Chicago munchies are a regional cuisine with its own laws, and the laws are enforced by strangers. This is the stoner's guide to eating in Chicago: what to order, what not to put on it, and where to go when the craving hits. We sort it two ways, by craving first and then by part of town, so you can find a beef or a taco or a fritter without reading a novel.
One rule up top. If you're eating high, you're not driving to get it. Take the L, take a cab, have a sober friend do the run, or pick the spot you can walk to. Chicago is a great walking city right up until February.
Pizza: tavern-style vs deep dish
Let's settle this so we can move on with our lives. Deep dish is real, it is delicious, and almost nobody who lives here eats it more than a couple times a year. It's a fork-and-knife event, it takes forever to bake, and it's what you take your cousin from Ohio to. Lou Malnati's is the crowd favorite for the buttery crust. Pequod's in Lincoln Park makes a pan pizza with cheese baked into a black, crispy halo around the edge, and if you're high when you eat that edge, you'll remember it.
The pizza Chicagoans actually eat on a Tuesday is tavern-style. Thin, cracker-crisp crust, sauce and toppings to the edge, cut into squares (the "party cut") so the middle pieces stay floppy and the edge pieces become prizes. It came out of neighborhood bars that wanted something cheap to keep people drinking. Vito & Nick's on the Southwest Side is the reference point. Most corner joints in the city will hand you a decent one.
Tavern-style is the better stoner pizza. Squares are easier to share, easier to eat lying down, and there's no structural collapse. Deep dish is for when you have a plan. Tavern is for when you don't.
Italian beef: dipped, hot, no regrets
Thin-sliced roast beef, simmered in seasoned juice (the gravy), piled on a long roll. Then you choose. Dry means just the beef. Wet means a spoon of juice on top. Dipped means they dunk the whole sandwich, and it will fall apart, and that's the point. Hot means giardiniera, the oily pickled pepper-celery-carrot mix. Sweet means roasted sweet peppers. "Hot dipped" is the move. Add cheese if you want, nobody's checking.
Eat it standing up, elbows out, leaning over the counter. That's called the Italian Stance and it saves your shirt.
Al's #1 Italian Beef on Taylor Street is the classic. Mr. Beef on Orleans in River North is the cramped little shop with the line. Johnnie's Beef in Elmwood Park, just past the city line, is the one a lot of locals quietly rank first, and in summer they pair it with Italian ice. Portillo's is everywhere and consistently good, and their chocolate cake shake is a known stoner hazard.
Chicago dogs and the ketchup thing
A Chicago hot dog is an all-beef frank on a poppy seed bun, "dragged through the garden": yellow mustard, chopped onion, neon green relish, tomato slices, a pickle spear, sport peppers and a shake of celery salt. Seven toppings, zero ketchup. Ask for ketchup and you'll get it, plus a look.
Why no ketchup? The honest answer is that it's sweet and it bulldozes everything else on the bun. The real answer is that it's tradition and we enjoy having a rule. Put it on your fries.
Superdawg in Norwood Park is a 1940s drive-in with giant hot dog mascots on the roof and carhops who bring the tray to your window. Go with someone who's driving sober, or bike it. Gene & Jude's, just over the line in River Grove, does a stripped-down depression dog with fries piled on top of the dog. The Wiener's Circle in Lincoln Park is the late-night char dog stand where the staff roast you, you roast them back, and everyone goes home happy.
Tacos, Pilsen and Little Village
Chicago has one of the biggest Mexican communities in the country and the tacos show it. Pilsen and Little Village on the Southwest Side are the core. In Pilsen, Carnitas Uruapan has been selling carnitas by the pound for decades. Order a pound, grab tortillas and salsa, and you have dinner for three or a high snack for one. Little Village's 26th Street is lined with taquerias, many with trompos spinning al pastor in the window. The rule there: pick the one with the line.
On the North Side, the taco scene is more scattered but deep. Every neighborhood has its corner taqueria with a counter, a TV and a horchata machine. Those are the places that stay open, hand you a foil-wrapped burrito the size of a forearm and don't ask questions.
The jibarito, Chicago's own
A jibarito is a sandwich where the bread is fried green plantain, smashed flat. Steak, lettuce, tomato, cheese, garlicky mayo. It was invented right here in Chicago's Puerto Rican community in Humboldt Park in the 1990s, and it's the most stoner-engineered sandwich in town: crunchy, salty, garlicky, structurally questionable. Jibaritos y Más on Fullerton is a good place to start, and Humboldt Park's Division Street has plenty of spots that do it right.
Polish and Ukrainian classics
Chicago has one of the largest Polish communities outside Poland, and it feeds people like it. Pierogi, potato pancakes, kielbasa, cabbage rolls, rye bread. Kasia's Deli in Ukrainian Village is a pierogi institution. Up northwest in Jefferson Park, Smak-Tak is a homey Polish spot with portions built for winter. The Maxwell Street Polish, a grilled Polish sausage with grilled onions, mustard and sport peppers, is its own thing. Get it at Jim's Original on Union Avenue, open around the clock.
Chinatown
Take the Red Line to Cermak-Chinatown and walk. Lao Sze Chuan does Sichuan heat that numbs your lips, which is a hilarious feeling high. MingHin does dim sum off a giant menu, great for a group. Qing Xiang Yuan in Chinatown Square makes dumplings in about every flavor you can think of. Then wander the bakeries for egg tarts and buns for the train home.
Korean and Thai on the North Side
Korean barbecue is the best group munchies format ever invented. Raw meat comes out, a grill in the table heats up, banchan covers every surface, and you're cooking, eating and talking for two hours. Western Avenue on the North Side is the strip for it. San Soo Gab San is the long-running pick.
