Confession time…I play favorites with restaurants.
We all have favorite restaurants.
Totally normal right? I think so, but it is still something I struggle with. As a self-proclaimed lover of food, it is a little ridiculous that I tend to go to the same restaurants over and over. Yes I do try new ones, and yes I must have tried something new at some point to have gathered this list of favorites, and yes many of these favorite are in this category because they always have something new or different for me to try. Still the same it is sad…a bit. The poor neglected restaurants I rip out of the New and Improved section of TimeOut Chicago or used to e-mail to myself during my former days of being a menu database analyst. I so infrequently make it out of my usual haunts to get to try them.
So what makes somewhere worthy of being a “favorite restaurant”?
Glad you asked.
First, I like a non-miserable (enthusiastic would be ideal) waitstaff. I am aware that being on staff at a restaurant can be exhausting to say the very least, but it is nice when the people I am paying to serve me food (and that generally get a more than gracious tip) seem to at least not mind being there. What am I hoping for? I like when the waiter or waitress knows what makes the quirky dishes tick. Peanut butter and bacon atop a burger…intriguing. Then the waitress knows that the peanut butter is made in house and has a texture more comparable to a creamy cheese…sold! If the restaurant specializes in a kind of beverage, it is nice if the staff actually knows about them. It is not helpful to go to a gastropub and find out the person waiting on you actually hates beer…not helpful at all. I am not looking for a life story from staff when I visit for the first time…but if I have been back a few times, please feel free to chit chat…or if it is a slow night and I know you aren’t neglecting others feel free to make a few recommendations. Overall I like when staff knows the food and knows what makes it unique.
Second, the food. I know, I know, the food should always be first at a restaurant. However if the service is bad or snooty or not there at all, I am not even thinking about the food. That said I don’t find myself at restaurants with great service and bad food…ever, or if I do I don’t make it back, and they certainly aren’t favorites. My favorites are all in categories by themselves, unique to the mood I am in. I don’t have two favorite Thai restaurants, I have one that I have loved for more than a decade. However I am from Chicago, so when it comes to pizza I have 3 favorites. That’s necessary here. You have a Chicago Pizza deep dish favorite, a thin crust if you make me favorite, and a cheap quick fix favorite. I admit I even have two favorite deep dish favorites: my favorite authentic Chicago-Style deep dish and my starter deep dish (also better for reheating) for newbies. Favorite restaurants are places that have something nowhere else can replicate if they tried. Favorite restaurants might consistently make the dish you love the same way over and over or they might constantly have something new to offer. Favorite restaurants are places where you know that the veggie chili is best on Wednesdays and Saturdays because the batch has sat around long enough to meld. Favorite restaurants are places where you know if the older lady is cooking your Thai food will be extra spicy, but otherwise it won’t have the same heat.
The more I think about it the more those are pretty much the only factors that matter to me. There are some things that might give a place an edge every once in a while, patio anyone, but overall that is all that matters to me. The way I am treated when I am there, and the delicious things they have to offer. At the end of the day it is simple I love places that make me love food.