Zagat's '5 Secret Bars In Chicago' No Secret At All

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Sep 25, 2013 9:20PM

That's some crowd at Watershed for a secret bar. (Photo credit: Chicagoist/Roger Kamholz)

We love a good secret as much as anyone here at Chicagoist. Secrets make you in the know—you have information on something or someone or few others can’t say.

Which is why we’re a bit flummoxed by Zagat’s list of five secret bars in Chicago; none of them are secret and at least two on this list have been written about extensively.

Let’s start with the list: The Office at the Aviary; Watershed beneath Pops for Champagne; The Library below Gilt Bar, Jimmy behind David Burke’s Bacon Bar and The Drawing Room’s “Back Room.” Outside of knowing whose name to drop at The Aviary and can we please get into The Office?, none of these places are secret and they’re all pretty accessible. They aren’t “elusive” as Sarah Freeman writes. Not a one.

This does make us miss the heyday of the buzzer bar, however.