The 100 Best Places to Drink and Stay in Chicago

Julia Momosé's Japanese-inspired dining bar on West Lake holds a James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar and the Spirited Awards title for World's Best Bar, which tells you something before you've even sat down. Staff in sharp black uniforms somehow manage to feel genuinely warm rather than stiff, and the tasting menu now matches the cocktail program's precision, leaning into Japanese flavors and technique. Come for the drinks, stay through dinner, and plan to linger longer than you intended.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 3 Pins
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Winner · World’s Best Bar
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Winner · Outstanding Bar

1. VinePair Food & Beverage Program of the Year · The Next Wave Awards
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. The 50 #27 · North America's 50 Best Bars

1. The 50 #16 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Bar Team
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Bars
2. The 50 #76 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Esquire The Best Bars in America

A bedside panel controls the temperature, lighting, curtains, and music without your ever leaving the 300-thread-count sheets, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Forbes Five Star hotel on the Mag Mile. Rooms run to light wood and muted earth tones, marble bathrooms have soaking tubs with their own TVs, and a skyline-level spa gives you a reason to eventually get up. Discretion is the whole point, and the staff has clearly rehearsed.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Velvet booths, globe lights, and wallpaper that belongs in a Left Bank salon set the mood at this Fulton Market cocktail bar, one of the few standalone drinking spots on a street that is otherwise all restaurants. The Paris-in-the-sixties premise runs through everything: French wines, classic martinis, caviar with chips. Named to North America's 50 Best Bars and a James Beard semifinalist, Bisous earns its kisses.

1. The 50 #30 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Esquire The Best Bars in America
3. The Banchets Winner · Bar of the Year

The last building Mies van der Rohe ever designed now has a hotel on its lower floors, which is either a poetic ending or a very good address depending on your priorities. The Langham sits beside the Chicago River with travertine bathrooms, serious service, and afternoon tea if you want it. A Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys confirm the tier, though the river views from the upper rooms do most of the convincing on their own.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

1. The 50 #65 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Esquire The Best Bars in America
3. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

Leather window seats overlooking Lake Michigan come standard in many rooms here, which sets the tone for this luxury hotel perched above the Magnificent Mile. Rottet Studio gave the lobby and upper suites a refresh that reads crisp without trying too hard. The spa and indoor pool are genuinely calm, the staff is the kind that anticipates rather than reacts, and Bloomingdale's is literally one floor below, if that helps you decide.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
3. The 50 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award

The 101-story tower was designed by Jeanne Gang, making it the tallest building by a female architect, which is the kind of fact that gets dropped at every rooftop cocktail hour. This St. Regis hotel sits along the Chicago River in quiet Lakeshore East, with Lake Michigan views and a wellness floor running spa, pool, and gym. Millennium Park is a short walk; a small private park sits right behind the building for when you'd rather not walk anywhere at all.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
3. The Banchets Nominee · Sommelier of the Year · Kat Hawkins

The 92-story glass tower sits right on the Chicago River, which means the floor-to-ceiling views from the rooms are doing serious work. This Forbes Five Star hotel leans into dark clubby wood, neutral tones, and custom furniture, so the feeling is more hushed residential than flashy. The fully-stocked in-room kitchens are a nice touch, and the hotel's chefs will come cook in them if you'd rather not go anywhere.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star

The marble lobby and English motor court set the tone for this full-service Gold Coast luxury hotel before you've even checked in. Art Deco bones, fireplaces in the guest rooms, white marble baths, and only ten rooms per floor mean it never feels like a convention block. Staff famously decline tips, which either says something about the service culture or about Chicago. A Forbes Four Star and a Michelin Key.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Floor-to-ceiling windows in the library look out over Chicago Avenue, which sets the tone for a hotel that frames the city as part of the decor. It sits on the Magnificent Mile in the Gold Coast, and the rooms and public spaces carry the cool, contemporary feel of a recent top-to-bottom renovation. The art collection leans Chicago, the staff leans warm, and the whole thing earns its Forbes Four Star without ever seeming to try.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. The 50 #80 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Esquire Market Price Martini · The Best Martinis in America
3. Esquire Martini Service · The Best Martinis in America

The facade of a 1929 Chicago landmark wraps this boutique luxury hotel on Rush Street, where Art Deco details share space with 21st-century comforts. It's named for sculptor Gwen Lux, whose work still ornaments the exterior, and the fifth-floor lobby leans into that Jazz Age identity hard. A rooftop bar with firepits, a weekend Tipsy Tea, and a see-and-be-seen cocktail lounge round out a property that holds a Michelin Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

Two buildings knocked into one give Scofflaw two distinct personalities: an industrial front room with the bar counter, and a Victorian-ish back room with wingback armchairs that somehow doesn't feel ironic. It's a gin-focused cocktail bar in Logan Square that also leans dive, with craft beer and pub grub to prove it. Expect a line on weekends; they don't take reservations, and forty minutes is a reasonable opening bid.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Wildsam The 50 Most Essential Bars in America
3. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

A pre-Prohibition corner tavern in Bridgeport where the chef behind it grew up, came back, and quietly made the Chicago dog the most labored thing on any bar menu in the city, built on housemade duck-fat sausage. The rotisserie duck arrives on a chopping block, the Italian beef uses prime rib shavings, and the whole room reads like fine-dining instincts filtered through a neighborhood tavern that never forgot what it was supposed to be.

