Best Neighborhood Hangout Chicago Restaurant: Medici Hyde Park

The quintessential neighborhood restaurant, in my mind, is a restaurant that is emblematic of a neighborhood - a microcosm, if you will. Even though Chicago has many neighborhood restaurants, I find it hard to find a good example of a neighborhood restaurant. I feel the best example of a neighborhood restaurant in Chicago I have found is the Medici Restaurant in Hyde Park at 1327 E 57th St.

Named after the Medici family of Renaissance Italy, the Medici restaurant is also a family of politicians and scholars both actual and in the making. Anybody and everybody in Hyde Park visits this restaurant for both the food and for the people they meet there. The food fits the eccentricity of Hyde Park and is both comfortable and filling.

The least eclectic item is the burger. It's a half pound of seasoned beef on a fresh potato roll baked at the Medici bakery next door. If you're not adventurous, then have it topped only with cheese. The more daring try the Reuben burger (sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Thousand Island dressing) or the Stroganoff (mushrooms, sour cream, and grilled onions). My husband and I prefer the Cajun burger, which is a burger blackened Cajun-style and topped with barbecue sauce. Their veggie burger is also really great, especially when it is served on a potato roll with all the fixings.

Just as Hyde Park has some of the ordinary, it also has some unusual finds. The Medici also has some of these items on its menu. One of these items not to miss is the espresso eggs. They run two eggs through their espresso machine and what emerges is the lightest and fluffiest scrambled eggs you have ever tasted. This is not always on the menu, so sometimes you need to make a special request. It is definitely worth asking.

The Medici would not be a neighborhood restaurant in a college neighborhood without its pizza. Two of the best are the garbage pizza and spinach goat cheese pizza. The garbage pizza has every meat topping available plus onions, peppers, and mushrooms. The spinach and goat cheese is topped as it is named with a pesto sauce. I find the other menu items mediocre choices of salads and Italian entrees, and so I stick to my favorites.