What Food and Drink Is Chicago Famous For
Chicago is famous for deep dish pizza, Chicago-style hot dogs, Italian beef and a bar scene built on Malört and craft beer. Here is what to eat and drink, and where.
What Food and Drink Is Chicago Famous For
Chicago is famous for deep dish pizza, the Chicago-style hot dog, Italian beef sandwiches, Garrett popcorn and the jibarito, plus a drinking identity built on Malört, a huge craft brewery scene and live blues. Deep dish is the one dish the world knows, but locals will tell you the hot dog and Italian beef are the everyday food. None of these are tourist traps; they are what the city actually eats, and each has a specific origin story, a specific way of being served, and a specific argument attached to it.
The short version: eat deep dish once for the experience, then eat like a local the rest of the trip. That means hot dogs from a stand, Italian beef from a beef shop, and a night in a blues club with a local beer in hand. The longer version is below, dish by dish and drink by drink, with the arguments explained so you know what you are walking into when a Chicagoan asks your opinion on ketchup.
If you want to compress the whole list into one afternoon, a guided food walk does the routing for you. Our full guide to Chicago food tours compares every option on the roster, and the eating-focused itineraries on bestthingstodoinchicago.com slot meals between the sights.
Is Deep Dish Pizza Really the Signature Dish?
Yes, deep dish pizza is the dish Chicago is most famous for, invented here and baked in a deep round pan with the cheese under the sauce. It is a fork-and-knife pizza that takes 30 to 45 minutes to bake, so you order it before you are hungry. The classic story credits Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo, who opened Pizzeria Uno, though like most origin stories the details are argued over. What is not argued is the construction: a tall, buttery crust, a dense layer of mozzarella, and crushed tomato on top so the cheese does not burn during the long bake.
Visitors should know two things before ordering. First, deep dish is not what most Chicagoans eat on a random Tuesday; thin crust, cut into squares and called tavern style, is the everyday pizza here, and locals get genuinely heated about it. Second, one deep dish pizza feeds more people than you think, and the wait for it is real. Order an appetizer.
There is also a cousin worth knowing: stuffed pizza, which adds a thin top crust over the filling and is even denser than deep dish. Visitors regularly confuse the two, and a few of the famous pizzerias make both styles under one roof. If the menu offers both and you are eating with a group, order one of each and settle the argument at the table. Either way, budget a long, slow meal; deep dish is a sit-down event, not street food, and the places that do it well are usually packed on weekend evenings.
The deep dish field is crowded, and the arguments are part of the fun. Our comparison of deep dish pizza in Chicago breaks down the major names and the styles, and there is a separate head-to-head for the two most argued-over chains. If you only have one pizza meal in the city, that guide is the one to read first.
What Is a Chicago-style Hot Dog?
A Chicago-style hot dog is an all-beef frank on a poppy seed bun, topped with yellow mustard, chopped onion, bright green relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, sport peppers and celery salt, and never ketchup. The saying is that it is dragged through the garden. The all-beef frank itself traces to the city's stockyard era, when Chicago was the meatpacking capital of the country, and the piled-on vegetables come from Depression-era vendors competing on toppings.
The ketchup rule is the part visitors hear about first, and it is not a joke locally. Most stands will not have ketchup on the counter at all, and the ones that do keep it for the fries. Order the dog dressed, eat it sitting down if you can, and pair it with the other stand staple: crinkle-cut fries or, at the old-school places, a gyros.
One ordering word worth learning is char-dog. Some stands will split and char-grill the frank on request instead of steaming it, which gives a snappier casing and a smokier flavor. Locals are split on which is correct, and the stands themselves will tell you their way is the way. Either version still comes with the full garden on top, and either version still costs about what you would pay for a coffee in the Loop, which is exactly why the hot dog endures as the city's everyday lunch.
| Dish | What it is | How locals order it |
|---|---|---|
| Deep dish pizza | Tall pan pizza, cheese under the sauce | One slice to start, shared, with a 45-minute bake |
| Chicago-style hot dog | All-beef frank, poppy seed bun, seven toppings | Dressed, no ketchup |
| Italian beef | Thin-sliced roast beef on a French roll, dipped in jus | Wet or dipped, with giardiniera |
| Tavern-style thin crust | Thin pizza cut into squares | Shared, eaten cold the next morning |
| Jibarito | Sandwich with fried green plantains instead of bread | At a Puerto Rican spot in Pilsen |
For the full hot dog field guide, including where the stands are and what a char-dog is, see our Chicago hot dog guide. If your trip turns into an eating tour, the cheap eats in Chicago page keeps the budget honest.
What Is Italian Beef and Why Is It Everywhere?
