano's never fails to please. Both Giordano's and Nancy's have expanded north, south, and west to the farthest reaches of Chicagoland.

Sources

Ira Berkow, "Jimmy Stefanovic," Maxwell Street, Survival in a Bazaar (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), pp. 493-497.

Website of Jim's Original.

Fluky's website.

Chicago Style Hot Dog

Giordano's Stuffed Pizza - Spinach

Jim's Original Hot Dog Stand

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