What were the Illinois Restaurant Association and Alderman Tom Tunney thinking about food trucks in 2010? It's not good news for the trucks. more ›

After months of speculation, the Illinois Restaurant Association has thrown its hat in the running to manage this year's shortened taste of Chicago. more ›

The Illinois Restaurant Association is planning a citywide promotion for Chicago restaurants coinciding with the NATO/G8 summit in May. More than 50 restaurants have already jumped on the "Culinary Crossroads" program to offer special tasting menus. more ›

The announcement is another effort by the City to stem the tide of red ink resulting from the festival, which saw its lowest attendance numbers in a quarter-century this year. more ›

Nearly snowed under among all the blizzard talk was news from City Hall yesterday that the bid to privatize Taste of Chicago by Celebrate Chicago LLC was rejected. Celebrate Chicago, the partnership of the Illinois Restaurant Association, JAM Productions and AEG Live, originally proposed a $20 admission for Taste. They later reduced the proposed admission to $10. more ›

The city, after only making a modest profit from last year's Taste of Chicago, received one bid from a private contractor to take over organizing the annual event. And that bidder, if they get their way, is looking to charge a $20 admission fee for folks to have the privilege to gnaw on giant turkey legs. more ›

Now this is how a food and wine festival should operate! more ›

A couple weeks back a friend purchased Chicago Gourmet tickets via the half-price special Groupon offered. She asked for advice to prepare for the festival. We told her to pack a lunch. more ›

His Elective Majesty and the Illinois Restaurant Association trotted out some of the city's best chefs and sommeliers yesterday to announce the second annual Chicago Gourmet festival, taking place September 26-27. Reader reporter Julia Thiel noted that the IRA is looking to atone for last year's inaugural edition, which was heavy on the wine and spirits. And that's an understatement. more ›

So Marcus and yours truly attended last night's opening reception for Chicago Gourmet on a picture perfect night atop the Harris Theatre at Millennium Park. the evening featured opening remarks from Mayor Daley, Illinois Restaurant Association President Sheila O'Grady and sponsors, an auction benefiting Green City Market, and an open buffet featuring chefs from Chicago's sister cities. more ›

After months of buildup and debate, the inaugural Chicago Gourmet festival of food and wine kicks off this evening with a gala reception at the Harris Theatre in Millennium Park. You just know that Mayor Daley is eager to showcase the rarefied air of the Chicago restaurant industry mere months before the IOC makes its final decision on the host city for the 2016 Summer Games. He tried to sell the sizzle in this week's edition of Time Out Chicago: more ›

A federal judge yesterday upheld Chicago's ban on foie gras, disappointing chefs across the city, and of course, giving renewed energy to both sides to persevere. In dismissing the Illinois Restaurant Association's lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning ruled that the city does have a constitutional right to prohibit the sale of foie gras. On a related note, we were alerted yesterday to a tiny section (Section 123) of the pending USDA Farm Bill that... more ›

Last week, the Illinois Restaurant Association named Sheila O'Grady as its new president. Her first order of business will be working to get the foie gras ban repealed. The press release announcing O'Grady's appointment said that "she brings an incredible depth of knowledge and experience to the position at a very dynamic time in the restaurant industry." Much of that experience is in City Hall. O'Grady is a former chief-of staff for Mayor Daley and... more ›

Tribune food critic Phil Vettel enlisted the help of some fellow Trib staffers last week in another of those "What if?" columns; this time Vettel managed not to mistake two separate chefs with the same surname as brothers on a lost weekend in Vegas. The mission of the article was to test the newly enacted "cork-and-carry" law, an amendment to the State Liquor Control Act that allows restaurants to let customers leave with unfinished bottles of wine, permitted that the wine was a part of their dinner, placed in a sealable plastic bag, and with a dated receipt attached. more ›

You have to love Ed Burke. Either he truly means well, suffers from the "Second City" inferiority complex, or he reads Chicagoist and can't help himself. Regarding our post last week about Culver's decision to ban trans fats, we wrote: more ›

Look. Chicagoist is just as tired as you all of the Smoke-Or-Not-To-Smoke discussion and we know there is only so much left to be said on the topic to ban smoking in restaurants, bars and basically all public indoor areas of Chicago by April 1. However, as the vote approaches -- Wednesday, to be exact -- it's worth taking up space here. Look for the kids over at the Illinois Restaurant Association to ... well,... more ›

Tickets are now available for Recipe For Relief, the Jimmy Banos-led culinary benefit for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. On Oct. 6 from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. at The Grand Ballroom at McCormick Place South, 2301 S. Martin Luther King Dr., the event includes music, a silent auction and cookbook signing with Rick Bayless. To be clear, Chicagoist is heartbroken than such an event is necessary but we have to tell you that as... more ›

There was a time when Chicagoist was a prisoner to the P Funk. But after ten years of sucking away on those things we had to call it a day. We loved smoking, and we miss it, but quitting was a choice we had to make for ourselves. more ›