Eat. Watch. Do. Thursday, January 8, 2026 | | |
| | | | | It’s Thursday, Chicago. Happy New Year! This week, I got to put my food critic hat on to review Buttercup, a new cafe and cocktail bar in the South Loop. Check out our team food reviews, plus what meals we loved the most in 2025. In other news, we have what to watch this winter in the city's jazz, theater and dance scenes, and your guide to Chicago Theatre Week, where $30 tickets are now available shows at over 50 theaters. Sounds like a great deal to me. Enjoy the weekend, we’ll see you back here next week. — Lauryn Azu, deputy editor | | | | To kick off 2026, the Tribune food team takes a look at three notable restaurants that opened last year: Buttercup in the South Loop, Kanin in Ravenswood and Nadu in Lincoln Park. | | | | | Discounted tickets are on sale for dozens of theater productions in the city and suburbs for Feb. 5-15. | | | | | From pizza to pasta salad to pie, here are the dishes that stood out to the Tribune's food team. | | | | | Steppenwolf’s LookOut series steps up. The Joffrey and Hubbard Street have winter series. And look for some big-name out-of-towners, too. | | | | | The Chicago Diner is one of at least four vegan or plant-based restaurants in the city that announced closures in late 2025. | | | | | Here’s just a sample of the food pictures our photographers produced in 2025. | | | | | Also on stage in Chicago in the coming weeks, the first national tour of “Stereophonic” and David Byrne’s much-anticipated “Theater of the Mind.” | | | |
