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Top picks for dining in the great wide open.

Monday Jun 20, 2005.     By Aimee Hall

Food Feed

Summer is here, and with it comes the alfresco dining season. We have just three short months (four if we're lucky) to shed those sweaters and get a breath of fresh air. Sure, the summer months can get sticky, but ditch the air conditioning for a couple hours, and take advantage of these "Best of" outdoor dining spots:

Best backyard barbeque
Smokin' Woody's
Unremarkable except for the strong smell of barbeque wafting onto Lincoln Avenue, Smokin' Woody's offers a country charm that's scarce in the city. Woody's serves up a variety of messy barbeque dishes, including a pulled pork sandwich that, at $6.95, is a lot cheaper than a plane ticket South. And if the gooey barbeque sauce and syrupy flavored sodas don't remind you of a retro-country diner, you'll surely change your mind when Smokin' Woody himself, chef/owner Calvin Woods, comes out of the kitchen to encourage you to eat more.

The small dining room seats about 20, with tables down the left side and an open kitchen on the right. The walls are covered with a mishmash of newspaper clippings and old-timey signs, and an antique stove reinforces the homey vibe. In warmer months, a few tables on the front sidewalk and a fenced-in patio out back provide the ideal setting for eating barbeque: outside at picnic tables. Top off the backyard barbeque experience with a cold beer ($3 for domestic; $4 for imports). The back patio's beer-sign decor and simple landscaping feel like just about any backyard in the city, but the tasty barbeque is one of a kind.

Best patio
Thyme
With its warm red, green and gold decor and soft candlelit atmosphere, Thyme brings a touch of sophistication to its rough-around-the-edges neighborhood on the corner of Halsted, Grand and Milwaukee. The food is French-American in an upscale, but not too upscale, way that suits the type of financially secure thirtysomethings you're likely to find here. A seasonal menu caters mostly to meat-eaters, with an emphasis on seafood (including its signature shrimp and vanilla bean appetizer) and beef and an impressive selection of wines.

Thyme's main foyer houses a curved bar and a few tables, while the main dining room in back seats about 60. Rich wood tones and subtle lighting give Thyme a more intimate feel than its younger, more casual sister, Thyme Cafe in Wicker Park. Thyme also claims its outdoor patio is the largest in the city, seating up to 150 people. Lush greenery, romantic lighting and a great view of the skyline are sometimes accompanied by live music in this urban Garden of Eden.

Best rooftop deck
Medici on 57th
Medici originally opened as a coffeehouse and art gallery in the heart of the University of Chicago's Hyde Park campus. It quickly became a favorite student hangout, popular with the anti-war crowd of the '60s. Today, Medici's pizza and burgers still please a mostly-student crowd. The booths and many of the tables are covered in graffiti, carved into the wood over the years. The food is sold at student-friendly prices, with small pizzas starting at $6 and most sandwiches between $7 and $8. Students should leave their books at home, as the menu warns against hogging the tables for too long.

Medici's rooftop deck seats about 75 people, and it's a quiet place to discuss politics over a thin crust pizza or a portabella sandwich. Trees peak out above the rooftop, creating a leafy haven away from the street noise below. Taking the green scene beyond the landscaping, Medici's menu is vegetarian-friendly, with plenty of meat-free dishes. Medici also uses fair trade coffee, so you can be confident that you're helping South American coffee farmers, even if you're not planning a revolution.

Most romantic sidewalk cafe
Rick's Cafe
Located just out of range of Wrigley Field's unwashed masses, Rick's Cafe feels more like the French Riviera than the North Side. This BYOB cafe is as romantic as it gets: an intimate dining room for quiet, candlelit conversation and a quaint sidewalk patio for casual people-watching. The menu's mix of Spanish, French and Mediterranean dishes offers a taste of southern Europe at a reasonable cost, with entrees around $15 and hot and cold tapas in the $5-$8 range. The popularity of Rick's Cafe is apparent by the way the tables are packed in here. The small sidewalk area is a breath of fresh air, with French music piped in to cover the sounds of traffic on Sheridan.

Diners here are casual but well dressed, and the place is extremely popular with those in the know. You'll need reservations on popular nights, so call ahead. Don't forget to bring your favorite vintage, and expect a $4 corkage fee, a bit steep, but necessary to get a true taste of this little piece of Europe.

Best for groups
El Jardin Restaurant
El Jardin's margaritas are on the verge of gaining legendary status, while the restaurant's Mexican dishes provide tasty south-of-the-border cuisine for average prices ($10-$15). Like all Wrigleyville establishments, El Jardin is more crowded when the Cubs are in town, and the staff is friendlier and less harried on non-game days, too.

El Jardin's popular outdoor seating includes an adobe-walled front patio that seats about 40 people and a large garden in back for up to 100 people. Retractable awnings offer protection in case of rain. A bar area at the front of the restaurant houses a small TV and a souvenir shop, while the dining rooms are full of tropical plants and other typical Mexican decor. What El Jardin lacks in originality, it makes up for in liveliness. The large dining areas are great for groups, and the $6 birthday package provides flan and a sombrero for the guest of honor. With so much seating, getting a table is usually not a problem, but if there's a baseball game at Wrigley Field, you can always sip margaritas while enduring the hour-plus wait for a seat.

Best lunch spot
The Garden Restaurant
Although the MCA has big-name celebrity chef cache with its Puck's at the MCA restaurant, the Art Institute of Chicago's Garden Restaurant has a more classic garden party charm. Located in the lower level of the Art Institute, it's a quiet and sophisticated place for lunch, even if you don't have time to explore the museum. With salads, sandwiches and entrees in the $10-$15 range, The Garden isn't for a cheap lunch date, but the seasonal menu of contemporary American cuisine sets it apart from the pizza and burger joints that are more popular Loop lunchtime spots.

From late spring to early fall, alfresco dining is available in McKinlock Court, a shady courtyard with tables set up around Carl Mille's gurgling "Fountain of the Tritons." Marc Chagall's cobalt "America Windows" on the western wall of McKinlock Court have been removed until 2009 because of construction on the Art Institute's new wing, but the courtyard remains a work of art in itself, providing a scenic setting for a light lunch and a glass of wine.

Best people watching
Emilio's Sol y Nieve
Chef Emilio Gervilla is a well-known presence in the Chicago small-plates scene. With four Spanish tapas restaurants, Emilio's Streeterville location, Sol y Nieve, is where downtown diners come to eat traditional Spanish food at reasonable prices. Sol y Nieve's extensive menu of hot and cold tapas, priced between $5 and $10, include traditional dishes like baked goat cheese, as well as more creative and equally tasty dishes like an avocado topped with tuna potato salad, shrimp and basil vinaigrette. Sol y Nieve also offers several entree-sized options, including three paella varieties priced around $15 per person.

Sol y Nieve's large outdoor cafe area seats close to 100 people, weather permitting. Although the wait can be long to get a table outside, the restaurant's location between Michigan Avenue and Navy Pier makes the outdoor tables ideal for people-watching. The service tends to be somewhat European in style (read: slow), but a pitcher of sangria and the steady stream of tourists walking by will ensure that you won't be bored.