Steve Dolinsky

Steve Dolinsky has won 13 James Beard Awards for his TV, radio and podcast work. He is the Food Reporter at NBC 5 (Chicago), where his “Food Guy” reports air every Thursday night at 10 p.m.

Steve is also the Producer and Host of “Pizza City," a bi-monthly podcast featuring some of the greatest pizza makers in the nation, and was previously Co-Creator and Co-Host of The Feed Podcast with Chef Rick Bayless (which garnered a Beard award in 2015 for best podcast), a weekly show that ran from 2014 to 2019. He has also written food and travel stories for the Travel sections of the Chicago Tribune and Canada’s Globe and Mail, and was a frequent contributor to Public Radio International’s “The World.”

Steve is the author of “Pizza City, U.S.A.: 101 Reasons Why Chicago is America’s Greatest Pizza Town” (Northwestern University Press). In order to write the book, he visited 185 places in Chicagoland over the course of six solid months of eating. His “Pizza City U.S.A. Tours” began in May of 2018. Steve curates four tours throughout the city, each one giving guests a chance to sample four styles of pizza in three hours. There is one bus tour (usually led by Steve) and three walking tours every weekend. More info at pizzacityusa.com. His second book, “The Ultimate Chicago Pizza Guide: A History of Squares & Slices in the Windy City” is due out in the fall of 2021.

On the consulting side, Steve started Culinary Communications, a food industry-focused media training company that works with chefs and other food and beverage professionals outside of Chicago, teaching them how to prepare for and handle all kinds of media exposure. He also works with real estate companies to curate spaces involving food and drink clients, organizes and leads virtual pizza and/or cocktail experiences for companies and works with individual clients to curate unique culinary experiences.

Since 2009, Steve has been one of 26 Academy Chairs for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, recruiting and overseeing 40 voters in the Mid-USA/Canada region. He has spoken and/or moderated at several industry events, including the James Beard Awards, the Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen and the New York City Wine and Food Festival.

Steve volunteers his time for charitable organizations in the Chicago area that focus on hunger relief, including Share Our Strength and Meals on Wheels.

Before joining ABC 7, Steve was Executive Producer and Host of “Good Eating.”  The weekly, half-hour show aired on CLTV, the 24-hour cable news channel owned by The Tribune Company.  He produced and hosted 52 shows per year for 8 years, garnering six Beard Awards for his work there.

You can follow his eating adventures on Twitter and Instagram @stevedolinsky, as well as his website: stevedolinsky.com.

The Latest

  • the food guy Mar 14

    The Food Guy: Classic Chicago restaurants – avec

    They’re the kinds of places you take out-of-towners, to really show off your city. Whenever I have colleagues or chefs in town, I always take them to a place that’s been in the West Loop since before the West Loop was cool.

  • the food guy Feb 29

    The Food Guy: South Asian restaurants in the Chicago suburbs

    As immigrants from India and Pakistan arrived in Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s, they typically made their way to West Rogers Park, along Devon Avenue.

  • the food guy Feb 23

    The Food Guy: Maxwells Trading

    There are quite a few new restaurants opening in the city as of late, but NBC 5’s Food Guy Steve Dolinsky is particularly fond of a new one in West Town. It’s run by a couple of industry veterans who’ve created the kind of restaurant they’ve always wanted to visit themselves. Steve Dolinsky joining us tonight with the story....

  • the food guy Feb 16

    The Food Guy: Hagen's Fish Market busier than ever during Lent

    With Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday behind us, the season of Lent is underway. Catholics traditionally abstain from meat on Fridays until Easter, and that means more demand for seafood. Our Food Guy visited a seafood specialist in Portage Park this week, approaching 80 years in business. Back in 1946, a couple of Scandinavian immigrants moved to the Northwest Side…

  • the food guy Feb 9

    The Food Guy: Suburban pizzeria's respect for the past

    Friday is National Pizza Day, and NBC 5’s Steve Dolinsky shares the story of how a suburban pizzeria owes its success to an African American cook from Mississippi.

  • the food guy Feb 2

    The Food Guy: Bronzeville restaurant owner embraces family's past

    In recognition of Black History Month, NBC 5’s Food Guy Steve Dolinsky went digging into a restaurant with Deep South roots, located in a South Side neighborhood with its own storied past. Kristen Ashley, a young entrepreneur, opened Cleo’s Southern Cuisine in Bronzeville a couple of years ago. She also has a Loop location open for lunch-only on weekdays,...

  • the food guy Jan 27

    The Food Guy: A look at French restaurants in Chicago ahead of the Paris Olympics

    The 2024 Summer Olympics are just six months away, and while most people won’t be making their way to Paris for the games, there’s still a way to feel like you’re in France this summer.

  • the food guy Jan 25

    The Food Guy: Pizza Matta

    The last two years have seen a bumper crop of new pizzerias in Chicago with styles ranging from deep-dish and tavern style to Detroit and Sicilian. At a new spot on the Northwest Side, the staff started off with one style, then added a second after popular demand. The Chef behind Giant – one of the city’s better restaurants –…

  • the food guy Jan 4

    The Food Guy: Four Star Mushrooms

    Mushrooms often take the place of beef, since they’re naturally earthy and meaty. But we’re not talking portobellos or shiitakes anymore. A one-of-a-kind business here is growing harder to find varieties, and thus, more appealing to chefs. In the rarefied air of a 3-star Michelin restaurant like Smyth, in the West Loop, dessert has to be a showstopper. The...

  • the food guy Dec 23, 2023

    The Food Guy: Vanilla's connection to Waukegan

    With kids home from school this week, a lot of us are baking. And if sweets are on the menu, that often means reaching for vanilla. That would be extract… paste… and sometimes whole vanilla beans. While the raw product grows thousands of miles away, pretty much all of it is processed in Waukegan, before it gets to stores. Vanilla…

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