Parmigiana in Chicago

64 restaurants in Chicago list parmigiana on their menus, and the 40 cheapest are listed above. The cheapest is Pompei at $8.25, listed as Eggplant Parmigiana. The typical price across town is $18.00, and the dearest of the 40 listed is $18.95 at Vito & Angelo's Pizzeria, so the two ends of the list are $10.70 apart, which is 130% more for the same dish. Of the 40 kitchens listed, 31 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 9 sit within a dollar of it and 0 charge more than a dollar over.

We track parmigiana in 732 other areas and compare them all on parmigiana across United States. The typical price there runs $18.49 at the median, so Chicago is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 379 of the 732. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $5.60 at Savarona Pizzeria & Restaurant in Shirley, NY, and the highest best price is $24.95 in Mount Sinai, NY. The nearest area with it is Cicero, about 2 mi away, where the best price is $14.99.

Where is the cheapest parmigiana in Chicago? Pompei, at $8.25 on 1531 West Taylor Street. The same dish reaches $18.95 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $10.70.

What should parmigiana cost here? About $18.00 is the typical price across the 64 kitchens in Chicago that list it. Of the ones listed above, 31 are more than a dollar below that and 0 are more than a dollar above, so the typical price is a middle rather than a floor.

Is it cheaper nearby? The nearest area we track it in is Cicero, about 2 mi away, where the best price is $14.99. That is $6.74 more than the best price here.

Why do the prices differ so much? We compare what each menu calls the same dish, and menus are not identical: portion, cut, sides and the kind of room you are sitting in all ride on the price, and none of that shows up in a number. Part portions and half sizes are kept out of this comparison, and a chain charging the same at several addresses is counted once, so the spread above is between genuinely different kitchens rather than the same one repeated.