Chicagoist at LTHForum Great Neighborhood Restaurant Awards
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Oct 21, 2009 3:20PM
Monday night we attended LTHForum's fifth annual Great Neighborhood Restaurants Awards dinner at Marie's Pizza and Liquors in the wunnerful Mayfair neighborhood, itself a previous winner of a GNR. 13 restaurants, 1 bar and 4 bakeries were added to LTH's already expansive list of GNR recipients; you can download their pocket guide here.
The 2009 recipients included the ever popular mado, an overwhelming favorite of the over 7,000 strong member culinary chat site. Forum member Michele Hays said that mado is so good it's spawned an acronym regular posters use: SHEAM ("should have eaten at mado"). Other popular recipients included Bar DeVille, Hoosier Mama Pie Company and Shui Wah, specifically for its dim sun. One awardee the attending forum members seemed split on was Andersonville pizzeria Great Lake. half of the room agreed with Alan Richman's assessment that Great Lake had the best pizza in the country, others were wary of great lake's nomination given its wildly varying service issues.
A new addition to the GNR awards were the "Great Neighborhood Resources" awards, which went to grocery stores, markets and other retail and wholesale vendors. A few of those inaugural nominees included the Spice House, Pastoral and Northwestern Cutlery. you can check out the full list of 2009 GNR nominees here.