"Yeah, those are a little trickier to go into if you are famous,"
he says. "Famous and alcohol can be not so good, but I like to go
into [the bars]. There are great ones all around
Wrigley Field. You
can go into any of those and have a great time."
Nighttime in
Chicago. Difficult decisions loom for a guy on a bike.
Not because of limitations, but, perhaps, because of a lack of
them.
"It's the kind of city where you don't have to make plans," Cusack
says. "You can go out in Chicago and the day or the night happens
to you. You run into people and they say, 'Let's go over here, and
let's do this.'?"
A guy who's spent all day on a bike requires sustenance, and in
Chicago that most likely means steak. Cusack mentions arguably the
greatest Chicago steak house in a city full of great steak houses:
Gibsons Bar and Steakhouse, which he calls "the old standby."
"It's hard to get a better steak than [Gibsons] in Chicago," he
says. "It's like Old Faithful. It has a real Chicago feeling."
But there's more to Chicago than just steak.
"There are great little Italian restaurants on Wells. Edwardo's is
a great pizza place. They've got them all over. I get the stuffed
spinach. Topo Gigio's Ristorante is a good
Italian restaurant on
Wells. Traditional. There are so many places … "
If it's a special occasion, Cusack might bike over to the holy
temple of new American cuisine, with its tasting menu of infinite
dishes, impeccable quality, and extraordinary price: Charlie
Trotter's.
"Charlie Trotter's is a terrific place," he says. "There is also
Spiaggia [a two-level, upscale Northern Italian restaurant], in the
One Magnificent Mile building. It's a fantastic restaurant
overlooking the city, right across from the Drake [Hotel]. I've
gone there quite a bit. It's really superior."