One thing to note about Christopher Zucchero, owner of Mr. Beef, who also portrays minor character Chi-Chi on the relentlessly popular TV show “The Bear”: He hates talking about the show. But he loves talking about Italian beef.
Despite its deep roots and existing legendary status, over the last few years, Mr. Beef has become the city’s most famous Italian beef purveyor thanks to its prominent feature in “The Bear,” an FX show that follows a fine dining chef who returns to his family’s Italian beef stand. So when House lawmakers downstate passed a bill to designate the sturdy yet soggy Italian beef the official state sandwich of Illinois, Zucchero’s brain had to be picked.
“Did they ask the other counties in the state?” Zucchero asked the Tribune over the phone. He was 70 miles south of the Canadian border in Minnesota, where he lives when he’s not in Chicago. “I think it’s great that Italian beef is getting recognized, but does it just represent the city of Chicago, which has a tendency to overshadow the whole state of Illinois? There’s still 101 other counties,” he laughed. “I think I would feel better if I knew that every county got to vote.”
Still, he approves. There’s no arguing that the show shot Italian beef to its rightful fame — what began as immigrant ingenuity has become a symbol of pop culture’s impact on culinary culture.
State Rep. Rick Ryan, D-Evergreen Park, who held a press conference Wednesday to mark the bill that waits for a Senate vote, said his team dug through records and found that Illinois never had a state sandwich before.
“There were rumors forever that the horseshoe sandwich was the state sandwich, but that never officially happened and it’s just been something of a myth,” Ryan said.
The bill was introduced in January with bipartisan support, and the House voted to pass it in April.
Ryan said he couldn’t take full credit for the legislative action, since it was a few Springfield staffers who came up with the idea last year during an annual staffer-only Christmas party, where it’s been tradition to come up with a bill, something fun and niche, to try and get passed.
“My staffer knew I was a big fan of the sandwich, so they asked if I would sponsor it. I said ‘absolutely,’” Ryan said. “I grew up with my grandma cooking Italian beef in our kitchen every Saturday.”
As for the horseshoe (two slices of a Texas toast-type bread, a choice of meat and a mountain of french fries, all smothered in a rich, Welsh-style cheese sauce), Ryan struck a compromise.
“To appease our friends in Central Illinois, when I did the bill, I had a southern legislator incorporate that the horseshoe would be the official open-face sandwich of Illinois,” he said.
As part of the press conference on Wednesday, Ryan was joined by actor Corey Hendrix, who grew up in North Lawndale and plays the character Sweeps on “The Bear.” Italian beef food trucks were parked near the Capitol. And a House resolution declaring May 23 as Italian Beef Day in Illinois was also introduced.
“Can’t deny that ‘The Bear’ gave new life to the Italian beef,” said Ryan, adding that the story behind the bill isn’t lucrative. There was no involvement from “big beef” or any corporate entity. But May is National Beef Month and “The Bear’s” final season premieres in June.
Mr. Beef’s connection to the show runs deep. Zucchero’s no-frills beef stand is the show’s real-life inspiration, and it’s where his childhood friend and “The Bear” showrunner, Chris Storer, worked as a teenager. The pilot episode’s dining room scenes were filmed inside the real Mr. Beef, but once the show was picked up, the crew built an exact replica of the restaurant’s interior on a set at Chicago’s Cinespace studios. Exterior shots and flashbacks continue to use the real location in River North.
When the show erupted and Mr. Beef became somewhat of a tourist attraction, it felt again like the time “Leno made us hot,” Zucchero laughed.
In 1989, Jay Leno, who at the time didn’t have his own show, brought a bag of beefs to “Late Night with David Letterman” when it was taping in Chicago. Leno ate a couple of Italian beefs and told the Chicago audience that the sandwiches came from Mr. Beef on Orleans.
