How Chicago's Chinatown Is Unlike Any Others

How Chicago's Chinatown Is Unlike Any Others - Menuism Dining Blog, August 23, 2016

 

By now most readers are familiar with the general pattern of historic center city core Chinatowns in the United States.  In most of these cities, much of the population, and correspondingly the good Chinese food, has fled to the suburbs, such as the San Gabriel Valley outside of Los Angeles, or other parts of the city, like Flushing and Brooklyn in New York.  The only real exception to this rule that we have discussed so far is that of Philadelphia, whose Chinatown has gone through an unexpected revival in the past five years, though it has not expanded geographically.

Happily there is one exception to this pattern in the case of Chicago Chinatown, which not only is thriving, but also is experiencing significant population growth and geographic expansion.  Chicago Chinatown’s population increased by 25 percent between 2000 and 2010 and its boundaries are spilling into adjacent neighborhoods.  But why is Chicago the great exception as a Chinese culinary center with a growing Chinatown, contrasted to Los Angeles Chinatown which has become a hotbed of non-Chinese restaurants, Manhattan Chinatown, gentrifying and giving back turf, particularly on the Lower East Side, San Francisco Chinatown, abuzz in rumors of technology company incursion, and Washington DC Chinatown which may be on its last legs?  

Chicago’s thriving Chinatown, and uniqueness among American Chinatowns has not escaped the local press with recent articles by the  Chicago Tribune and Next City highlighting the issue in recent weeks.  Unfortunately, the explanations provided in these articles as to why Chicago is the great exception, such as “the commitment to Chinese traditions” or the avoidance of zoning policy which can trigger gentrification, miss the most important factor.

Like so many American cities, Chicago developed a late 19^th century downtown Chinatown, centered around the intersection of Van Buren St. and Clark St.  However, unlike in San Francisco, Manhattan, Boston, Philadelphia and others, that downtown Chinatown did not endure because the Chinese did not control the real estate where they settled.  As downtown real estate became more valuable, the Chinese had to vacate.  Consequently, in 1912, Chicago’s Chinatown relocated two miles south to its present spot, centered by Wentworth Ave. and Cermak Road. 

This relocation has made all the difference in the world in the unique dynamics of Chicago Chinatown.  While Chicago Chinatown is indeed over a century old, being outside of the immediate downtown core, it is the only historic Chinatown with abundant single family housing and residential side streets.  This makes Chicago Chinatown more akin to the modern Chinatowns of Flushing and Brooklyn.  As such, Chicago never developed the secondary suburban Chinese communities away from the core city area like in the San Francisco Bay area and the San Gabriel Valley.   Only the small enclave around Westmont and Naperville bears any kind of resemblance to a suburban Chicago Chinese community.

Like every other historic Chinatown, Chicago Chinatown was Cantonese-Toishanese in origin, which naturally resulted in a nearly a century of exclusively Cantonese dining.  The expansion of Chinatown with the construction of Chinatown Square in the early 1990s added more than a dozen restaurants, virtually all Cantonese.  Indeed as recently as a dozen years ago I could find less than a handful of non-Cantonese restaurants operating in Chicago Chinatown.

But where Chinatowns in Los Angeles and San Francisco still only grudgingly add restaurants serving other styles of regional Chinese cuisines, Chicago has more recently welcomed non-Cantonese restaurants with open arms.  Pioneering the way was Chef Tony Hu, often referred to as the Mayor of Chicago Chinatown, who opened up a string of specialized Chinese regional cuisine restaurants, starting with Lao Sze Chuan, followed up by Lao Beijing, Lao Hunan, Lao Yunnan, Lao Shanghai, Lao You Ju and Lao Ma La.  Indeed the empire of Tony Hu’s Tony Restaurant Group recently expanded to open Lao Sze Chuan locations in the Palms Casino in Las Vegas and Los Angeles [Glendale].   Unfortunately, the era of expansion for the Tony Restaurant Group may have ended with some branches being sold amid the revelation of systematic widespread tax evasion. 

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With the heavy influx of non-Cantonese immigrants into Chicago Chinatown’s residential areas, the demand for non-Cantonese eateries will grow in Chicago Chinatown with or without the Tony Restaurant group.  On Wentworth St., Chicago Chinatown’s main drag where I spotted nary a non-Cantonese restaurant a dozen years ago, one now finds Sze Chuan Cuisine, Ma Gong Lan Po , and Ding Sheng serving Sichuan style food, Little Lamb Hot Pot for hotpot, Chef Bao for Hunan style, Slurp Slurp noodles for Taiwanese noodles, and Qing Xiang Yuan for killer dumplings.  And in line with the rise of dessert shops in Chinese communities throughout the US, Honey Dessert of Chicago has recently opened up.  Note that freestanding boba shops are much less common in Chicago Chinatown than other Chinese communities as many sit down Chinatown restaurants here purvey a wide selection of these drinks, obviating the need for dedicated shops.  Elsewhere in Chinatown one finds other examples of non-Cantonese cuisine, such as Shanghai cuisine at Moon Palace, Shaanxi food at Xi’an Cuisine, hotpot at Mandarin Kitchen, and Sichuan food at Yan Bang Cai.

Of course, with its deep Cantonese roots, Chicago Chinatown is home to a number of excellent Cantonese style restaurants.  Perhaps closest in quality to what you would find in California and New York would be Cai Restaurant, on the second floor of Chinatown Square.  The lunchtime dim sum menu has several dozen selections, while the dinner menu contains many items not found elsewhere in Chicago.  Also in Chinatown Plaza serving great dim sum and Cantonese seafood is MingHin Cuisine.  Another nearby favorite for dim sum and Cantonese food is Phoenix Restaurant, and for something less casual there’s Lee Wing Wah in Chinatown Square.  Other choices for dim sum and more are Original Triple Crown Restaurant on 22^nd Pl., a pioneer of Hong Kong style food in Chicago, and Triple Crown Restaurant on Wentworth.

As noted above, there is a small suburban Chinese community west of Chicago, centered around Naperville and Westmont.  MinHing, Lao Sze Chuan and other Chinatown restaurants have branches out here, and the Taiwanese leaning International Mall on Pasquinelli Dr. in Westmont houses a number of restaurants in the food court.

Finally, mention should be made of a second “New Chinatown” in Chicago which was planned by Chinese businessmen in the 1970s along Argyle Street, north of downtown Chicago.  As things turned out, the redevelopment of this area coincided with a migration of immigrants from Southeast Asia to Chicago, creating a community with more of a Vietnamese and Cambodian influence, rather than Chinese.  However given the historic connection of ethnic Chinese peoples in Vietnam, similar to overlapping Vietnamese/Chinese communities we have previously mentioned in surveys of San Diego and Orlando, there is a like Chinese presence in the Argyle Street neighborhood, as evidenced by a string of Chinese restaurants in the area such as Sun Wah BBQ, former Chinatown stalwart Furama, and another branch of Lao Sze Chuan.