Next year, Chicago will be a very different place. Titans shall rest. Regimes will change. Power centers will shift and old bosses will be swept aside. But enough about Oprah leaving. Let’s just reflect on a few of the high points from this year.
This was a really good year if you like steak. (Well, this is Chicago. It’s always a good year if you like steak.) But the old-fashioned steakhouse got a high-tech makeover with Chicago Cut’s iPad wine list, perfect for when you’re looking for perfect cab to pair with “Bed Intruder Song.”
There was the wild boar sloppy joe. Those frog legs in buffalo-wing sauce. And so, so much whiskey. It was enough for those Michelin people, but you wanted more: a place to sleep decked out with contemporary art. Thanks to Longman, now you can nest.
Street-fair season got a serious extension this year with one simple formula: take a bar, remove roof, add beer. Yes, the longest lines were on Wells Street this summer, but when the roof magically moved back in place... the party stayed. Take a lesson, Metrodome.
We’re always up for a surprise. And for shooting an apple off someone’s head. So it was nice that we found this new archery range, which promises to do for bows and arrows what the bowling alley did for ugly shoes.
We didn’t get the Olympics, but we did get this: the National Cougar Convention, when a darkened ballroom near the airport became pouncing grounds for hundreds of mature women and their less-mature admirers. Suppliers of leopard-print caftans have yet to recover.
Top Chef sweetheart Stephanie Izard finally got her wood-fired oven stoked and brought the city to its knees with a heretofore undiscovered passion for smoked goat pizza, rolled-up pig’s faces and stout ice cream floats. Though, honestly, you didn’t really need the ice cream.
