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I happen to live in Indianapolis, where the GF restaurant situation is slowly coming around -- but very sloooowly.  I never thought I'd say this in my life -- but I'm grateful for the large chain restaurants (from fancy to fast-food) who have added GF menus.  If it weren't for these places, and very tiny handful of independent restaurants, I'd have to spend my life eating at home.

BUT, a recent visit to the Chicago area was a wonderful treat!  I was aware that a fairly large number of great restaurants are in or very near Chicago -- but we were staying in the west burbs, and not really near downtown Chicago at all.  It turned out that we had lots of independent neat restaurants to choose from -- and I ended up picking two, in particular, that turned out to be just wonderful.  I hadn't remembered reading about them on this list, so I thought I'd give them a shout out.

The first was PRASINO, in LaGrange, IL (http://prasino.com/).  This is an organic, "green"-conscious place that has absolutely wonderful eclectic food.  And it's a very pretty place, to boot -- with free valet parking in the evenings (though I do think proper to tip generously).  Their menus are marked as to which items are GF -- but the waitress told me that the chefs are able to make just about any dish on the menu GF upon request.  As it turned out, they had a special on the menu of Southwest pasta (with all kinds of wonderful ingredients) with grilled chicken -- which they were able to serve with GF pasta.  It was perfectly wonderful.  And, for the first time that I remember, the GF foods were so intriguing that my husband even ordered all GF, because those happened to be the items that he wanted (in his case, and incredible beet salad on Asian greens and skewered skirt steak with THREE -- yes, all GF! -- dipping sauces)!  So we were able to share our meals, and it was wonderful.  The waitress was deeply knowledgeable about GF foods.  Even down to the desserts, they prepare the cheesecake and panna cotta fillings separate from the graham cracker crusts, so that one can order those GF, sans the crusts.  I thought, for a moment, that they might just remove the crust -- but, nope!  They do it right, and the fillings never touch them until the moment they are served, so one can safely opt out of having crust.

The second restaurant -- much less fancy, and basically a breakfast/lunch place -- was JOYFUL'S CAFE (http://joyfulscafe.com/) in Downers Grove (IL).  Small, older, very down home, mom-n-pop kinda place.  We were there for breakfast, and they were able to prepare just about any of the breakfasts as GF.  They offered several wraps (in brown rice tortillas), and that's what I chose to have.  Mine contained eggs, hash browns and vegetable melange that included asparagus, zucchini, tomato, onion, and a few other things ... plus cheese. With a delicious Cafe Latté, it was really a great breakfast.  I was drooling over the lunch menu as well, which included salad, sandwich and soup choices that were GF.  The attitude of the people working there was just super, and they really bent over backwards to be sure I got a tasty GF meal.  Couldn't have the fresh bagels, though -- which my hubby said were the best he's had outside of LA, where we used to live.

So, I figure this list has a lot of Chicagoans -- and I hope that some of you might see fit to visit both these places.  What I was most impressed with was that I did not have to explain about gluten to anyone -- and, in both places, it was clearly understood that making things "GF" was a matter to be taken seriously!  And made tasty, to boot!

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