The Chicago Way

Until The Bear thrust Italian beef into the spotlight, it was largely unknown outside the Windy City. It is an unsexy sandwich, a wet mound of beef. It is also beloved. Will fame ruin its charm?

- KEVIN PANG

IF CHICAGO FOOD IS THE APOLLO 11 MISSION, the Italian beef sandwich is Michael Collins, far less famous than deep-dish pizza and the Chicago hot dog. It's not typically what out-of-towners order if they have only 24 hours in the city; it's more of a third-day-in-Chicago kind of thing. It ruins shirts and leaves you with pungent breath. It employs the most flavorless cut of beef.

The Italian beef is a messy, texturally one-note, woefully unphotogenic wet mound of a sandwich. And what a beautiful wet mound it is.