Calamari in Chicago

50 restaurants in Chicago list calamari on their menus, and the 40 cheapest are listed above. The cheapest is Calumet Fisheries at $6.19. The typical price across town is $16.00, and the dearest of the 40 listed is $20.00 at Joe's on Higgins, so the two ends of the list are $13.81 apart, which is 223% more for the same dish. Of the 40 kitchens listed, 18 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 13 sit within a dollar of it and 9 charge more than a dollar over.

We track calamari in 493 other areas and compare them all on calamari across United States. The typical price there runs $15.42 at the median, so Chicago is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 169 of the 493. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.50 at French Quarter Grille in Austin, TX, and the highest best price is $19.75 in Harwood Heights, IL. The nearest area with it is Harwood Heights, about 9 mi away, where the best price is $19.75.

Where is the cheapest calamari in Chicago? Calumet Fisheries, at $6.19 on 3259 East 95th Street. The same dish reaches $20.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $13.81.

What should calamari cost here? About $16.00 is the typical price across the 50 kitchens in Chicago that list it. Of the ones listed above, 18 are more than a dollar below that and 9 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 Harwood Heights, about 9 mi away, where the best price is $19.75. That is $13.56 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.