A downtown Evanston street with a bike lane. Photo: Eric Fredericks from Rancho Cordova, CA, United States / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Evanston restaurants collected a long list of wins in Make It Better magazine’s 2014 Best of the North Shore dining poll, taking categories from barbecue to bread to best new restaurant. The magazine said readers cast more than 90,000 verified votes across the poll’s categories.
Evanston names appeared beside Chicago destinations such as Alinea, Frontera, Spiaggia and the Peninsula Hotel, which also won categories.
The Evanston winners
- Pizza and date night: Union, 1245 Chicago Ave.
- Fine dining: Oceanique, 505 Main St.
- Gourmet market: Foodstuffs, 2106 Central St.
- Neighborhood gem: Campagnola, 815 Chicago Ave.
- Barbecue: Hecky’s, 1902 Green Bay Rd.
- Asian: Lao Sze Chuan, 1633 Orrington Ave.
- Bakery, sweets: Bennison’s, 1000 Davis St.
- Bakery, bread: Hewn, 810 Dempster St.
- Burger: Edzo’s, 1571 Sherman Ave., with DMK, 815 Noyes St., as runner-up
- Coffee: Peet’s, 1622 Chicago Ave.
- Steak house: Pete Miller’s, 1557 Sherman Ave.
- Cocktail bar: Ward 8, 629 W. Howard St.
- New restaurant: Peckish Pig, 623 W. Howard St.
The winners spread across several parts of the city. Downtown’s Chicago Avenue, Sherman Avenue and Davis Street corridors supplied many of them, but Hecky’s on Green Bay Road, Foodstuffs on Central Street, Hewn on Dempster, and Ward 8 and Peckish Pig on West Howard Street showed that strong restaurants were not confined to one district.
Winners outside the kitchen
Non-food businesses also placed. Egea Spa won for best facial and Benefit for best brow service. FlowersFlowers was named best florist, Maya Papaya & Tony Macarony best children’s clothes, Dance Center Evanston best dance class, Noah’s Playground best playground, Evanston Athletic Club best gym, and Happy Husky best pet bakery.
Readers’ polls reflect popularity more than formal judging, and the categories favor places with a wide following. Still, a list that puts a counter-service burger stand and a brand-new Howard Street restaurant alongside long-established names like Hecky’s and Bennison’s offers a rough snapshot of what North Shore diners were choosing in the summer of 2014.
Several of the winners had their own recent news. Hewn was building Evanston’s first parklet outside its Dempster Street bakery that month, a project funded largely through Kickstarter, and Peckish Pig was the newest name on the list.
Rachel Lindqvist covers community life, the lakefront, dining and the arts for The Evanston Edge.
