Nearly everyone has their own idea of a dream job, but I've got to think that among food-lovers, one of the greatest gigs in the world would be being one of the people who flies around the country and eats outstanding foods in beautiful restaurants and then writes about how great or awful or unremarkable those restaurants are.

Unfortunately, there's no college course you can take that will land you that exact job, because I would have signed up for it long ago if there were.

Some lucky staffers at the New York Times got a chance to do that dream job, and it looks like they made the most of it. 14 reporters and editors took 76 flights to sit down to over 200 meals in 33 states to come up with the Restaurant List 2025 , and two of the 50 chosen this year are in Illinois.

The NYT List

See Full Page