When Tom and I were headed to Chicago last fall, my friend Lynda, whose daughter lives in Chicago, said to me, “You have to go to Eataly! Emma took me there and I loved it.”

How to describe Eataly?

The Chicago location (there are also locations in New York, Japan, Turkey, Dubai, and of course, Italy) is two stories tall and it’s part bakery…

part cheese shop,

part bucher shop,

part grocery store,

(gourmet grocery store, that is…look at this selection of mushrooms!),

and part so many other things…

How else to describe it? Oh! They have a manifesto. I think this section says it best: Eat. Shop. Learn. This is a store with stories. Here you won’t just discover what you love, you’ll learn about what you love.

That makes sense as Eataly has cooking classes you can take.

And a book section. (You know I bought a book: Restaurant Man by Joe Bastianich, one of the partners in Eataly Chicago. It’s currently on my to-read shelf.)

Eataly is a restaurant, too. Actually, multiple restaurants, although it can be hard to tell where the store ends and the restaurants start. Tom and I had a quick lunch at the counter of one before we had to leave for the airport, and we were able to chat up the chefs and watch them work.

I ordered the Pappardelle alla Bolognese (ribbon pasta with meat sauce).

Tom was more adventurous with the Pasta al Nero con Calamari (squid ink pasta with calamari).

Have you ever been to an Eataly? I can’t wait to go back.

P.S. St. Louis by iPhone and P.O.S.H. Chicago.