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With New Year’s resolutions a long forgotten memory and Lent on near horizon, Mardi Gras is the perfect time to eat and drink with gluttonous abandon. Fortunately, Chicago makes it easy to put the “fat” in Fat Tuesday without having to book a plane ticket to New Orleans. Here’s where to get your Mardi Gras on next week in Chicago.

Two new barkeeps are shaking things up in River North, both looking to offbeat sources for cocktail inspiration. Fresh off a stint in Austin, Michael Simon returns to Chicago and lands behind the bar at Sumi Robata Bar’s subterranean Charcoal Bar, while nearby at Kinmont, Jason Brown leads the charge on the sustainable seafood restaurant’s beverage program.
 

In the pantheon of quintessential comfort foods, it’s hard to improve upon a good old fashioned cheeseburger, unless of course you fill the beef with gooey cheese and crimp dual patties around the melty innards. Such is the tale of the Juicy Lucy, a Minnesota creation that has steadily been amassing acclaim and enlightening burger-happy customers in Chicago. From total obscurity to relative familiarity and eventually and inevitably world domination, the Juicy Lucy is slowly sweeping Chicago, making stops at such spots as Dusek’s Board and Beer, The Anthem, and Birchwood Kitchen.