Yes, I might have been a little bit snobby when I moved home to Chicago after six years in New York City. New York makes you prove that you’re cool enough, hot enough, smart enough, experienced enough, rich enough – before you can say you belong, before you can call that place home. And the food scene is a playground where New Yorkers show off just how enough they are – just how accomplished and just how at home they have all become in a city that can chew you up and spit you out, pretentiously.

Before children, the Mister and I made a decision to try one new restaurant a week. That, as it turned out, was overly ambitious even without a toddler and a newborn, so our weekly endeavor became a “special occasion” endeavor. Like any upstanding hipster living in Chicago, we only wanted to go to a place that met the following criteria: