The Time Out Chicago blog team

Chicago, winter isn’t playing around. After an unusually snowy start—the city has already clocked 17.1 inches, nearly matching all of last season—the real punchline arrives this weekend, when wind chills are expected to drop to around -12 degrees in the city and even lower in the suburbs. But first, Thursday is doing plenty of heavy lifting. The National Weather Service says temperatures will hold in the mid-20s today before yet another clipper system moves in tonight. Light snow could accumulate through Friday morning, with gusty winds keeping visibility low, a theme this week that refuses to shake. Friday offers a brief reprieve with highs near 30, but the next system isn’t far behind. Snow returns Saturday morning and could stack a few more inches onto the city’s unusually snowy December, with southeast neighborhoods and northwest Indiana poised for the highest totals by Sunday. Then comes the real plunge. By Saturday evening into early Sunday, temperatures fall into the single digits while wind chills sink well into the negatives, as low as -25 in some suburbs, meteorologist Ricky Castro told Block Club Chicago. It’s the sharpest drop of the season and the one Chicagoans will feel immediately. From there, the cold digs in. Saturday’s high of about 10 degrees slips quickly after sunset and while some light snow may linger into Sunday, the real concern is the deep freeze—the kind that stings any exposed skin and makes even short errands feel like a questionable life...

Chicago has plenty of nostalgic holiday offerings on tap, but this month brings along with it a special activation that we just cannot wait for. Starting tomorrow, December 10, through December 17, Disney+ will team up with Prince Street Pizza to create a Home Alone pop-up, the legendary holiday movie that just celebrated its 35th anniversary. That's right, you'll soon be able to live that Kevin McCallister life at Little Nero’s pop-up, the fictional delivery joint that provided Kevin with the cheesiest pizza ever captured on film. For one week only, step inside a fully decked-out version of the movie’s iconic pizza brand and say to the cashier, “A lovely cheese pizza, just for me.” The shop will temporarily adopt Little Nero’s branding in everything from signage to staff apparel and the instantly recognizable pizza boxes. Already one of Prince Street’s most popular options, the cheese slice gets a temporary rebrand as “A Lovely Cheese Pizza,” meaning employees will never be able to watch Home Alone again without wincing. Expect a handful of movie nods throughout the space, subtle enough to feel like an in-joke but bold enough to make the whole thing unmistakably Home Alone. The charm of the event lies in its simplicity. Prince Street doesn’t need to reinvent itself with elaborate sets or interactive elements; the pop-up’s power is in the nostalgia. After all, Home Alone isn’t just a movie—it’s a holiday ritual, revisited every December by families, roommates and anyone...

Chicago’s fine-dining flex just got international receipts. La Liste, the influential French guide that crunches reviews, guidebooks and online ratings from more than 1,100 sources into a single global ranking, has released its 2026 top 1000 restaurants list—and five Chicago spots made the cut. Leading the local pack is Ever in Fulton Market, scoring a lofty 96 out of 100. Curtis Duffy and Michael Muser’s tasting-menu temple is already a two-Michelin-star destination, but La Liste’s nod just confirms what anyone who’s stared down one of Duffy’s plates already knows: this is the ultimate “special occasion” spot. Right behind it is West Loop favorite Smyth, coming in at 95. Here, John and Karen Urie Shields lean into hyper-seasonal cooking, driven by a 20-acre farm south of the city, turning a lengthy, 2.5-hour tasting into something both comfortable and luxurious. One course might feature salted licorice-soaked egg yolk and another pristine yet simple seafood or vegetables. (Plus, the room feels more like a stylish friend’s home than a white-tablecloth temple.) Lincoln Park’s boundary-pushing Alinea lands a score of 93.5, tying with West Loop heavyweight Oriole. At Alinea, Grant Achatz’s famed helium balloons, tableside theatrics and multi-course mind-benders still make for one of the city’s most immersive nights out. Meanwhile, Oriole takes a quieter route to the same level of wow: guests slip in through a back alley, ride a freight elevator and then settle into a...