The Restaurant We Keep Coming Back To
Chef's Special is American Chinese done with enough care and personality that it's become the place we return to more than anywhere else in the city.
We were looking at a condo in Bucktown. Beautiful place. Too many stairs. Our dog Phoebe is getting older and four flights wasn't going to work for any of us. The place didn't pan out. But our realtor said walk around the corner before you make any decisions, and we did, and that was that.
Chef's Special is the kind of place a neighborhood builds its identity around. It's been there long enough that people have opinions about it the way they have opinions about their regular bar or their corner coffee shop. It's theirs. When happy hour starts, there's a line outside. Every day. That's not an accident.
The food is American Chinese. Crab rangoon. Orange chicken. Egg rolls. The kind of menu that could go either way depending on who's running the kitchen. Here, it goes the right way. There aren't many misses. The egg rolls are the real thing, crispy and substantial. The dan dan noodles are excellent, the kind of dish that reminds you why dan dan noodles became a staple in the first place. The rolled noodles are worth your attention. The walnut shrimp is the dish Allen orders every single time and has never once reconsidered.
Then there's the homemade Chinese mustard. This sounds like a small thing. It is not a small thing. Allen is a Chinese mustard person in the way some people are hot sauce people or ranch people. This mustard is the reason he'd come back even if everything else fell apart. It hasn't fallen apart, but the mustard would be enough.
The room understands the assignment. Dark, hip, retro, a little campy, a little kitschy, the kind of space that feels like it was put together by someone with a very specific vision and enough restraint to not over-explain it. A big 1970s bar dominates the center of the room. The service is friendly and attentive without being performative about it. At Halloween, glow-in-the-dark skeletons line the ceiling and walls, drinking cheap beer. It works completely.
A note worth making: Chef's Special takes food allergies seriously. The menu has strong options for gluten-free diners and the staff is prepared to help navigate depending on what you need. In a city full of restaurants that treat dietary restrictions as an inconvenience, this one treats them as part of the job.
We ended up not buying that condo. Too many stairs, wrong fit. But we bought into the idea of Chicago living. Chef's Special was a meaningful part of that decision. We've been back more times than anywhere else in the city, and we expect that to remain true for a long time.
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