20 Chicago Foods That Deserve More Attention Than Deep-Dish Pizza
Chicago Has a Lot More on the Menu
Deep-dish pizza may get most of the attention whenever Chicago food comes up, but the city's culinary identity goes far beyond one famously saucy pie. Generations of immigrants, neighborhood restaurants, bakeries, street stands, and local traditions have created dishes that are every bit as Chicago as deep-dish, even if plenty of tourists have never heard of them. From messy sandwiches to old-school desserts, these 20 foods deserve a little more time in the spotlight.
1. Italian Beef
Italian beef is one of the foods Chicagoans are most fiercely proud of, and it's easy to see why. Thin slices of seasoned roast beef are piled onto a sturdy Italian roll and usually topped with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. You can order it dry, wet, or completely dipped in the beef's cooking juices, depending on how much you care about keeping your shirt clean.
scaredy_kat / Krista on Wikimedia
2. Chicago-Style Hot Dogs
There's a lot happening inside a proper Chicago-style hot dog, but somehow all of it works together. A beef frank sits inside a poppy seed bun with yellow mustard, chopped onion, sweet relish, tomato, a pickle spear, sport peppers, and celery salt. Ketchup is famously left out, and even mentioning it can still bring out some surprisingly strong opinions.
arnold inuyaki / Arnold Gatilao on Wikimedia
3. Jibaritos
Chicago's Puerto Rican community gave the city one of its most distinctive sandwiches. Instead of bread, a jibarito uses flattened, fried green plantains to hold meat, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and garlicky mayonnaise. It's crispy, filling, and proof that some of Chicago's best foods don't always make it onto the typical tourist checklist.
4. Maxwell Street Polish
Few late-night Chicago meals hit the spot quite like a Maxwell Street Polish. The grilled or fried Polish sausage comes on a bun with yellow mustard and plenty of grilled onions, while sport peppers are often added for a little extra heat. It's simple, flavorful, and closely tied to the street-food culture that grew around the Maxwell Street area.
5. Pizza Puffs
Pizza doesn't need to arrive in a huge pan to count as a Chicago favorite. The pizza puff wraps cheese, tomato sauce, and usually sausage or pepperoni inside a tortilla-like dough before it's deep-fried. You'll find it at neighborhood hot dog stands all over the city, where it's often ordered as casually as fries or onion rings.
6. Chicken Vesuvio
Chicken Vesuvio is such a familiar Chicago restaurant dish that you might assume it was imported directly from Italy. It usually combines roasted chicken with potatoes, garlic, white wine, herbs, and sometimes peas. Its exact beginnings are a little murky, but its long connection to Chicago's Italian-American restaurants is much clearer.
7. Breaded Steak Sandwiches
The breaded steak sandwich doesn't get the same national attention as Italian beef, but plenty of Chicagoans know exactly how good it can be. A thin piece of breaded beef is fried, tucked into a roll, and covered with tomato sauce, peppers, and melted cheese. It's especially tied to the city's South Side, where places like Ricobene's helped turn it into a local institution.
8. Mild Sauce
Mild sauce isn't technically a meal, but leaving it off a list of Chicago food traditions just wouldn't feel right. Commonly associated with South and West Side chicken joints, the tangy, sweet sauce gets poured over fried chicken, wings, fries, and other fast-food favorites. Recipes differ from one place to another, which is why people can get very particular about who makes the best version.
9. Chicago-Style Tamales
The tamales sold at Chicago hot dog stands are pretty different from traditional Mexican tamales. These versions are usually machine-made, wrapped in paper rather than corn husks, and have a soft cornmeal exterior surrounding seasoned meat. They're often eaten alongside hot dogs and fries, making them a strangely specific but beloved part of the city's fast-food culture.
Southern Foodways Alliance on Wikimedia
10. Mother-in-Law Sandwiches
The name alone makes the mother-in-law sandwich worth asking about. This South Side specialty puts a Chicago-style tamale inside a hot dog bun before topping it with chili and sometimes onions or other extras. It's messy, heavy, and exactly the kind of hyper-local food many visitors don't even realize exists.
Southern Foodways Alliance on Wikimedia
11. Gym Shoe Sandwiches
Despite the unusual name, there aren't actually any sneakers hiding inside a gym shoe sandwich. The South Side creation typically loads several meats, including roast beef, corned beef, and gyro meat, onto a long roll with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, and sauce. It's the sort of sandwich you order when choosing just one meat feels a little too limiting.
12. Rib Tips
Chicago's barbecue traditions don't always get the same national attention as those of Memphis, Kansas City, or Texas. Rib tips, cut from the cartilage-heavy ends of spare ribs, are especially important to the city's South Side barbecue culture. Smoked until tender and usually covered in sauce, they're rich, chewy, and far more important to Chicago food history than many outsiders realize.
Southern Foodways Alliance on Wikimedia
13. Aquarium-Smoked Barbecue
Part of what makes Chicago barbecue stand out is the equipment used to cook it. Many South Side barbecue restaurants rely on glass-walled "aquarium smokers," which let customers watch meats cooking over wood and charcoal. The method has become closely associated with Chicago-style ribs, rib tips, and hot links.
Southern Foodways Alliance on Wikimedia
14. Chicago-Style Thin-Crust Pizza
Deep-dish may be the pizza tourists come expecting, but plenty of Chicagoans are just as happy eating something much thinner. Tavern-style pizza has a crisp crust, toppings that often stretch right to the edge, and square-cut pieces instead of the usual triangular slices. Those little center squares may not be as dramatic in photos, but they have a huge following across the city.
Shsilver at en.wikipedia on Wikimedia
15. Rainbow Cone
Chicago summers have been a little sweeter since the Original Rainbow Cone began serving its signature dessert in 1926. The cone stacks slices of chocolate, strawberry, Palmer House, pistachio, and orange sherbet instead of using ordinary scoops. Every flavor tastes different on its own, but eating them all together is what turned it into a Chicago classic.
16. Atomic Cake
Atomic cake is one of those desserts that makes you wonder why more people outside Chicago don't know about it. Traditionally, it combines layers of banana, yellow, and chocolate cake with fillings like bananas, strawberries, custard, and whipped cream. It's particularly associated with South Side bakeries and regularly shows up at birthdays, parties, and family celebrations.
17. Paczki
Chicago's large Polish community has helped turn paczki into a beloved seasonal tradition across the city. These rich Polish pastries look a little like doughnuts but use a heavier dough and come stuffed with fillings ranging from raspberry and plum to custard and cream. Around Fat Tuesday, bakeries can draw long lines of people who quickly decide buying only one probably isn't enough.
18. Garrett Mix Popcorn
Combining cheese popcorn with caramel popcorn may sound a little strange until you actually taste it. Garrett Popcorn Shops helped popularize the combination now known as Garrett Mix, which balances salty cheese popcorn with sweet caramel-coated kernels. It's become a classic edible souvenir, although Chicagoans have been enjoying the combination for decades.
19. Flaming Saganaki
The familiar cry of "Opa!" followed by a burst of flame has long been part of the experience at Chicago's Greektown restaurants. Saganaki itself is a Greek fried-cheese dish, but the tableside flaming presentation became especially famous in Chicago. That bit of theater helped turn an already delicious plate of browned, melted cheese into a local dining tradition.
20. Palmer House Brownie
Chicago can make a pretty strong claim to one of America's favorite desserts. The Palmer House hotel traces its brownie recipe back to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, when Bertha Palmer reportedly wanted a portable dessert that could be served in boxed lunches. The result was a dense chocolate treat topped with walnuts and apricot glaze, giving Chicago's food history an especially sweet ending.
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