Best Places To Carbo-Load Before The Chicago Marathon

Are you running the Chicago Marathon soon and looking for a place to load up on carbs before the big day? You will want to make your last big meal a big and tasty one.

Or, maybe you're not running the marathon but you're supporting a friend who is and what a better way to do that than going to load up on carbs too! Here are a few good places around Chicago that will get the job done.

Where better in Chicago to find good, authentic Italian food then in Little Italy? Bruna's has been open since 1933 and has been serving great home-style Italian pasta dishes ever since then.

It has a pretty large menu and you're bound to find something that will fulfill your need for carbs. There is a bar in the front of the restaurant with a few tables, but there is a decent size room in the back. The dim lighting gives it a romantic ambiance.

This is more than just a pizza place, although the pizza out of the wood fired oven is delicious. It is a moderate-sized sit down restaurant that doesn't have a large menu, but there is a lot of pasta on it. The spaghetti Bolognese is very good with its cooked down onions that you taste but you can't see.

One bowl is quite large for one person, so the restaurant is willing to split the bowl for two people and you'll each get your own smaller bowl.

Most people don't seem to realize this though as when you're there everyone either has their own pizza or a gigantic bowl of pasta.

Scoozi! is a Lettuce Entertain You Restaurant in River North. Probably one of the first things you'll notice when you walk in is the archway of wine bottles in the back.

When you sit down you will have a choice of various pastas on the menu including the gnocchi that they're known for in two different sauces that you can choose from.

If risotto is more your style they have a different one each day, just ask your server.

Don't skip dessert here.

Are you running the marathon with a group who all need to carbo-load at the same time?

Then this is the place to come to with their family-style food portions. Order the Buca Small portion which feeds up to three or order the Buca Large which feeds up to six.

There's so many pastas to choose from here you might go into carb overload.

Just seeing that you have three spaghettis to chose from is only the start here.

If you're being tempted by the desserts, it would be a good idea to share that too.

This cute little place serves some pasta dishes with seafood in it like the lobster and crab ravioli.

Otherwise if you rather stray from the seafood there are plenty of other pasta dishes most of them seem to include a cream-based sauce.

The traditional northern Italian cuisine will be sure to please you in your quest for carbs before the big day.