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The three winning cookie recipes for the 39th annual Tribune Holiday Cookie Contest all pay tribute to bakers from years ago; whether it’s a mother, grandmother or a best friend’s mom.

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Bad Butter and Blame Butter tell the tales of two bakeries in Chicago. It is the best of times, and it is the butteriest of times.

The Michelin Guide Northeast ceremony in Philadelphia on Tuesday night saw Chicago add a new one-star restaurant, Feld, and a two-star restaurant, Kasama, to its repertoire. The ceremony featured restaurants from Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Boston.

In her review of Alinea this year, Tribune critic @louisachu.bsky.social gave the restaurant two out of four stars, recognizing the industriousness of the staff, but noting overly sweet, salty and truffled flavors. Plus, it’s time to let go of The Balloon, one of too many signature courses.

Michelin awarded the restaurant three stars when the guide first came to Chicago, a distinction it had retained since then.

Alinea has lost a Michelin star. The French guide announced that the modernist tasting menu restaurant in Chicago, by award-winning chef and owner Grant Achatz, has been demoted from three stars, the highest rating, to two stars.

Free gift link to my review here: chicagotribune.com/2025/11/11/restaurant-review-tacotlan-mexican-tacos-quesabirria-hermosa/?share=swauertaaiirschosccn

Restaurant review: Tacotlán brings deeply rooted immigrant traditions to fleeting food trends in Hermosa

🍕 Free gift link to my review here: chicagotribune.com/2025/10/07/restaurant-review-pizzamici/?share=zghztucrapt1m0cuiasa

Pizz’amici makes one of the best thin crusts in the city, but reservations and service can get in the way unless you know the rules.

🎄 I’m on vacation this week, but had to share, because The Walnut Room holiday reservations go live tomorrow! 🎁 Free gift link here: chicagotribune.com/2025/09/23/guide-walnut-room-reservation/?share=nt9ob3ercwtorwietatl

The Walnut Room, the legendary Chicago restaurant best known for Mrs. Hering’s chicken pot pie, opens holiday reservations this week with a new executive chef.

Many will have a more comprehensive look at his career. I wanted to do something short on the elusiveness he gave to his characters that made them interesting conundrums rather than a blank No role exemplified this better than 1973’s “The Way We Were." Hubbell, you absolute coward! Gift 🔗

✨ Free gift link to my review here! chicagotribune.com/2025/09/16/restaurant-review-north-pond-chicago/?share=ngcpthi1ies20catwout

North Pond, the rustic yet refined iconic Chicago restaurant open in Lincoln Park since 1998, whose defining chef departed after an award-winning career spanning 20 years, has found new confidence and curiosity through the extraordinary lived experience of executive chef César Murillo.

Free gift link to my story here! chicagotribune.com/2025/09/09/restaurant-news-luellas-southern-kitchen/?share=9owrn2ucltuiognh20mh

Luella’s Southern Kitchen, the beloved restaurant best known for its buttermilk fried chicken or perhaps crab stuffed shrimp with house-smoked grits, has made a long-anticipated move after 10 years in Lincoln Square — along with a big menu change.

Free gift link to my review here! chicagotribune.com/2025/08/11/restaurant-review-elawa-farm-cafe/?share=1crh5anwah0bewascehw

Elawa Farm, the historic former country escape built by a couple with a meatpacking fortune has evolved into a foundation with an ethereal café, elegant market and earnest mission.

Free gift link here: chicagotribune.com/2025/08/05/restaurant-news-cerdito-muerto/?share=uowwcawoimccrt0utbns

Cerdito Muerto, a speakeasy-style cocktail bar with a contemporary Mexican American kitchen that’s transformed an old family home that survived the Great Chicago Fire, opened in Pilsen on June 26.

Free gift link to my review here: chicagotribune.com/2025/07/28/restaurant-review-carnitas-uruapan/?share=r2omabtsgaessns5ni7p

Las Carnitas Uruapan La Villita, the newest Mexican restaurant by the first family of pork in Chicago, brings 50 years of tradition and transformation to a flagship committed to the community in Little Village.

