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" When people ask me about my recent experience at Lollapalooza, I tell them about the spectacle of a midday performance from the masked Swedish metallurgists Ghost B.C. I tell them about Lance Armstrong playing drums for Lance Herbstrong. And I report back on Vampire Weekend and The National \u2014 both of whom finally sport the gravitas and swagger to play primetime slots in front of 30,000-plus festivalgoers. But mostly, I&amp;#039;ve been talking food. At Grant Park, on the festival grounds, Chicago chef Graham Elliot curated the festival&amp;#039;s culinary options and at his Grahamwich booth he served up his signature lobster corndogs \u2014 encased batter-fried lobster on a stick, which for my money is the best $9 fairway food in the country. This year, I ate three, one a day, but what Lollapalooza 2013 taught me is that what really matters \u2014 especially in a city as rich in unique dining experiences as Chicago \u2014 is what you eat post-festival. Every decent festival in America offers &amp;quot;official aftershows,&amp;quot; typically, longer club sets from acts that played the festival earlier in the day or the weekend. Unless you&amp;#039;re still 15 years old, after 10 hours schlepping around Grant Park looking for your new favorite band, you&amp;#039;re going to be sweaty, blistered, and exhausted. You don&amp;#039;t need more music. You need a chair and a real meal. This year, Esquire partnered with the folks behind Lollapalooza for a &amp;quot;Late-Night Supper Club&amp;quot; at Tavernita. Among the Chicago chefs offering courses and pairings at the dinner were Ryan Poli of Tavernita, Jason Vincent of Nightwood, Sarah Grueneberg of Spiaggia, and Chris Pandel of The Bristol. We ate soft-shell crab, hand-rolled potato gnocchi, and applewood-smoked pork, but just as importantly, we lounged. For a few hours we left our badges and wristbands behind. We weren&amp;#039;t festivalgoers, we were diners \u2014 adults eating a civilized meal. We traded stories of what we saw earlier in the day at the festival and what we wanted to see tomorrow. If at any point of the meal you&amp;#039;d have told us The Cure or Nine Inch Nails were playing a club across the street (which they weren&amp;#039;t), not one of us would have left our table. Aftershows are for people who didn&amp;#039;t buy festival tickets. Aftershows are for people driven by super-fandom and FOMO \u2014 people who can&amp;#039;t imagine not seeing their favorite band twice in a weekend. We may not have been certain of it before, but we are now: The hundred of us at Tavernita this Lollapalooza aren&amp;#039;t aftershow people. And we learned this: If chefs are the new rock stars, aftersuppers are the new aftershows.   READ MORE: Andy Langer on the Best Bands You Haven&amp;#039;t Heard at Lollapalooza &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a24235/lollapalooza-2013-late-night-supper-club/>