Chicago’s very own Restaurant Week starts this Friday (running through next Friday),
and we can’t think of a better way to plan for it than OpenTable (in conjunction with MenuPages, obviously). They have a special listing of r-week restaurants, making it easy to click through and see what’s available for your scheduling needs. But what OT doesn’t tell you is which of these restaurants will offer you a good value for your $31.95 prix fixe dinner, which includes an appetizer, an entree and dessert, but not sides, beverages, tax or tip. So we’ve gone through the menus and tallied up the average price at each participating restaurant for the three courses in question in order to give you a sense of the magnitude of the deal. Here are the eleven (why not?) most expensive Restaurant Week options:
• Aigre Doux, $55
• Aria, $50
• Naha: $58
• Nick’s Fishmarket: $56
• one sixtyblue: $56
• Prosecco: $45
• Ruth’s Chris Steak House: $60
• Shula’s Steakhouse: $61
• Sullivan’s Steakhouse: $60, but they serve a $29 prix fixe on Sundays
• SushiSamba Rio: $45
• The Lobby: $53
One must keep in mind that a simple averaging of the standard menu prices is not the whole story. You’re just as likely to be given prix fixe options from the very cheapest of the dishes that the restaurant normally serves, rather than from the middle, especially at the pricier places. The fact that Sullivan’s Steakhouse has an average app+entree+dessert of $60 but manages to serve a $29 prix fixe on Sundays is a perfect illustration of that principle. The prime rib that comes as the prix fixe’s entree is not even on the normal menu! And while the appetizers generally run $11-$14, the salads are in the $5-$7 range, and you might be stuck with something like that at your Restaurant Week dinner. Still, a consistent metric is better than no metric at all, and any of the aforementioned restaurants’ prix fixes qualify as a deal in our book. Reserve early, and reserve often.
2008 Chicago Restaurant Week - Eat It Up [Official Site]
Chicago Restaurant Week [OpenTable]
[Photo: Chicago Restaurant Week’s official logo]
