The Museum of Science and Industry will thrum with the sounds of lightsabers, X-wings and the Millennium Falcon when Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination opens October 5. You'll see more than 80 props, models and costumes from the Star Wars movies, along with video interviews with filmmakers, scientists and engineers. And fans will love the full-size replica of the Millennium Falcon's cockpit. Purchasing tickets in advance is highly recommended.
Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination, opening Oct. 5
Museum of Science and Industry
57th Street and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago | 773-684-1414
Fans of the Italian delicacy that is tiramisu are often disappointed: their favorite dessert is too often a soggy, mushy mess. Not so at Anna Maria Pasteria. The Buena Park restaurant boasts the best in the city — light at fluffy, rich and decadent, it's the perfect end to a meal that starts with a nice bruschetta and moves on to once of more than a dozen pasta choices or heartier dishes like veal parmigiana and chicken vesuvio.
Beer lovers around the world are mourning the master beer critic Michael Jackson, who passed away at the end of August. The UIC branch of Lush Wine & Spirits will be honoring the great Beer Hunter with a free beer tasting this Sunday between 2 and 5pm on Sunday, Sept. 30. They'll also be participating in the worldwide toast at 9pm. Raise a glass.
The Cape Cod Room at the Drake Hotel opened in 1933, and very little has changed about the menu and decor since then — this is very much a good thing. Lobster thermidor, crab cakes and other seafood delights dominate the menu, served by with quiet confidence by jacketed waitstaff. Simple elegance never goes out of style.
It's hard to find a cozier wine bar than 404. Tucked into the second room at Jack's in West Lincoln Park, 404 centers on a toasty fireplace, with banquettes, oversized easy chairs and small tables at which to snuggle up to the wine list. Choose from 35 wines by the glass or more than 90 by the bottle, and a little snack to nosh on (the cheese flights are excellent, as is the barbecue chicken pizza). Perfect for a fall date.
For generations, Army and Lou's has been a South Side institution for southern-style comfort food. Load up on fried chicken, catfish, baby back ribs and more. The restaurant is packed on Sundays for its after-church buffet, where $17 gets you all you can eat. (Save room for that peach or blackberry cobbler!)
The color sepia is a deep, rich brown, evocative of treasured photos and olden days. The décor at new West Loop restaurant Sepia features a lot of the color, unsurprisingly, and is elegant and nostalgic in just the same way. On the menu you'll find contemporary-yet-traditional American dishes, such as grilled quail with mustard greens and warm pig trotters vinaigrette, grilled flatiron steak with duck fat potatoes, and bacon-bleu cheese-peach flatbread, to be paired with something from the 100-bottle boutique wine list. Never has a hot young restaurant seemed so classic.
Chicago, the band, will be at the Chicago (the city) History Museum this Wednesday, Sept. 19, talking with veteran newsman Bob Sirott about their long career. Started in 1967, they're the first American band to have Top 40 hits in five decades — you just know they've got some great stories to tell. Tickets are just $12, which is the cheapest you'll ever see Chicago tickets going for. Get'em while they're hot.
Le Bouchon has many admirers — so many that it can be as hard to get a table for its Tuesday prix fixe dinner special as it is on a Friday or Saturday night. Partly it's because the room is rather small, but mostly it's because of gracious service and French comfort cooking — French onion soup, snails Burgundy, steak frite and delicious crispy duck. Don't forget to save room for the decadent, chocolate-drenched profiteroles.
On Halloween, the crowd at the Cadillac Palace Theatre will witness visions of a smokey river of candles, a dangerous chandelier, and the dark voice of a phantom — all in a night at the opera. That's right, The Phantom of the Opera is coming to Chicago. And if you're a Gold Card member, you can get preferred seating at the show, which recently became the longest running show on Broadway.
Dine, the restaurant in the Crown Plaza hotel in Greektown, has a most unfortunate view of a parking lot out its floor-to-ceiling windows. On the other hand, there's free parking in that lot, which means you won't be hunting for a spot for half an hour before giving up and valeting! You'll find black angus meatloaf, buttermilk fried chicken and even liver and onions on its slightly upscaled comfort food menu — along with a martini list and one of the better red velvet cakes to be found this far north.