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Soup's on in the loop

Maybe you keep kosher, or your coworkers do, or your best friend does. Maybe you'd like to grab a bite to eat before a show, or invite that cute guy in the adjacent cubicle out for dinner—or just eat lunch. 

Like many of you, we work in the loop, and like many of you, we often spend our lunch breaks meeting friends or schmoozing with co-workers. While neither of us keeps kosher, some of our favorite people do, and we’ve spent quite a few mornings looking for restaurants that will accommodate the frum and frei alike.

Have you ever done a quick Google search for kosher restaurants in the loop? The results are…underwhelming.

Some searches will turn up an impressive list of lunch and dinner options, but upon closer inspection, you'll find these are kosher-style, not certified kosher. While Shalom Deli gets rave reviews on Yelp, that ham and cheese bagel on the menu isn’t going to impress your Orthodox boss.

With a Jewish population of over 270,000, metropolitan Chicago boasts one of the largest in the United States. Jews comprise 9% of Chicago’s population, but the kosher restaurant industry is primarily concentrated in the Northern suburbs.

Chicago's Loop offers only three kosher options.

The Spertus Café is one option, and the location and view provide some much-needed drama to an otherwise lack-luster dining experience. Most of the food is pre-packaged, but there is beer and wine available, and with a little imagination, an omnivore might be able to piece together a satisfying lunch. Vegetarians, on the other hand, may need a second glass of merlot to wash down the muffins and bagels that comprise the bulk of the non-meat selections.

On the afternoon we visited, there were two soups offered, one a thick cinnamon-spiced tomato soup that was not for the faint of heart. Our other options were more mundane—think egg salad sandwiches and iceberg lettuce—and we were disappointed to find that both the online and posted menus listed items that were not available when we visited. Open for much of the day, six days a week, the Spertus Café provides an important service to those of us needing a quick, kosher meal, but the food did little to feed the soul.

If you're in the mood to pick up a sandwich on your way back to the office, Chicago Loop Synagogue offers boxed lunches made fresh everyday at Skokie’s Sandwich Club. Lunches cost $11 and include a sandwich or wrap (usually chicken or turkey), a pickle, a drink, dessert, and homemade potato chips said to be the best in Chicago. While a great option for many, these lunches are not vegetarian-friendly.

In contrast, MetroKlub, the bustling, seen and be-seen certified kosher hot spot in Greektown’s Crown Plaza Hotel, caters to a wide audience and is a popular place for business lunches. Chef Chris Turano’s menu offers a full menu of fresh lunch options from vegetable salads and hamburgers to strip steak and bruschetta. Though fleishig, MetroKlub has enough variety to accommodate even picky eaters like us.

Vegan cooks pay attention: Turano’s artful reimagining of traditional dairy recipes might reinvent the way people think about kosher food. One bite of his parve turtle cheesecake was enough to sway even the most skeptical of our lunch companions.

Unfortunately, if you’re working late you better plan ahead and pack a snack. Once Spertus closes its doors at 7pm, anyone hoping for a kosher meal in the loop is out of luck.