Three decades ago fine dining in Chicago happened at places with names like Maxim's, Le Perroquet, and Chez Paul. Then the 1980s saw three restaurants open and refine other national cuisines besides French—Spiaggia for Italian food in 1984, Charlie Trotter's for American cuisine in 1987, and, most surprisingly, Rick Bayless's Topolobampo for Mexican, a cuisine then inextricably associated with cheap eats and big strong drinks, in 1989.…
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