Steve Dolinsky

Steve Dolinsky has won 13 James Beard Awards for his TV, radio and podcast work.

As the Food Reporter for ABC 7 (Chicago) for 17 years, his twice-weekly “Hungry Hound” reports covered a range of food and drink-related topics. Not only did he produce and report two stories each week, toward the end of his tenure, he also shot and edited them during COVID.

He is the producer and host of “Pizza City” – a bi-monthly podcast featuring some of the greatest pizza makers in the nation – and was previously co-creator and co-host of The Feed Podcast with Chef Rick Bayless (which garnered a Beard award in 2015 for best podcast), a weekly show that ran from 2014 to 2019. He has also written food and travel stories for the travel sections of the Chicago Tribune and Canada’s Globe and Mail, and was a frequent contributor to Public Radio International’s “The World.”

Dolinsky is the author of “Pizza City, U.S.A.: 101 Reasons Why Chicago is America’s Greatest Pizza Town” (Northwestern University Press). In order to write the book, he visited 185 places in Chicagoland over the course of six solid months of eating. His “Pizza City U.S.A. Tours” began in May of 2018. Steve curates four tours throughout the city, each one giving guests a chance to sample four styles of pizza in three hours. There is one bus tour (usually led by Steve) and three walking tours every weekend. More info at pizzacityusa.com. His second book, “The Ultimate Chicago Pizza Guide: A History of Squares & Slices in the Windy City” is due out in the fall of 2021.

On the consulting side, Dolinsky started Culinary Communications, a food industry-focused media training company that works with chefs and other food and beverage professionals outside of Chicago, teaching them how to prepare for and handle all kinds of media exposure. He also works with real estate companies to curate spaces involving food and drink clients, organizes and leads virtual pizza and/or cocktail experiences for companies and works with individual clients to curate unique culinary experiences.

Since 2009, Dolinsky has been one of 26 Academy Chairs for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, recruiting and overseeing 40 voters in the mid-USA/Canada region. He has spoken at and/or moderated several industry events, including the James Beard Awards, the Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen and the New York City Wine and Food Festival. 

Before joining ABC 7, Dolinsky was executive producer and host of “Good Eating.”  The weekly, half-hour show aired on CLTV, the 24-hour cable news channel owned by The Tribune Company.  He produced and hosted 52 shows per year for eight years, garnering six Beard Awards for his work there.