Italian beef is thin-sliced seasoned roast beef, cooked in its own juices, piled onto a crusty Italian roll and dipped back into the jus, usually topped with hot giardiniera or sweet peppers. It was invented in Chicago by Italian immigrant families, originally as cheap wedding food. The dipped version, where the whole sandwich goes into the pan, is the local flex; order it dry if you want to keep your shirt clean, or dipped if you want the real thing.
The sandwich had a national moment recently, but in Chicago it never left. The arguments are about which shop does it best, how wet the sandwich should be, and whether the bread holds up. Our Italian beef in Chicago guide covers the history, the shops and the ordering vocabulary, including the difference between hot and sweet peppers, which matters more than visitors expect.
Two more foods belong on the famous list even though they get less press. Garrett Popcorn, the Chicago mix of cheese and caramel corn in one bag, has lines around the block on the Magnificent Mile and ships worldwide, and it is the snack locals actually buy for out-of-town guests. The jibarito, a sandwich that replaces the bread with fried green plantains, was invented in the city's Puerto Rican community and is the best answer to the question of what Chicago food you cannot get anywhere else. Both are cheap, both travel well, and neither needs a reservation. The rest of the planning pages sit on Best Things to Do in Chicago.
What Drinks Is Chicago Famous For?
Chicago's most famous drink is Malört, a bitter Swedish-style liqueur that is genuinely hard to like and is drunk as a local rite of passage, usually as a shot. Beyond that the city is known for its craft beer, its blues club scene, and a long history as a whiskey and cocktail town dating back to Prohibition. Malört is the one to try once, with a chaser nearby; the beer scene is the one to settle into.
The beer scene is deep. The city and its suburbs hold dozens of breweries across every style, and our Chicago breweries guide maps the best of them, from the large production taprooms to the neighborhood nanobreweries. The blues and jazz side is equally famous: the city's free Blues Festival is the largest of its kind, and the city's own cultural affairs department publishes the lineup and dates on its official Blues Festival page. Our Chicago blues and jazz clubs guide covers where to hear it, and the Chicago speakeasies page handles the Prohibition-era cocktail side.
Where Can You Try All of This in One Day?
The most efficient way to taste the famous food is a guided food walk, which strings together deep dish, a local brewery and dessert in a few hours, or you can build your own route through the Loop, River North and Chinatown using the train. A guided walk handles the portions and the pacing; a self-built route lets you linger. Both work, and the choice is mostly about how much of your day you want to spend eating.
The guided option worth knowing is the Chicago Favorites Ultimate Food and Walking Tour, a three-hour walk from Bobby's Bike, Hike and Food Tours that covers pizza, beer and a well-known brownie, with the history told between stops. It is the tour we point first-time visitors at, because it answers the exact question this page is about, in one afternoon.
Building it yourself is easy if you plan by neighborhood. The Loop and River North hold the deep dish names and the old beef shops, Pilsen has the jibarito and the Chinatown food and walking tour covers the city's other great eating neighborhood, and the West Loop has the restaurant row. The train connects all of them for $2.50 a ride, and the CTA fare table shows the pass options if you are hopping all day. For the high-end nights in between, our Chicago Michelin restaurants guide has the splurge list, and the Chicago food halls page is the rainy-day fallback when you want six cuisines under one roof.
Common Questions About Chicago Food and Drink
what food and drink is chicago famous for?
Chicago is famous for deep dish pizza, the Chicago-style hot dog, Italian beef sandwiches, Garrett popcorn and the jibarito, plus Malört, a large craft beer scene and live blues clubs. Deep dish is the internationally famous one, while the hot dog and Italian beef are what locals eat regularly.
Is deep dish pizza the same as stuffed pizza?
No. Deep dish has a single tall crust with cheese under the sauce, while stuffed pizza has an additional thin layer of crust on top, making it even denser. Both are Chicago originals, and both take a long bake, so order early.
Why is ketchup banned on a Chicago hot dog?
The traditional topping set of mustard, onion, relish, pickle, tomato, sport peppers and celery salt predates the argument, but the no-ketchup rule is now a local identity marker. Many stands simply do not stock it. Visitors can order what they like, but expect commentary.
What is Malört and should I try it?
Malört is a Swedish-style bitter liqueur, bottled in Chicago for decades, with a sharp grapefruit-rind bitterness that most first-timers dislike. Trying one shot is a local rite of passage. It is usually served neat, often with a beer chaser.
Where do locals actually eat in Chicago?
Locals eat tavern-style thin crust pizza, hot dogs from neighborhood stands, Italian beef from beef shops, and tacos, jibaritos and dumplings from the city's many ethnic neighborhoods. The deep dish places are for celebrations and visitors. Neighborhood spots in Pilsen, Chinatown, Logan Square and Bridgeport are the everyday answer.