A wave of media attention and frantic customers followed, Zucchero remembered. Similar scenes continue to unfold outside Mr. Beef today, and “what’s left of River North,” he chuffed. Zucchero refuses to be thrust fully into “The Bear’s” glow, but he’s happy to see his competitors thriving because of it, too.
“Our camaraderie is in the pride of showcasing Chicago’s best,” said John Aretos, the second-generation owner of Johnnie’s Beef, a cash-only walk-up in Elmwood Park famous for its dipped beef, char-broiled sausages and Italian ice. “Italian beef has really gotten known throughout the country because of social media and TV, and because people start discovering these new things that have actually always been around.”
Over the decades, many of the longstanding Italian beef stands in or around the city have experienced their share of pop culture fame.
“There was a book called ‘Hot Dog Chicago,’ and they did a section on Italian beef and Italian sausage, that’s when we were quoted as being the ‘best beef on earth,’” Aretos explained. “So that began a period of time where all of a sudden, now the press was talking to us, then in the early ‘90s, the Food Network was raving about us on a series about street food.”
Despite the proliferation of Italian beef sandwiches in the city and its suburbs, Aretos suggests there are only a few “true” beef stands, which underscores how polarizing the Italian beef world can be.
And it goes far beyond the longstanding debates of whether to order it wet or dry, dipped or dunked.
The origin story is a prime example.
Some say a guy named Pasquale Scala invented the sandwich in the 1920s, luring folks into the budget-friendly shaved meat dipped in roasting liquid for “peanut weddings.” Others say a Chicago street peddler named Anthony Ferreri first sliced the beef into paper-thin pieces so 15 pounds could serve 50 people. He drove around town delivering sandwiches and his son eventually opened Al’s #1 Italian Beef. Many others believe that the Italian beef was directly inspired by the French dip, but a cook thought the recipe was too boring, so he added more garlic and herbs.
According to “The Chicago Food Encyclopedia,” the origins of the Italian beef likely weren’t from either Scala or Ferreri, but instead “lie in Italian American home cooking.” The book does, however, point to so-called “peanut weddings” in the 1920s, where the dish was frequently served since it was affordable and could feed a crowd.
When the Tribune asked Zucchero and Aretos to list their top Italian beef spots, both said only a handful make the cut. Besides their own establishments, the beef stands that made both restaurateurs’ lists are Al’s Italian Beef, Carm’s Little Italy, Roma’s Italian Beef & Sausage, Odge’s and Chickies.
Aretos said the magic is in the jus, and likely why the flavor profiles vary slightly from stand to stand, but the nuances of ordering the “perfect” Italian beef are subjective.
“The sandwich itself is fast food, but there’s a certain level of creativity and craftsmanship that transforms it into what it’s become,” Aretos said.
Some don’t even consider Portillo’s a “true beef stand,” but the chain’s version still has a loyal following.
In a 2022 interview with the Tribune’s restaurant critic Louisa Kung Liu Chu, Jeremy Allen White, who portrays the main character Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto on “The Bear,” said the Portillo’s Italian beef was actually the first one he ever had. And he loved it.
Garrett Kern, Portillo’s vice president of strategy and culinary, said the chain has been introducing Italian beef to more people outside of Chicago and the state since 2005, when the first location outside of Illinois opened in California.
“Our Italian beef is the best representation of what you get in Chicagoland,” Kern told the Tribune.
Kern said he can’t point to sales and traffic and say “The Bear” had a huge effect on business. But what he can say is that fewer and fewer people in Texas or Arizona stare back blankly at the mention of an Italian beef since many diners have a point of reference now.
“More people know what it is before they try it, which is always great,” Kern noted.
Even though the gut-busting sandwich is now a matter of civic pride because of a TV show that shot it to national acclaim, a consensus on everything else related to an Italian beef might never be reached in this lifetime.
Zucchero, who can be found at Mr. Beef a couple of weeks each month, said there is one thing that everyone should be able to agree on. Shows end and fame fades, but the beef stands will stay slinging.