Thai is a North Side staple too. TAC Quick near the Sheridan Red Line stop is beloved for real heat. And just north, Argyle Street's Vietnamese spots serve pho big enough to bathe in.
Donuts and sweets
Dinkel's in Lakeview has been at it since the 1920s and makes old-school bakery donuts and coffee cakes. Stan's Donuts is all over town and does big, sugary, filled ones. Do-Rite and Firecakes are the craft-y options. And Old Fashioned Donuts in Roseland on the far South Side makes apple fritters so big they need their own seat on the bus.
Bonus sweets: Italian ice from a stand in summer, a Portillo's cake shake, an egg tart in Chinatown, a paczki if you catch the season. And Malört, which is not a sweet, which is the point. Chicago's bitter wormwood liqueur is a rite of passage, tastes like grapefruit pith and regret, and pairs with nothing. Don't mix it with a sesh unless you enjoy the face you make.
Chicago munchies by area
Same food, sorted by where you are. Tap your side of town.
Lakeview, Wrigleyville and Lincoln Park
Dinkel's on Lincoln Avenue has been baking since the 1920s and it still tastes like your grandma's kitchen if your grandma was a professional. Down in Lincoln Park, Pequod's does the pan pizza with the burnt cheese crust that people fight about, and The Wiener's Circle on Clark serves char dogs with a side of insults. More on both in the Lincoln Park guide and the Lakeview guide.
Uptown, Andersonville and Rogers Park
Argyle Street is the North Side's pho row. Tank Noodle and Pho 777 have been ladling broth there for years, and a big bowl after a sesh is basically medicine. TAC Quick by the Sheridan Red Line stop is a Thai favorite for people who want it actually spicy. Andersonville has Ann Sather for the cinnamon rolls. See the Andersonville and Uptown guide and the Rogers Park guide.
Korean on Western
Western Avenue up past Lincoln Square is where the North Side gets its Korean barbecue. San Soo Gab San is the long-running grill-at-the-table move for a group, and Cho Sun Ok on Lincoln is the cozy one. Tabletop grilling high is a full evening of entertainment. Just watch your sleeves.
Logan Square and Avondale
Jibaritos y Más on Fullerton does the jibarito right, plantains pressed flat and fried where the bread should be. Kuma's Corner in Avondale does heavy metal burgers that are exactly as much as you think. And the Golden Nugget on Diversey is open around the clock, which matters more than any menu. Full rundown in the Logan Square guide.
Wicker Park, Bucktown and Ukrainian Village
Big Star near the six-corner intersection is the taco-and-a-patio spot, and it stays open late. Over in Ukrainian Village, Kasia's Deli is the pierogi stop, the kind of place where you buy a bag for dinner and a bag for later and the bag for later is gone by 11. Do-Rite and Firecakes cover donuts on this side of town. See the Wicker Park guide.
Humboldt Park
Division Street between the two giant steel Puerto Rican flags is Paseo Boricua. Café Colao handles coffee and pastries, Nellie's handles a real Puerto Rican breakfast. Details in the Humboldt Park guide.
Pilsen
Carnitas country. Carnitas Uruapan sells it by the pound and has for decades, Don Pedro Carnitas is the other name you'll hear, and 5 Rabanitos does sit-down Mexican that's a step up without being precious. Walk 18th Street, look at the murals, eat. The Pilsen guide has more.
Little Village
26th Street is one of the great commercial strips in the Midwest, and it's lined with taquerias, paleterias and bakeries. You don't need a name here. Pick the place with a line, point at the trompo, say thank you.
Bridgeport and Chinatown
Kimski lives inside Maria's Packaged Goods in Bridgeport and does Korean-Polish food that sounds like a dare and eats like a revelation. A few minutes east, Chinatown has Lao Sze Chuan for numbing Sichuan heat, MingHin for dim sum and Qing Xiang Yuan for dumplings. See the Bridgeport guide.
Hyde Park and the far South Side
Valois is the cafeteria-line institution on 53rd. You grab a tray, you point, you leave happy. Medici on 57th is the college-town hangout with the shakes. Harold's Chicken is a South Side religion: half dark, fried hard, mild sauce on the fries, all of it soaking through the paper bag on the way home. And Old Fashioned Donuts in Roseland makes apple fritters roughly the size of a hubcap. See the Hyde Park guide.
Out southwest
Vito & Nick's on Pulaski is the tavern-style pizza benchmark, old-school wood paneling and all. It's a haul from the North Side and worth it at least once.
River North and the Loop
Mr. Beef on Orleans is the cramped little beef stand the whole country now knows from TV, and it was great long before that. Portillo's in River North is the big, loud, efficient version of beef, dogs and chocolate cake shake. Neither will judge you. See the River North and Loop guide.
West Loop and Little Italy
Al's #1 Italian Beef on Taylor Street is the original-location pilgrimage. Jim's Original on Union Avenue near Roosevelt is the Maxwell Street Polish stand, open all day and all night, onions grilled to collapse. Lou Mitchell's by Union Station is the breakfast institution. And the West Loop's Au Cheval does the burger people line up for. See the West Loop guide.
How to do a Chicago munchies run right
Plan the route before you're baked, not after. Chicago's spots are spread out, the L doesn't run everywhere you want to go, and nobody should be behind the wheel high. Cluster your stops: Pilsen and Chinatown are one Pink and Red Line hop apart, Wicker Park and Logan Square are a Blue Line ride, Lakeview and Lincoln Park are a walk.
Cash helps at the old-school stands. Order fast at the counter places, the line behind you has opinions. And if you're feeding a whole sesh, carnitas by the pound and a sleeve of tortillas beats delivery every time.
For what's open at 2 a.m., go to late-night Chicago. For eating at home with friends, see hosting a Chicago sesh.