Free gift link to my review here: chicagotribune.com/2025/07/14/restaurant-review-mahari-chicago/?share=oeeauaanenw0eiiae277

Mahari brings not just the vibrant cuisines of the African diaspora to Chicago, but chefs tracing their cultures and blazing their own paths.

This place sounds awesome! Also, never read restaurant reviews when you're already hungry.

🎁 Free gift link to my review here 🍝 chicagotribune.com/2025/06/30/restaurant-review-void-chicago/?share=ntn5ogmowccwuesowid0

While the Italian American restaurant Void does whimsy well, most evident with its Spaghetti Uh-O’s and No-Lört, it’s become one of the best restaurants in Chicago right now, writes @louisachu.bsky.social.

Bottom line: Season 4 doesn’t feel like a tonal or thematic departure from Season 3 … meaning all the things that viewers liked — and criticized — about S3 are present in S4 That’s 20 eps over 2 seasons. The show’s writers are taking their time! It’s fair to ask if they’ve used it wisely Gift 🔗

Carmy has recreated the same toxic workplace conditions he disliked so much at the height of his career before coming back home, and I wish the show had committed to exploring that irony … and the idea that it was worth pursuing over the idea of serving high quality affordable food to da masses

The series has become more of a character study with only occasional nods to plot. S4 is an extension of that and could have been condensed to fit into S3, leaving room for more propulsive storytelling this time But mostly it had me longing for the qualities that made me love it’s initial outting

REVIEW: “The Bear” is back for Season 4 A digital clock has been placed in the kitchen to count down the minutes over the next two months and if the restaurant’s finances don’t improve by the time it reaches zero, The Bear will close for good. Will the restaurant live to cook another day?

With Season 4 of "The Bear" premiering this week, here's a piece from last year where I talked with my vfood & dining colleagues about the show's depiction of class and status in restaurant kitchens — both @louisachu.bsky.social and @radbrowndads.bsky.social had such great insights! Gift 🔗

Free gift link here: chicagotribune.com/2025/05/27/restaurant-news-my-pi-closing/?share=aw0owwc2enmsmnhhte2y

My Pi, the pizzeria founded on deep dish in Chicago, which once had 17 restaurants across the country, will close its last shop after 54 years next month.

Story about Afghan family of nine fleeing Taliban rule to make Chicago home www.chicagotribune.com/2025/05/17/a...

Hamid, a former US military ally, and his family have been fleeing Afghanistan since US troops withdrew in 2021. When Trump admin suspended refugee assistance programs, No One Left Behind stepped in before it was too late. They're now resettling in Chicago ❤️ www.chicagotribune.com/2025/05/17/a...

Gift link here: chicagotribune.com/2025/04/22/restaurant-review-funeral-potatoes-midwestern-comfort-food-moonflower-cocktail-bar-chicago/?share=rewmr5lctcaasoitadsw

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Funeral Potatoes, a magical modern Midwestern comfort food restaurant, has found an idyllic home at Moonflower, an exemplary neighborhood cocktail bar in Portage Park, nestled among the bungalows on the Northwest Side of Chicago, writes Tribune food critic @louisachu.bsky.social.

🎁 Free link here: chicagotribune.com/2025/04/07/restaurant-review-mdakhan-chicago/?share=heoschaghotegwgekwog

M’daKhan, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Bridgeview, specializes in great halal smoked and grilled meats, inspired by lifetimes of backyard barbecues in Little Palestine.

Here's our starter pack to follow Chicago Tribune reporters, photographers and editors. We'll keep this list updated as more members of our newsroom join!

Lawmakers have 1 year to appropriate funds, but estimated costs for the first year are $10-$20 million, expected to go down with competitive pricing from vendors. Regardless -- the bill is monumental for inclusivity + halal food infrastructure is already in place in several IL areas

With the Faith By Plate Act mandating halal and kosher meals be offered at institutions such as public schools, Muslim parents are glad and hope they follow proper guidelines around slaughtering methods.

Then @zareensyed.bsky.social gives us a snapshot of a late night at a new cafe in Lombard, as people gathered during Ramadan for the early morning meal known as suhoor, or as it’s referred to in Urdu, sehri. www.chicagotribune.com/2025/03/19/r...