Eat. Watch. Do. — Ummo review, 13 Halloween thrills

It’s Thursday, Chicago.

Are you getting into the spooky spirit yet? After picking pumpkins and getting lost in a corn maze last weekend, I’m feeling those fall vibes for sure. If you aren’t quite there yet, we have 13 things to do for Halloween, like a haunted garden on Navy Pier.

This week, food critic Louisa Chu reviews Ummo in River North, where chef José Sosa takes a fresh and surprising approach to Italian cuisine. She has a first look at the revamped Ramova Theatre in Bridgeport.

Meanwhile, in entertainment, the Chicago International Film Festival kicks off this weekend, and Tribune critic Michael Phillips has a simple mantra for this year’s event: see something. Take a beat to read his picks for the festival that runs through next weekend.

Enjoy the weekend, and we’ll see you next week.

— Lauryn Azu, deputy senior editor

“You’ve probably never had octopus quite like his carpaccio di polpo at Ummo — garnished with a fantastical chicharrón by the chef who immigrated from Mexico. The seafood is not raw but cooked perfectly, thinly sliced and arranged like a mosaic,” Louisa Chu writes. Read her review here.

“I love a good paperwork movie. ‘The Burial’ is not that,” Tribune TV critic Nina Metz writes. The film on Amazon+ is based on a real case from the 1990s. Read Metz’s entire review here.

Khaled Simon and Haley Pham once served Tribune critic Nick Kindelsperger one of his favorite tacos in Chicago. Now they have “one of the most exciting burgers I’ve tried in 2023,” he writes. Read about the brick-and-mortar restaurant underway here.

Eat. Watch. Do.

Weekly

What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life … now.

Don your creepiest costume for one of these 13 spooky-themed events, available here.

Tribune critic Michael Phillips lists the movies you won’t want to miss, including a documentary from Ukraine and two films tied to Michael Shannon, here.

Live music will be the new heartbeat next door to the Midwestern-style chili at the revamped space in Bridgeport. Read about the development here.

The objects on display will delight nostalgists: credit cards from Montgomery Ward, old Sears catalogs and an animatronic Marshall Field’s Christmas window from 2004, depicting a scene from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” Read about what else there is to see, including a sniffable Frango mint display, here.

There are still a few days left to submit a recipe to the Tribune’s Holiday Cookie Contest for a chance at a cash prize! New this year, amateur bakers who made it big on the small screen will serve as our guest judges. Read how you can enter here.

The new adaptations on Netflix starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Kingsley and Dev Patel are “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” “The Swan,” “The Ratcatcher” and “Poison” — and that’s probably the ideal order for viewing, according to Tribune critic Michael Phillips. Read his review of the shorts here.

In Louisville, Kentucky, which proudly calls itself the disco ball capital of the world, the city is using mirror balls to boost its dining and tourism sectors. Read how you can explore pieces of Louisville’s disco heritage here.