This is the first in a series of posts about Chicago Restaurant Week, which takes place February 1–10, 2013.
As a foodie in Chicago, one of the best moments of every year is the day that Restaurant Week reservations open, usually in early January. Much like a first look at the NCAA bracket or the Lollapalooza lineup, it brings a serious rush of possibility and excitement for how this year’s event could unfold.
For the uninitiated, Restaurant Week is a dining event in which participating restaurants offer special prix-fixe menus for a set price of $22 at lunch and $33 or $44 at dinner, regardless of their normal pricing. At many of the city’s best restaurants, this is not only a great deal, but a fun way to get a more complete taste of what the restaurant offers. It’s also a great excuse to go to new or unfamiliar places and plan food-centric outings with friends. And this isn’t unique to Chicago – New York, Boston, DC, and other major cities also hold their own Restaurant Week once or twice a year.
Anyway, once I see Restaurant Week announcements take over my Twitter feed, it’s go time. In urgent research mode, I first pour over which new restaurants are participating from a lengthy, unfiltered list of more than 250, and then size up their menus one-by-one, strategizing which would be best for lunch and for dinner, and which reservations will fill up the fastest. I also start recruiting dining companions and laying out a potential schedule.
The best way to keep track of all this information? A Google spreadsheet, of course! (Full disclosure: this is coming from the same girl who, as a child, made a Excel file with a full inventory of her Halloween candy; and as a teen, documented online quiz results in PowerPoint for a presentation that would never actually occur.) Call me neurotic, but I’ve found it’s the best way to reference everything at once. Hopefully the Restaurant Week site will build out more customization for individual users in coming years – as in, logging in and creating your own favorites list and schedule, with built-in OpenTable reservation links – but for now, I’m happy to copy and paste.
Last year, I visited five restaurants for Restaurant Week. I’ve made three reservations so far, but am tempted to break my record and go for six. And don’t worry, I’ll be documenting my meals with Evernote Food, one of my favorite iPhone apps, and sharing the highlights here on hillaryproctor.com.
Have you ever participated in Restaurant Week? Have you made any reservations yet for this year?