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Chicago Chef Week Kicks Off Sunday With Prix-ty Great Deals

By Danette Chavez in Food on Apr 18, 2015 4:00PM

If your tastebuds are demanding fine dining, but your wallet is suggesting drive-thru, there is a compromise on the horizon. Chicago Chef Week, a culinary celebration on par with Restaurant Week, kicks off on April 19 with prix fixe pricing ($22 lunch, $44 dinner) at some of the city's best restaurants.

More than 85 locations are participating in the week (through April 24), and the group is a blend of established eateries and new hotspots. The CCW site sorts your options by neighborhood (River North, West Side, Loop, North Side, South Side and Suburbs), or you can give the restaurant-roulette wheel a spin and scroll down the complete list.

Maybe you'll finally try Avec, where the prix fixe dinner will include those chorizo-stuffed dates you've heard so much about. Or, now that the weather's nice, you can bike to Berwyn's Autre Monde Café for their "Med Tour" dinner, a celebration of Mediterranean cuisine. Or how about visiting former Top Chef-testant Carlos Gaytan at Mexique?

You'll have the option of three-course meals for lunch and four courses for dinner (please note that some restaurants are only offering dinner deals). Chicago Chef Week has also partnered with Parche to further sweeten the deal with free valet parking (see CCW website for details). And, for one lucky diner, Chef Week will last a whole year in the "Chicago Chef Week Dinner for a Year" giveaway where one winner will be randomly chosen to receive fifty-two $50 gift cards from participating restaurants. Think of all the dates you can go on! (Yes, you can totally date yourself.)

Chicago Chef Week runs from April 19-24. Reservations are recommended and available through OpenTable.