Guy Fieri's Favorite Midwest City For Filming Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives

Guy Fieri may have picked his favorite city for filming his long running Food Network series "Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives" — and it's Chicago. In an interview with food bloggers Snacking Sisters, he explained why the city so often transports him to the mythical land of Flavortown.

"Chicago to me is a big little city," he said. "It's easy to get around. There's a lot of culture, there's a lot of history ... I don't know, there's just something about it." (In the name of transparency, the sisters actually ask Fieri's favorite state for filming, to which he responds that Chicago is "one of his favorites" — so first, it seems he has multiple favorite locations. Plus, although they asked him about states, it doesn't seem that he meant to say Illinois, as his response only focuses on that city.)

Elsewhere, Fieri has also discussed his love for Chicago, dubbing its friendly vibe and variety of cuisines as key reasons why the city has plenty of representation on his list of favorite Midwest restaurants. Take a look at a list of the nearly 40 Chicago restaurants the series has visited over close to two decades, and it's clear that Fieri goes well beyond stereotypes like deep-dish pizza and Italian beef. Some of the cuisines he's sampled in the city include Costa Rican, Cuban, Korean, Belgian, and Chinese barbecue. And while Italian and Italian-American spots definitely get plenty of representation, Fieri still looks for variety, for example, visiting South Side spot Vito & Nick's for Chicago's lesser-known thin crust style of pizza.

The stops from Guy Fieri's Chicago "Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives" history read like a local food pilgrimage list, and they've often been held up by other sources as top places for a meal. Kuma's Corner, known for its heavy-metal vibe, is a local favorite, with Fieri dubbing its burger one of the top five he's eaten on the show. Appropriately named the Black Sabbath burger, it features a hunky 10-ounce patty spiced with cayenne, paprika, and garlic and topped with red onions and pepper jack on a pretzel bun. For a funkier burger, he visited DMK Burger Bar and tried a bison burger topped with blueberry barbecue sauce and goat cheese.

For some less American-style fare, Fieri visited Irazu, a Costa Rican restaurant, where he tucked into fatty pork belly fried up as chicharron with Pico de Gallo, and a meaty pepito sandwich with steak, black beans, onions, and sweet-smoky Lizano sauce from Costa Rica. There's also Tre Kronor, a Scandinavian breakfast spot, where he sampled Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce and a gravlax cured in herby aquavit, a grain-based spirit. For Chinese barbecue, Fieri hit up San Wah BBQ, where he tasted a whole suckling pig and learned about the house-made rice noodles (used for stir-fried beef chow fun). Finally, there's one of his most visited spots: Taste of Peru, which has been featured on three episodes. Just a couple of dishes he tried there are anticuchos (beef heart kebabs) and lomo saltado (pictured), sautéed steak with onions, veggies, and fries.