The inaugural Chicago’s Best Beef Tournament, sponsored by Turano Baking Company, started with 16 competitors. 4 weeks and more than 150,000 votes later, we have our 2023 champion.

Jay’s Beef and Buona squared off in the championship, with almost TRIPLE the amount of votes that were made in our Chicago Pizza Madness Championship.

Kevin Powell and Michael Piff of the Chicago’s Very Own Eats podcast announce the winner on the newest episode. Listen below:

Congrats to Buona for winning it all! And great run by Jay’s, as the championship came down to just 1% of 70,883 votes being the difference.

We also want to thank Turano Baking Company for sponsoring our tournament this year. Owner Mario Turano joined Kevin and Michael on Chicago’s Very Own Eats to discuss Chicago’s passion for Italian beef, the history of the Turano Baking Company and his family’s relationship with Chicago food.

Don’t worry. We’ll be doing this again next year with even more Italian beef places involved. You can subscribe to Chicago’s Very Own Eats on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. All episodes are available on the Chicago’s Very Own Eats podcast page at WGNRadio.com.