1. The Banchets Nominee · Chef of the Year · Kevin Hickey
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Brunch Restaurants

Mid-century lines, leather and velvet, and eclectic artwork set the tone in the lobby of this boutique hotel tucked into the Gold Coast, where historic mansions and designer boutiques crowd the sidewalk outside. The 247 rooms lean luxe without tipping into stiff, the vibe is hip without the velvet-rope attitude, and a complimentary Lexus house car is the kind of quiet flex that earns its keep. Nico Osteria draws locals in off the street.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A 30-foot teal wall inscribed with Marcel Proust greets you in the lobby, which sets the tone for this Gold Coast boutique hotel with more personality than most. The 180 rooms lean midcentury, with a warm gold-and-teal palette and guest room doors in mismatched colors. A rooftop bar handles cocktails and skyline views, and Oak Street Beach is a short walk. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key

The menu at this Bucktown coffee and cocktail bar is split in two: morning drinks for one crowd, evening drinks for another, with cold brew threading through both halves. The food runs from pizza bagels to caviar, which tells you something about the room's sense of humor. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar in 2025, Truce has figured out that the best argument for staying all day is not having to change venues.

1. Eater Best New Bar
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best New Bar
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The Txuletón, a Basque-style ribeye from mature dairy cows, grilled over open charcoal with salt, heat, and not much else, is the organizing principle of this Basque-inspired chophouse in River North. The kitchen takes its cues from the asador tradition, applying that discipline to seriously sourced beef, carefully aged. Spanish reds anchor the wine list. Esquire named it among the best new restaurants in America, and it lands at number 15 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.

1. World's 101 Best #15 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Esquire Dirty Dirty · The Best Martinis in America
3. Esquire The Spanglish · The Best Martinis in America

1. Punch The Who’s Who of Beer Cool

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central

1. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

1. Esquire Dukes Hotel Martini · The Best Martinis in America

The checkered tile floors and art-lined stone walls make it look like a Parisian bistro that wandered into the West Loop and decided to stay. Creepies is a neighborhood French restaurant from the team behind Elske next door, with a concise menu that leans classic and slides Midwestern where it can. The vesper martini landed on Esquire's list of the best in the country, which is not nothing for a place called Creepies.

1. Esquire Vesper · The Best Martinis in America
2. The New York Times 2026 · The Restaurant List
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America

You find this tiki bar by following strangers down a narrow alley off Clark Street, which is either a great sign or a terrible one depending on your instincts. A staircase descends under a wall of skulls into a big, dim basement decked out in modern tiki grandeur. The drinks are serious and the room knows it. Difford's Guide gives it five stars, and the wait on weekends is its own kind of endorsement.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Wildsam The 50 Most Essential Bars in America

A 52-floor tower built from the ground up in Streeterville, a few blocks east of the Mag Mile and a short walk to Navy Pier. The hotel leans into Chicago's architectural legacy with design choices that feel considered rather than corporate, and a 75-foot lap pool and rooftop lounge raise the stakes for an urban stay. Business travelers and weekenders both find their footing here without too much awkward overlap.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

The hotel sits inside Water Tower Place, which means stepping off the elevator lands you in a shopping mall with over 125 stores, and stepping outside puts Chanel, Cartier, and the Art Institute within a few blocks. It's a luxury hotel on the Magnificent Mile, so the Gold Coast energy is built in. Rooms run at Ritz-Carlton prices, and the location does a lot of the justifying for them.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

1. Esquire The Martini You Drink Before You Fly · The Best Martinis in America

The vaulted ceilings and Venetian Gothic stonework on Michigan Avenue give away that this was never meant to be a hotel, and it wasn't, for most of its life. The Chicago Athletic Association is now a boutique hotel under Hyatt's Unbound Collection, holding a Michelin Key, and the bones of the old private club, once restricted to the city's male elite, do most of the atmospheric heavy lifting without anyone having to try too hard.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America

1. Esquire Martini · The Best Martinis in America

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America

1. The 50 One to Watch Award
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central

The Art Deco bones of this Gold Coast lobby bar date back to the Jazz Age, and the cocktail program leans into that: Cuban classics and Caribbean-inflected originals served under ornate ceilings that most bars would kill for. Sparrow calls itself a neighborhood bar, which is technically true, though the neighbors here wear better shoes than most. A named honoree at the Spirited Awards, it draws people in from well outside the Gold Coast.

