After stuffing ourselves with turkey on Thursday, Mrs. F and I will be attending a concert downtown on Friday and then hopping on the 8:00 "City of New Orleans" bound for the rolling prairies of Southern Illinois to visit her folks.

All of this means that we will have about 3 hours to kill in the Loop before we head to Union Station. Any ideas for a nice dinner that 1) won't be mobbed with shoppers and 2) won't break the bank?

Thanks!

You could walk north to Randolph and try Avec. I know Avec has a reveiw in this forum.

Avec is away from the shopping areas so should not be that crowded, especially as you are going somewhat early it looks like.

Enjoy

What is your definition of "nice" and "break the bank?" There are a ton of great restaurants downtown and just north of the river - though I think the ones I want to recommend will fall into the break the bank category (i.e. Le Lan). I just checked opentable and most of the restaurants that take online reservations in that area have availability for around 5:30 Friday (which I am guessing if your target time if you have to be at Union station for the 8:00 train). And while Water Tower Place will be busy, you can always go to Foodlife for a decent meal selection and place to sit.

Where is the concert? It would be useful to know your general geographic boundaries (i.e. between Union Station & ???).

Thanks for the replies. Concert is at Symphony Center (Orchestra Hall). We won't have a car because we're taking the "El" in from Uptown.

Price-wise we'd like to stay under $50/person all in.

The Chicago Reader has a good feedback based online guide - heres a link for 1/2 mile radius of Symphony Center:

http://tinyurl.com/ux9lc

I've been to the Village, Trattoria No. 10, and Elephant and Castle - Each is acceptable, non are amazing.

Petterino's is very well accustomed to dinner and show patrons from being along side Goodman Theatre.

Closer ones with good reputations include:

Park Grill - on the Michigan Avenue Side of Millennium Park, just under "The Bean", and therefore a great choice if you haven't been to MP.

Russian Tea Time - old school decadence

17West at the Berghoff is a new incarnation of a Chicago classic (same ownership as Berghoff Cafe at ORD T1)

I know little about Rhapsody except that its French dining and right behind the Symphony Center on the same block.

For a taste of Chicago, and a smaller bill try
Miller's Pub - old school photo's on the wall joint
Giordano's (Randolph) - Easy to get seating branch of Chicago-style Pizza chain.

There are also some national sit-down chain options not far away and several good choices in River North if you want to walk a little further as well (Frontera, Singha (thai), several steakhouses - but the Brazilian places are probably above your line.)

Rhapsody is connected to the Symphony Center and is very good, and you should be able to stay within the $50 per person range. Once the concert ends, just walk through the rotunda and there is an entrance to the restaurant right before the Adams Street exit. Not sure how crowded it will be Friday night, but you could make reservations.

http://www.rhapsodychicago.com/

Park Grill in Millennium Park across the street from Symphony Center is also very good, but will likely be mobbed by tourists.

http://www.parkgrillchicago.com/

Thanks again everyone. We ended up walking over to Marche as it was such a nice night out and it wasn't too far from the train. Nice meal, not too expensive. I would go back.