Restaurant Week is returning to Chicago. From January 21 through February 4, over 350 of Chicago’s best restaurants will create special menus to showcase their favorite items. The menus will be fixed-price at either $22 or $33 for lunch and either $33 or $44 for dinner.  These deals are expensive, but exploring new cuisines and neighborhoods is worth the cost. From German to Vietnamese to Caribbean, over 30 different cuisines will be represented across the city, from River North to Wicker Park to the West Loop.

A10, a French and Italian–inspired eatery on 53rd Street, will represent Hyde Park this coming Restaurant Week. UChicagoans eat, sleep, and breathe the Med; for UChicago students, Medici is the only restaurant in Hyde Park that is nice enough to bring a date or visiting friends. However, if you’re desperate to find a new Hyde Park locale to impress your friends and, more importantly, your stomach, consider stopping by A10 to sample their signature dish of the week: braised venison leg drizzled with a bacon vinaigrette.

If you are in the mood to sample cured meats, pâtés, and sausages of the highest quality, consider Tête Charcuterie on Randolph Street. I visited the restaurant last October, and not only was the food memorable, but the service was impeccable. Even if you pass on the charcuterie board and the delicious pickled beef cheeks, you must brace yourself for this restaurant’s mastery of flavor when it comes to more traditional meals. The Restaurant Week menu has both a grilled hanger steak with bordelaise sauce and a wheat berry mushroom risotto. If you do come to the Tête Charcuterie, do not leave without tasting the sticky date cake for dessert, which is an option on the Restaurant Week menu. It is one of my favorite desserts to date.

To find the list of restaurants participating in Chicago Restaurant Week, visit choosechicago.com. The website allows you to search for restaurants based on cuisine and location. Check out the menus, and make your reservations soon, as the restaurants are quickly filling up. Happy eating, UChicago.