Taste of Chicago 2013: Old Favorites and New Treats.

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Each July, Chicago’s Grant Park comes alive for Taste of Chicago, the world’s largest food festival. Each day of the five-day festival, more than 70 restaurants and chefs will offer delicious concoctions to millions of visitors. This year, the festival will be held July 10 – 14.

Photo by Sharan Mohanadoss via Flickr.

Taste Everything

Even if you thought you’d caught the best of Chicago cuisine on previous Chicago city breaks, it’s worth scheduling your trip around the Taste of Chicago because of the wealth of ethnic and specialty cuisines available. From summer fair staples of snow cones and hot dogs, to the hometown Chicagoan flavors represented in Chicago-style pizza, Polish sausages and barbecued ribs, there’s plenty to whet the appetite. Even families with picky eaters in tow will find many things to tempt all palates. Most of the booths at the fair are run by Chicago-area restaurants, which offer items from their normal menus at colorful booths around Grant Park in inexpensive, sample-sized portions.

Travelers planning to visit the festival over several days will be enticed by the fair’s pop-up booths. A relatively new addition to the festival line-up, these three booths feature different restaurants every day of the fair, offering more chances to try new fare. Local area food trucks will also be on site for the evening concerts, a new feature for this year.

Enjoy a Celebrity Chef’s Cooking

If you’d rather have a sit-down meal, the Taste of Chicago offers the unique opportunity to sample the cooking of a star chef in the Celebrity Chef du Jour attraction. For $40 (about £26.40), diners will enjoy a three-course meal. The chefs at these events all have ties to Chicago, and all have been honoured either by cooking awards or recognition on the Food Network, an American cable television station. The dining tent at the Chef du Jour is air-conditioned — great for relaxing if you’ve been touring the city all day. The chefs for 2013 are Rick Bayless, Carrie Nahabedian, Giuseppe Tentori, Gail Gand and the Hearty Boys, and Paul Kahan, who won the 2013 James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef Award.

But, if you’d rather graze on many samplings from the festival booths than fill up at one event, you can still rub shoulders with top-notch chefs at Dominick’s Cooking Corner. Visit this area of the festival for demonstrations and tips from the Chef du Jour pros and other invited chefs.

Although most of the cuisine and entertainment is aimed at adults, children are welcome at the festival. When the smallest appetites are sated, the Family Village attraction provides special activities for kids and parents. And, of course, kid-friendly food.

One of the best things about this Chicago-tasting fete is that admission to everything but the specialty events is free. Eating, of course, will require a little money from the epicurean, but not much: You can buy 12 tickets for about £5.20. Samples of the treats usually cost between two to five tickets. The festival is convenient for travellers and locals alike. Grant Park, often known as the city’s “front yard” is easily accessible to hotels in Chicago.

More Than 30 Years of Tasting

Taste of Chicago started in the late 1970s when restaurateur Arnie Morton suggested that the city create an event to showcase local restaurants, inspired by a small food festival he’d seen in New York. Morton, whose family owned many respected restaurants over the years, is more widely known as one of the founders of the Playboy Clubs and Resorts.

Morton’s idea was sound: The food festival was a hit from the very beginning. The first festival, in 1980, brought in 250,000 people where organisers had expected 100,000. Since then, it has grown in scope and venue. It changed to its current location at Grant Park and has incorporated musical entertainment.

World-Famous Musicians

Now, it attracts world-class performers. This year, the Taste of Chicago’s headliner at the Patrillo Music Shell is Grammy-winner Jill Scott, but British audiences may be more familiar with another performer at the festival: Robert Plant. Other popular musicians to play this year’s festival include fun., Neon Trees, Maxi Priest and Robin Thicke. Concert seating is $25 per ticket (about £16.50) and lawn seating is free. Meanwhile, at the Bud Light Stage, audiences can cheer on an eclectic line-up of 30 bands with Chicago roots. The Bud Light Stage performances are all free.

About the Author: Sarah Wilson is a sous chef in Birmingham. She enjoys traveling to food fairs such as the Taste of Chicago because they always bring her more inspiration in the kitchen.

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