Bruschetta in Chicago

21 restaurants in Chicago list bruschetta on their menus. The cheapest is The Pasta Bowl at $6.00. The typical price across town is $11.00, and the dearest we found is $18.00 at Bongiorno's Pizza & Italian Deli, so the two ends of the list are $12.00 apart, which is 200% more for the same dish. Of the 21 kitchens listed, 9 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 6 sit within a dollar of it and 6 charge more than a dollar over.

We track bruschetta in 109 other areas and compare them all on bruschetta across United States. The typical price there runs $11.10 at the median, so Chicago is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 55 of the 109. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.35 at Italian Delight in Powhatan, VA, and the highest best price is $17.95 in West Babylon, NY. The nearest area with it is Harwood Heights, about 9 mi away, where the best price is $9.65.

Where is the cheapest bruschetta in Chicago? The Pasta Bowl, at $6.00 on 2434 North Clark Street. The same dish reaches $18.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $12.00.

What should bruschetta cost here? About $11.00 is the typical price across the 21 kitchens in Chicago that list it. Of the ones listed above, 9 are more than a dollar below that and 6 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 $9.65. That is $3.65 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.