Every so often, you’ll hear new Oak Park politico Bob Tucker give a shout out to a local restaurant at the end of a village board meeting. He may have once stolen a plate of tater tots from a running mate during the last campaign, and his family barbecues are legendary.
But Tucker isn’t your average food freak. He reviewed restaurants for the Chicago Sun-Times for several years, and left the post to avoid creating any conflicts while serving as village trustee.
Tucker, a 44-year-old fair-housing attorney, did a little entertainment writing for his college newspaper way back when. After finishing law school and experiencing some of the doldrums of practicing law, he longed for a return to writing as a creative outlet.
He started at the top, firing off reviews to the Chicago Sun-Times and Tribune in 1994. They kept saying no, but he kept flooding their mailboxes until an editor at the Sun-Times finally caved.
It started off small. Tucker would write a tiny paragraph on one of the best places to, say, find a margarita. The Sun-Times already had its own top-tier food reviewer, Pat Bruno, but eventually Tucker started writing his own reviews, often focusing more on hidden little neighborhood gems, from Pilsen to Rogers Park.
Landing the job might have been a little easier back in the mid-1990s, he said, before blogs and Yelp.com turned every Joe Six-Pack into an aspiring food scribe.
“Food writing now is a big deal, and everyone is a foodie and likes to talk about restaurants,” Tucker said. “Back then, it wasn’t on everyone’s radar.”
Interviewing high-profile chefs such as Rick Bayless and Charlie Trotter were among the highlights for Tucker. And some of his favorite spots in the city include Frontera Grill in the River North neighborhood, Alinea in Lincoln Park, and Phoenix Restaurant in Chinatown.
He stopped doing reviews for the Sun-Times in the late ’90s, as the pressures of work and raising children became more pronounced. But he picked the practice up again just last year, when a Pioneer Press editor called him “out of the blue.” During the second go-around, he was able to review a handful of his favorites in the western suburbs, such as Maya Del Sol, Kinderhook Tap, and the Marion Street Cheese Market. But he dropped the gig for a second time after getting elected to the village board in April.
Adam Salzman, one of his running mates, said their campaign would often end the day over food. And when a plate of tater tots once disappeared, he suspected Tucker was to blame.
“He definitely has strong opinions about food and specific restaurants,” Salzman said. “I think it was Bob who decreed that the campaign headquarters would be at Kinderhook. Generally, after a long day of campaigning, that’s where we ended up.”
Nowadays, Tucker gets his food fix through cooking at home and taking his two sons, Spencer and Bennett, out to breakfast every Saturday. The two boys have become fledgling foodies, often taking on cooking challenges in the kitchen, said Tucker’s wife, Vicki.
“Because of our love of food and eating and just exploring, we made a promise that, when we had kids, we were going to expose them to all the different cultures and food that’s out there, and we’ve been very fortunate that that’s happened,” she said.