Buffalo Grove just got named the #1 place to live in Illinois, and I can report the town celebrated the way it does everything: by arguing about chicken wings on Facebook. A neighbor asked “best wings?” and the town delivered a full ranked ballot. Here's the tally — plus the thing I actually need to tell you about.
Start with my confession
Before the wings: Nino's Oreganato on Buffalo Grove Road is home to my favorite dish of all time. Not favorite-in-Buffalo-Grove. Favorite, period. The Chicken La Nino is a plate I would put up against restaurants with stars in the window, and I've been chasing its equal for years without success. While you're there: the pizza is great and the baked clams are to die for. Locals also swear by their Vesuvio wings — “unique and delicious” was the exact phrase in the thread, and they're right. If you take one recommendation from this entire article, it's Nino's.
The wing vote itself was a landslide
Gators Wing Shack on Rand Road (between Dundee and Lake-Cook) took it by a mile — when the original poster called it, her literal words were “majority rules, Gators it is.” It's the default answer for a reason.
The challengers with real constituencies
Buffalo Joe's (“amazing”), Sports Page on Rand (my wife’s favorite wings in town — and a proper local watering hole, the kind every town needs), Penguino's right in BG, and — the vote nobody saw coming — Lou Malnati's, whose extra-crispy BBQ wings and gorgonzola dipping sauce have a devoted following among people who came for deep dish and stayed for the wings. Prairie House earned points for doing it the hard way: fresh never frozen, hand-breaded, homemade ranch. And the sleeper pick: Lucky Monk in Barrington — mostly known as a burger joint, quietly excellent wings.
Worth the drive
The thread's most repeated out-of-town answer was Franks for the Memories in Mundelein (“1000% recommend”), with honorable mentions for Philly Special in Vernon Hills and Old Munich in Wheeling — because no wing conversation in this corner of the suburbs stays inside one town's borders.
This is part of how we work: we live here, we eat here, and we argue about wings here. If you're thinking about calling the #1 town in Illinois home, start with everything for sale in Buffalo Grove — real monthly payments, actual tax bills — and our full Buffalo Grove guide. And if you tour a home with us on a Saturday, there's a decent chance I'll route us past Nino's.