Taste of Chicago

Since 1980, Taste of Chicago has turned Grant Park, in the heart of the city, into a sprawling open-air showcase of Chicago's restaurant scene. Free to enter, the festival has grown into one of the largest food festivals of its kind in the world, with dozens of local restaurants serving everything from deep-dish pizza to Chicago-style hot dogs alongside more ambitious plates from the city's fine-dining scene.

Live music has long been part of the draw too, with stages hosting performances throughout the festival's run, set against the backdrop of the Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan.

For a city with a genuinely distinctive food identity of its own, Taste of Chicago has become the accessible, everyone-welcome expression of that identity — a way for millions of visitors over the decades to sample the city's food scene without booking a single restaurant reservation.