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A boutique hotel in River North that takes its Silver LEED certification, Chicago's first, as seriously as its décor. The classic brick shell was preserved during renovation partly for sustainability reasons, which makes the contemporary interior feel like a quiet statement. Rooms lean understated with a nod to Chicago's modernist tradition. A French bistro, a coffee shop, and borrowed access to the Godfrey's spa next door round things out.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

River North's density of bars and galleries practically demanded a hotel like this one. Moxy Chicago Downtown leans into the neighborhood's energy: Bar Moxy runs as a co-working space during daylight hours, then pivots to local beers, cocktails, and weekend DJ sets by night. There's also a games room with shuffleboard and arcade cabinets, a gym, and a podcast booth, which suggests the kind of guest who checks in with a carry-on and a content strategy.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A rooftop pool high enough to make you feel like you're swimming through the skyline sets the tone at this full-service hotel in River North. It runs on a go-big logic, with a 24-hour fitness center and complete business facilities, yet somehow still feels approachable, the kind of place that fusses over your dog and your kids in equal measure. Midwestern warmth, it turns out, scales up just fine.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A 1929 Art Deco skyscraper in Wicker Park, repurposed by Mexico's Grupo Habita into 89 rooms with the brand's signature low-key cool. A Belgian design team carved the old North Tower offices into spare, elegant guest quarters, and the 13th-floor indoor-outdoor bar is the kind of thing that makes you forget you came here on business. Tokyobike rentals at the door nudge you toward the neighborhood rather than the lobby.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The old Atlantic Bank building on Michigan Avenue, a downtown landmark, now runs as a lifestyle hotel with Millennium Park views from many of the contemporary rooms. The gym is properly equipped, and the in-house restaurant, About Last Knife, folds West African and Latin American flavors into an American bistro menu. A solid base for anyone who'd rather walk to the lakefront than deal with a cab.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The name isn't a coincidence: this boutique hotel on the Magnificent Mile took Einstein's formula as its organizing thesis, and the stacks of books in the lobby are there to prove it. Rooms lean into an art-meets-science conceit with Deco-inspired design that manages to feel clever without being exhausting about it. The kind of place where the décor has a point of view, which is either appealing or a lot, depending on your mood.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Taxidermy on the walls, an Art Deco bar, and big comfy booths: Sportsman's Club is a neighborhood tavern that looks like it's been on Western Ave forever but drinks like something that arrived much more recently. The rotating menu leans spirit-forward and serious, even if the vibe emphatically does not. It's the kind of place that made this particular Chicago formula feel worth copying.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central

The Allegro Royal Sonesta sits inside the Loop connected directly to the Cadillac Palace Theater, which tells you something about its disposition. This is a hotel for people who want to see a show, or who just want a room that feels like one. The Art Deco interiors nod to the era when Chicago's skyline was still an argument in progress. Atelier Bloem bath products and a lounge serving all-day dining round things out.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The Art Deco exterior belongs to what was once home to Chicago's two biggest banks, which tells you something about the scale of ambition inside. The LaSalle Chicago is a luxury hotel in the Financial District where the retro styling isn't a costume but a genuinely fitting one, from the lobby lounge built for deal-making over cocktails to suites sized for people who sign things. Grill on 21 handles the steakhouse duties upstairs.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Rooms on the river side look straight down onto the Riverwalk and across at Tribune Tower, which is a better alarm clock than most hotels can offer. The Royal Sonesta is a luxury hotel on the Chicago River, right where it bends around the Magnificent Mile, and that address is rarer than it sounds. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels. Pack accordingly for the architecture views alone.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A Gold Coast hotel that was doing the boutique thing before anyone called it that, the Talbott has the bones of an older, quieter Chicago and a recent overhaul by local designer Kara Mann to keep it feeling current. Rooms are residential-scale rather than grand, which suits the neighborhood, where the vibe runs more old-money discreet than convention-circuit splash. A solid, unfussy base for the North Side.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The minibar charges corner-shop prices, a small act of decency that sets the tone for this Loop hotel inside a restored building that's been around forever. Rooms split in two with sliding doors for travel companions on different sleep schedules, and the beds convert into lounge configurations, since apparently a chair that works is too much to ask of most hotels. A rooftop bar and two restaurants round things out.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central

1. The Banchets Nominee · Bar of the Year

The Beef & Liberty Bar is the second-floor cocktail room of a London steakhouse that took over a restored River North building, all barrel-vaulted ceilings and jewel-toned booths. It's known for sub-zero martinis served cold enough to count as a personality trait, plus a happy hour with Reuben nuggets. Expect dressed-up regulars and a bar program that landed a Top 10 Nominee spot for U.S. Bartender of the Year.

