We don’t blame you if after the veritable Restaurant Month that was February - Local Tourist Restaurant Week, Chicago Originals Restaurant Week, actual Restaurant Week — you’re still completely exhausted from three-course prix fixes. It’s worth bracing yourself, though, for Chicago Chef Week, which kicks off next Monday and runs through Sunday the 28th. The gimmick here, and it’s a good one, is that these are all restaurants that are chef-driven, the kind of place where you can casually mention to your dining companion at Aja that “Oh, yeah, well it’s been great to see what Joshua Linton has been up to these days.” Extra bonuses: the three-course menus are $20 at lunch and $30 at dinner, $2 less than their Restaurant Week equivalents; the late-March date means more early-spring produce will make its way onto the menus.
As always with this sort of promotion, reservations fill up fast - check in with these restaurants ahead of time to make sure you can land a table. Being an informed consumer is always wise with this sort of thing, too — as the A.V. Club proved with their Restaurant Week calculator, sometimes these prix fixe deals aren’t actually as special as they seem. (Though some are: Blackbird’s prix-fixe lunch usually runs $25, and a three-course dinner for two at Mado can easily top $80.)
Here’s the full list of participating restaurants:
Aja
Avec
Big Jones
Blackbird
Boka, dinner only
Duchamp, dinner only
Elate
Eve
The Gage
Green Zebra, dinner only
Hearty, dinner only
Kith & Kin, dinner only
Landmark, dinner only
LM Le Restaurant, dinner only
Lockwood
Mado, dinner only
MarketHouse
Mercadito
Mexique
Perennial, dinner only
Piccolo Sogno
Prairie Fire
Province
The Publican
Sepia
Socca, dinner only
Sola, dinner only
Spring, dinner only
Vie, dinner only
Zealous, dinner only
Chicago Chef Week [Official Site]
