Celebrate the End of Lent at These Chicago Steakhouses

At long last, Lent is over and it’s time to indulge. After 40 days abstaining from whatever it is that gives you pleasure. More often than not, this means comfort food. Since you’re going to want to celebrate in style, here are some decadent dining and drinking options in Chicago sure to help you break the Lenten fast the best way possible.

 

Gene & Georgetti: Don’t let the name fool you. This is hardly a salad by any stretch of the imagination. It’s more excessive than most pizzas, actually, and a great way to start a meal at this legendary steakhouse if you really don’t care about saving room for your entree. The enormous salad is portioned enough to feed a family fresh off a hunger strike, brimming with julienned salami, mozzarella, onion, garlic, roasted red peppers, celery, tomato, radish, and huge pieces of shrimp. Oh yeah, there’s also iceberg lettuce, but that’s practically an afterthought. 
 
Michael Jordan’s Steak House: Garlic bread in and of itself is pretty indulgent, let alone when it’s doused on melted cheese fondue. One of the most famous dishes at Michael Jordan’s Steak House, with enough fandom to rival the mightiest of steaks, the garlic bread appetizer is the gourmet equivalent of a Bloomin’ Onion. The dish is actually a Jenga-sized stack of buttery, doughy garlic bread, which gets poured with a rich and pungent blue cheese fondue. 

Benny’s Chop House: In case the dry-aged tomahawk rib-eye or Wagyu skirt steak isn’t decadent enough for you, Benny’s supplements with numerous opulent options. This includes traditional accoutrements like red wine demi-glace and mushroom-truffle duxelle, along with seared foie gras, bone marrow butter and Maine sea scallops. 

Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse: The steaks are great at this Gold Coast legend, but the cakes and pies are legendary in their own right. The dessert menu at Gibsons is unapologetically indulgent and insane, with slices of dessert so big they could outweigh a child. Some of the most famous options are the macadamia turtle pie, the carrot cake, the black forest cake, and the lemon meringue pie piled a mile high with meringue. 

GT Prime: If you gave up drinking bone marrow fat for Lent, there's a cocktail at GT Prime that should fit the bill perfectly. OK really this thing is just ridiculously rich and indulgent, seeing as it's a marrow-infused Old Forester bourbon drink, but it’s also one of the most unique and interesting cocktails in town. Outfitted with charcoal-infused Capeletti and Punt e Mes, it’s at once hearty, buttery, smoky and deeply boozy. 

Fleming’s: The name of the dish alone does a pretty great job at summing this one up. It’s basically one of the most lavish ingredients poached in another lavish ingredient, and then served with bearnaise sauce and caviar. It doesn’t get ritzier or more opulent than this.