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · U.S. Bartender of the Year · Daddy Long Legs
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses
3. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central

Exposed brick, custom tile floors, and floor-to-ceiling wine storage fill what was once a 19th-century print shop, now a Michelin-starred fine dining room in the West Loop. Chef Andrew Zimmerman folds Southeast Asian, Korean, and Mediterranean instincts into American cooking without making it a thesis. Wine Enthusiast put the cellar in its Restaurant Hall of Fame, and the room's warm enough that you'd never know you were being impressed.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. Michelin Guide 1 Star

Multi-bedroom suites with full kitchens and gas grills on private balconies make this Andersonville boutique hotel feel like you borrowed a friend's apartment, except the friend's apartment overlooks a cemetery, which is quieter than it sounds. A rooftop deck, a Club Room, and a bookable Library round out the communal spaces. The Red Line is a short walk if you need downtown, but the neighborhood's low-key charm tends to keep people close.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Wrigley Field fills the window from certain rooms, which is either the point or the warning, depending on your feelings about baseball. This boutique hotel pays tribute to the stadium's architect through dark woods, leather wing chairs, and copper detailing that split the difference between classic and mid-century. The building houses a relaxed bar and lounge plus a cluster of restaurants for pre- or post-game eating, making it the rare hotel where you might not leave the block.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

Cindy's is a rooftop cocktail bar on top of the Chicago Athletic Association, with a terrace looking over Millennium Park and Lake Michigan. It's a hotel bar, so expect dressed-up visitors, bachelorette sashes, and relatives in town, plus plates meant for three or four people to share. Regional Top 10 for hotel bars at the Spirited Awards, which is one more reason the terrace fills up first.

1. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar – U.S. Central

Hyde Park has long been the city's most bookish neighborhood, and the Sophy leans into that without apology. The hotel's decor pulls from the University of Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry, filling rooms with art and curiosities that feel more cabinet of wonders than standard-issue lobby art. Rooms run plush and sunny, and Mesler Chicago downstairs covers the bases with a cocktail bar and an outdoor space they call The Sanctuary.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. The Banchets Winner · Best Design
3. The Banchets Nominee · Sommelier of the Year · Kat Hawkins

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar

1. Food & Wine The Top 10 Hotel Bars in the US

Pasta and vegetables carry most of the weight here, at this bright, sun-flooded Italian restaurant in Logan Square that holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. The house-made pappardelle and rigatoni keep regulars coming back, but the onion dip with house-made ruffles has become a thing people talk about. A bakery tucked in the back means the pastry situation at the end of a meal is genuinely hard to navigate. The bar program turns heads too, a James Beard semifinalist for hospitality.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Punch Best New Bartenders · Becca Petersen
3. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

The back bar holds what might be the most bewildering collection of vintage Italian Fernet you'll encounter outside of Milan. Billy Sunday is a polished amaro and cocktail bar in Logan Square, narrow and dark-wooded, with green walls and vintage lamps that suggest a gentlemen's club that loosened up considerably. The bar stools fill early with people who know their bitter spirits, and the classically built cocktails give them good reason to stay.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Bar Program
2. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Tucked into a historic greystone next door to Moreno's Liquors, a southside family institution, Osito's Tap is a neighborhood cocktail bar where the drinks lean hard into Latin American classics, agave spirits, and Micheladas done right. The connection to the liquor store isn't just sentimental; the spirits selection reflects it. Low-key enough that you might walk past it, specific enough that regulars don't want you to find it.

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Parachute HiFi is a Korean listening bar from the Parachute team, built for people who'd rather hear a record than their own thoughts. Vinyl spins while the menu runs street-food mashups, like a burger drowned in Comté fondue and tteokbokki in a pad Thai situation, alongside cocktails. It's casual and dressy-ish in the way a good record collection is, and it takes reservations but still keeps room for walk-ins.

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurant
2. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

1. Midwest Living 2023 · Best of the Midwest
2. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The cocktail menu runs 32 pages and opens with a table of contents, which tells you everything about how seriously this hotel bar takes its work. Originals are sorted by style; classics are filed by decade. The room holds up in daylight just as well as it does after dark, which isn't something most hotel bars can say without lying. Bring someone who likes to read before they order.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The ground floor runs dark wood and dim light, with a long bar and clandestine booths; upstairs it's velvet couches and armchairs, like someone's very well-stocked living room. This Lincoln Avenue cocktail bar leans into an old-time saloon feel without making it a costume, pulling sixty-plus classics-leaning drinks organized by spirit and style. The Harry Johnson-style etchings on the menu are either charming or insufferable, depending on your mood.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars