Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i Chicago magazine

WRITER DAVID BERNSTEIN DIDN’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HIS subject when he began his reporting for “The Tragedy of Lil Durk” (page 82), his deep dive into the life of the superstar rapper, who was charged last November with conspiring to kill a rival. “It turned out to be a much richer story than I thought,” says Bernstein. “Durk’s story is really a Chicago story, of how where he came from, Englewood, profoundly shaped who he is and the stories he tells in his music — and of just how difficult it is to break away from that life. It’s also a survival story. He has survived on the streets in a very dangerous environment, and he’s survived in a very cutthroat music world by constantly trying to evolve.” Bernstein spoke at…

Q: Has Chicago ever had a Republican mayor? Yes, several—the GOP was the party of Lincoln, after all—but it’s been nearly a century. Chicago’s last Republican chief was William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson, who served from 1915 to 1923, then from 1927 to 1931. He was best known for his isolationism, his feud with Britain’s King George V (whom he once vowed to punch in the “snoot” if he ever came to Chicago), and his alliance with one Al Capone. Thompson was defeated in 1923 by a Democrat, William Dever, who shut down thousands of speakeasies across the city. But after four years, Chicagoans were tired of reform. They wanted beer. Capone donated at least $100,000 to Thompson’s campaign. In return, after Thompson was reelected, the mayor didn’t interfere with…

MARY MEG MCCARTHY knows what a dictatorship looks like. In the early 1980s, before starting law school at Loyola University Chicago, she lived in Chile, helping protect people’s rights under the regime of Augusto Pinochet. “There was no access to the courthouse,” she says, “and people disappeared, were subjected to murder, extradition, torture. There was no rule of law. There was no way for anyone to be held accountable.” So as the executive director of the Chicago-based nonprofit National Immigrant Justice Center, McCarthy is concerned when she sees the Trump administration chipping away at the American legal system, particularly when it comes to deportation cases. In July, NIJC joined in a lawsuit against the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, claiming they colluded to strip immigrants of due…

1 SARIMA CAFE What An Indian-Filipino café featuring breakfast dosas and chai doughnuts. Why Anything Zubair Mohajir and Jacob Dela Cruz do is worth a look. (See Lilac Tiger, Coach House.) Where 1924 W. North Ave., Bucktown 2 TRINO What Stephen Sandoval’s Latin-influenced take on a steakhouse. Why Explore how the flavors of Galicia, northern Mexico, and Argentina combine with steakhouse classics. Where 738 W. Randolph St., West Loop 3 CERDITO MUERTO What A Mexican bar in Pilsen serving up fresh twists on classic cocktails and tacos. Why An espresso martini with banana-coconut cordial says it all. Where 1700 S. Halsted St., Pilsen 4 OMAKASE BOX What A 15-course omakase that prioritizes affordability. Why At $98 per person, this is one Japanese tasting menu you won’t need to take out a loan for. Where 3038 W. Armitage Ave., Palmer Square…

As a first-generation American, author Barry Pearce has a soft spot for folks who can’t catch a break. “I see the city as a place of incredible opportunity, but always, I think, from a tenuous place, with the eyes of an outsider,” he says. Pearce grew up within spitting distance of Midway Airport, in a two-bedroom row house with his Irish immigrant parents and six siblings. The first in his family to attend college, the 56-year-old Albany Park resident and former journalist has ghostwritten 20 nonfiction books. He started drawing attention for his fiction in 2019, winning the Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award for “Chez Whatever,” about a South Side woman questioning her love for her Lincoln Park girlfriend. That short story links thematically to the eight others soon to be…

In 1978, Irma Suárez Ruiz went to pick up her younger sisters from a Spanish dance class at Northeastern Illinois University, home of the fledgling Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater. Just out of high school, Ruiz was promptly kicked out of the studio by the company’s founder and artistic director, Libby Komaiko. “She said, ‘We don’t want anyone to come in because the kids lose their attention,’” Ruiz recalls. She wasn’t offended as much as intrigued, and by the time she watched the ensemble perform Zapateado later that summer, she was hooked: “That program alone struck a nerve in me. I wanted to be one of Libby’s dancers.” Ruiz enrolled at NEIU and signed up for every Spanish dance class she could, becoming a company apprentice in 1979. She eventually…

Back in the summer of 2014, it felt like everyone in Chicago was paying attention to what 13 kids from Morgan Park were accomplishing on a baseball diamond 600 miles away in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. As the all-Black Jackie Robinson West team advanced through the Little League World Series, the city was all in, including a watch party that shut down State Street and, ultimately, a parade befitting the Cubs or Sox to celebrate the team’s U.S. championship. Kevin Shaw was among the enthralled. With an up-close view of the team’s run while covering the games for ESPN, “I was totally on the bandwagon,” says the Emmy-winning cinematographer and producer. Shaw, who grew up in Calumet Heights, captures the triumph in his new documentary, One Golden Summer. At least that’s the…

On a Thursday evening last October, Dontay Banks Sr. got a troubling call from his old friend Robert Shipp. The two had come up together on the streets of Englewood, rising through the ranks of the infamous Gangster Disciples. In the early ’90s, Banks oversaw one of the biggest crack operations on the South Side, and he selected Shipp as his right-hand man. They were sent to prison in 1994 on federal drug charges but remained close. Banks, now 56, always felt like an older brother to Shipp, four years his junior, and Shipp was like an uncle to Dontay’s children. After the two got out of prison in 2019, Banks asked his trusted former lieutenant to look out for his younger son, Durk, whose career as a rapper, under…

HOW DO YOU TAKE A FRESH APPROACH with a subject who’s been photographed a lot? For our inside shots of cover star Jeff Tweedy (page 68), we went for cheeky. “Jeff, in most photos, looks very deadpan, but he’s quite funny,” says Chicago creative director David Syrek. “We wanted to play off of that combination.” One of the ideas proposed to the Wilco frontman was to put him in a kiddie pool, wearing a snorkel. But a few days before the shoot, Tweedy suggested a tweak: What if he wore a full-on scuba suit? Syrek procured one from Learn Scuba Chicago in Bucktown, but in the end, it was deemed overkill. Instead, the crew turned to a bubble machine that photographer Alec Basse had brought to the set, giving the…

1 Ruth Chepngetich, who set a women’s world record of 2:09:56 at the 2024 Chicago Marathon, will be absent from this year’s race on Oct. 12. She was suspended after testing positive for a banned substance. 2 Former House Speaker Michael Madigan reports to prison Oct. 13 to begin his sevenand-a-half-year sentence for bribery and racketeering. He’s expected to serve a little more than six. He’d be nearly 90 when he got out. 3 Chicago Public Media is losing its federal funding Oct. 1. The $3 million it was receiving annually represented 6 percent of its budget. What will that mean for WBEZ listeners? More pledge drives, no doubt. 4 Behind on taxes? The Illinois Department of Revenue is running an amnesty program Oct. 1 to Nov. 15. Pay any taxes…

Four Pop-Ups to Pop Into CASH’S KITCHEN Who’s behind it: Travis Champer, who honed his skills at Fat Rice, Sepia, and other spots before doing a stretch in Los Angeles. He returned in 2024 to launch the pop-up. The concept: Cash’s Kitchen is getting raves for its smashburgers. Those first got attention at Marz Community Brewing Co.’s 2024 Burger Time competition, where Champer stepped in for a contestant who canceled at the last minute. He wound up taking the title. His double smashburger is a meticulous study in texture and flavor: two perfectly seared, juicy patties sprinkled with big salt crystals and topped with lettuce, tomato, onion, and a smear of garlicky mayo. Round out your order with crisp fries. Find it: Sundays and Mondays (and Tuesdays, starting in November)…

LOOK UP. ABOVE TWO CRYStal waterfall chandeliers, the dining room ceiling is in constant flux, alight with digital projections that switch from raindrops to clouds to the Bean in Millennium Park. Look around. Velvet banquettes, frosted glass dividers, mahogany paneling set in Streamline Moderne alcoves, and gliding service carts outfitted with buzz saws to slice bread suggest you’ve walked through a time portal into the Green Mill of a century ago. Now ask for a tour, because you ain’t seen nothing yet. Welcome to the Alston, which stretches an entire city block and is more warren than restaurant, an ever-unfurling maze of open bar seating and secluded dining corners, of wine cellars and secret chambers, of curtains you duck behind and bathrooms you have to search for, of a freakin’…

THERE’S NOTHING SUBTLE ABOUT RED WALLS. AND THAT’S the point. For a client’s Lincoln Park brownstone, Chicagobased interior designer Sarah Vaile transformed a once-overlooked pass-through into the house’s most magnetic room by embracing vibrant, all-over color. “We didn’t just paint an accent wall and call it a day,” says Vaile. “We leaned in harder.” The bold move paid off. This high-energy family lounge demonstrates that saturated hues can be both dramatic and livable, if you know how to balance various elements. Here are some takeaways from the project.…

When Chloé Mendel Corgan was a child, she’d watch intently as her father, Gilles Mendel, designed costumes for the New York City Ballet. “That’s really where I learned construction, how a garment has to move on a body,” says the fashion designer and wife of Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan. It’s a skill she relied on later, designing for runways and musicians. Now the Highland Park resident and cofounder of Maison Atia, a luxury brand specializing in faux fur, is channeling her creativity into inventing costumes for a high-profile hybrid of rock concert, opera, and theater. Call it Lyric Opera’s Pumpkin season: A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness, a seven-evening event, marks the 30th anniversary of the fabled double album, recorded in Chicago. Billy will perform his songs…

This autumn marks the start of Steppenwolf Theatre’s 50th anniversary season, so it seems fitting that the storied company tapped another Chicago theater icon, Robert Falls, to direct its centerpiece production, Amadeus. After all, the former artistic director at Goodman Theatre also began making his bones in the city half a century ago, initially working in local storefronts. “Steppenwolf was formed by actors who are my same age,” says Falls, 71. “We grew up in the emerging Chicago theater scene.” It’s a late-career Steppenwolf debut for Falls, who spent 35 years at the Goodman before stepping down in 2022. But he wasn’t Steppenwolf’s original choice. That was Anna D. Shapiro, its former artistic director, who withdrew this summer for health reasons. “We knew we needed a visionary director who could…

FUN HOUSE Children don’t always want to hear that healthy eating is going to help them long term or that good sleep hygiene will keep their mind functioning during the day. But you can find ways to keep things approachable by being silly—a funny face, an unexpected sound. If you can make washing your hands a game, it goes down much better. FRESH FRUIT VS. JUICE Elliot really enjoys berries, so breakfast is usually some combination of strawberries, blueberries, and some other fruit. Juice is not something we heavily incorporate; a lot are wonderful for you, if they’re 100 percent juice, but if it’s a concentrate or highly sugared, those are empty calories. EARLY READERS It’s important at a young age to get them used to reading books and spending…

The most popular Joycoast watch isn’t stainless steel or smart. It’s made from zebrawood, streaked in natural stripes that no two wrists will ever share. That’s the point. Founder Reese O’Toole designs around the quirks of real wood for watches and sunglasses that are light enough to forget you’re wearing them and striking enough to start a conversation. At Joycoast’s store, which opened in June, offerings range from minimalist to flashy, like a watch made of bamboo slivers dyed in rainbow hues. O’Toole is all about sustainability, sourcing from FSC-certified forests and pledging that 10 trees are planted for each purchase. “A lot of our wood comes from Africa, where our nonprofit partners work with local farmers to grow forest gardens,” says the former ad exec. Every swirl, sweep, and…

TRILOKAH 2239 N. Clybourn Ave., Lincoln Park ◼ Perfect order Kizhi porotta, kadala curry ◼ In March, after six years in Mount Prospect, Shabin Mathews moved his Indian restaurant, Trilokah, to Lincoln Park, up the street from Pequod’s. He either generated an immediate fan base or brought half of the northwest suburbs with him, because the place has been packed every day. The crowds, mostly people of South Asian heritage, are coming for the distinctive and crave-worthy cooking of Kerala in southern India. After one hectic meal there and a two-hour wait for carry out, I’ve cracked the code: Go at lunch. The place is less harried, the food better, and the staff able to breathe. For a hearty bowl of what-all-the-fussis-about, try kizhi porotta with chicken, a coconut-rich varutharachathu…

WHEN AN ORLAND PARK COUple began mapping out their new dream home, they didn’t start with the vision of an ideal kitchen or a Pinterest board of paint swatches. They began with a shower. Specifically, a shower lined in green onyx, a rare natural stone found in Pakistan and India and often used in traditional Palestinian interiors. They turned to Shalmai Keim, owner of Shalmai Interior Design Studio in Goshen, Indiana, because they knew she had pulled off the challenging material in a previous project. “Green onyx is notoriously tricky,” Keim says. “Each slab has unpredictable rust veining, and no two are alike. Most designers won’t touch it.” What began as a conversation about a single bathroom quickly expanded into a full-home commission, with one clear directive: Weave the owners’…

This world will never end,” a tiny voice sings on “Regicide,” which opens Tomorrow Kings’ long-awaited sophomore album, Salt. The vocals belong to Ava, the young daughter of Rob Moman, better known as rapper Collasoul Structure. The Avalon Park resident recalls, “When I heard her singing, I was like, ‘Let me record this! This may show up later.’ ” Salt has been a long time coming — and not just for Ava, whose contribution was captured six years ago, when she was 4. It’s the first unified release in 12 years for the Chicago-born hip-hop collective, and it weaves progressive-minded lyrics with melodic hooks set against jazzy brass and industrialized beats. Tackling past and present injustices is very much front of mind, most significantly on “Red Summer,” which draws parallels…

A single Latina mother, applying for a U.S. passport, gets caught in an immigration court nightmare spurred by a years-old misdemeanor for pot possession. That’s the driving action in Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars, a world premiere by local playwright Sandra Delgado, who also heads the cast. As relevant as that story line feels today, the drama takes place in 2015. “You know, people love Obama, but in some communities, he became known as the ‘deporter in chief,’ ” says Delgado, the daughter of Colombian immigrants. She’s been developing the script for seven years and had dabbled with setting it during the first Trump term, but “I felt that would take over, because so many of us are so quick to blame Trump for everything. This problem isn’t about Obama,…

PEDIATRICS George V. Achett Primary care. (Lurie) Goose Island, 312-227-2800 Hassan Alzein Primary care, newborn care, asthma. (OSF) Evergreen Park, 708-424-7600 Adam Aronson Primary care. (Advocate Lutheran General) Skokie, 847-676-5394 Maria Christine Bayang Primary care. (UChicago AdventHealth Bolingbrook) Lockport, 815-838-7337 Eileen M. Beaty Primary care. (Endeavor Evanston) Evanston, 847-869-0892 John H. Beckerman Primary care. (Advocate Good Shepherd) Barrington, 847-382-7337 Frank W. Belmonte (Advocate Children’s Park Ridge) Park Ridge, 847-723-2210 Irwin Benuck Primary care, obesity, developmental disorders, cardiology. (Lurie) Streeterville, 312-227-4100 Charles M. Braverman Primary care. (Advocate Children’s Park Ridge) Lake Barrington, 847-381-5005 Tara E. Brito Primary care, preventive medicine. (Lurie) Oak Park, 708-383-2900 Donald K. Brown Primary care, child development, preventive medicine, parenting issues, newborn care. (Lurie) Streeterville, 312-280-1480 Mark M. Butterly Hospital medicine. (Advocate Children’s Oak Lawn) Oak Lawn, 708-684-8000 Jeffrey A. Cabotaje Primary…

BUILDING ADVENTUROUS EATERS In the morning, eggs are our goto. And we always have a plethora of avocados, which we’ve used to explain healthy fat and macronutrients. We also encourage them to try new things: “If you think you don’t like it, take one bite.” When they do that, a lot of times they end up liking it. JUVENILE WORKOUTS I work out every morning. So with fitness, I try to lead by example, hoping they will emulate that. We’ll walk around the park just to spend time together. Bike rides are huge for us, too. My boys are in muay thai — Thai kickboxing — and I am as well. I told my oldest son: “You can start with weight training when you’re older. For now, start doing sit-ups…

AFTER THE SPECIALTY SHOP COWBOYS AND ASTRONAUTS was launched eight years ago, its fans included Lake View couple Tyler Leasher and Brian Mamassian. “Anytime we came to Andersonville, we had to stop in,” says Leasher. “You never knew what you’d find.” The men’s store became a destination for urban aesthetes with an outdoorsy side, offering a mix of home goods, apparel, and self-care products. Where else to shop for a blazer, a martini shaker, and locally made lube? When the owners closed the store in March, no Apollo 13–style rescue was needed: Leasher and Mamassian stepped in to buy and reopen the business. While still leaning into the space-plus-nature theme, they carry more clothing now, including such brands as Rhone and Bike (jockstraps from the latter are a bestseller), plus Jonathan…

■ To be a good improviser, you have to listen and you have to relinquish your ideas and build on someone else’s. It’s about trying to be present and serve the greater good. Obviously, the real world is a different playing field, but the improv muscle goes with me wherever I go. I bring it into any room if I’m focused and curious enough and not in my own head. ■ In fourth grade at Queen of Martyrs on the South Side, we got to go to the library. I was into comedy, comedy, comedy, so I looked up “comedy” in the Dewey decimal system, and the only book containing comic material was Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints. For her “successful recipes,” there were just blank pages, then paragraphs of her…