Lynette Smith 
Bright sauce, gooey mozz, and spicy beef wrapped up in a flour tortilla, then fried — the Pizza Puff, which was created by the Chicago-based company Iltaco, has been filling local bellies since 1978. The snack reminds me of rushing home after a long day at middle school and wanting something to hold me over until dinner. … Read more
Barry Butler’s arresting visual love poems capture a shimmering metropolis flexing its muscles in its best light. (You will find five of his striking photographs in this feature.) Butler started shooting Chicago’s skyline and cityscapes as practice for trips to Europe and out west. People responded so well to his social media posts that he was … Read more
Tell an outlander you’re from Chicago and you’re likely to hear some version of “But, man, the weather.” Sure, it gets chilly here, but it’s not as cold or snowy as people think. (Boston receives significantly more snow, for instance, and we are hardly Fargo or Duluth on the teeth-chatter index.) And having to put … Read more
You know of Gene Kelly and Gregory Hines. Maybe Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and the Nicholas Brothers ring a bell? Savion Glover might be on your radar. What about Star Dixon, Mark Yonally, and Sterling Harris? In Chicago, masters like Robinson, Hines, and Glover are just part of the story of American tap dance. Tap dance’s … Read more
It’s far from perfect — there aren’t enough protected lanes, and there are way too many crashes. But speaking as someone who’s been commuting on a beat-up hybrid for 22 years, I can say that biking in Chicago has never been better. There are more people on bikes, which improves safety for everyone, and more drivers have … Read more
I love a fancy date — now that I work from home, I’ll take any excuse to put on a dress and go out for a tasting menu — but I also love extremely casual dates, when you head out with your partner because you can’t face the leftovers you’d planned to eat, or because you both had a … Read more
A good way to explore many of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods in one fell swoop is to venture along Western Avenue. It used to mark the western edge of the city, and at 24 miles, it’s an exceedingly long street — running from Howard Street on the north to 119th Street on the south — so there’s plenty to see. … Read more
You can smell the savory scent lingering in the air from at least three blocks away. Starting from 75th and Prairie and moving down the block, billows of fragrant smoke waft from Lem’s Bar-B-Q’s metal smokestack and hang appealingly over much of Chatham. As one of the originators of the iconic South Side barbecue aquarium … Read more
Chicago is already famous for its skyline, but its latest architectural wonders come with an added benefit: You can live in them. Well, maybe some of them. But one can dream of a place in the Gold Coast’s No. 9 Walton. The building’s 67 units start at around $1,320 per square foot , which gets you … Read more
The Chicago Sky rose from a No. 6 seed to win its first-ever WNBA title, ending its dominant playoff run with a comeback clincher at the cozy Wintrust Arena that thrilled attendees, including me, Chance the Rapper, and seemingly the area’s entire girls’ hoops population. The bad news is that the very existence of the … Read more
