The 15 Best Bakeries in Chicago

Kasama takes its name from the Tagalog word for "together," which tells you something about the whole project. It's a tasting menu restaurant in Wicker Park where a husband-and-wife team reimagines Filipino cuisine with fine dining precision, two Michelin stars, and a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Great Lakes. Traditional preparations get elegant, inventive treatment, and the pastry work is serious enough to hold its own.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
3. James Beard Awards 2023 · Winner · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Tim Flores and Genie Kwon

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

Mindy's is a Wicker Park bakery where the menu shifts often enough to keep regulars guessing, running from donuts to pot pies, with the occasional turnover stuffed with mortadella and giardiniera. The bagels get plenty of attention too. The room is tiny and there are only a couple of window seats, so most people end up eating in the car, which is fine, since crumbs are cheaper to vacuum than to explain.

1. Time Out The best bakeries in America
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3. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

Verzênay is a Lincoln Park patisserie where the French classics arrive in textbook form: chocolate eclairs, crackly kouign-amann, a sourdough baguette that's often still warm. It also keeps an apple pie and a mango passionfruit cheesecake in the case, which the French would presumably allow. The Chicago macaron, filled with caramel, popcorn, and cheddar, is a Garrett Popcorn tribute in cookie form. Saturday mornings call for an early alarm.

1. International Baking Industry Expo Winner: Arshiya Farheen · World Bread Awards USA · Challah
2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

The croissants here are laminated so precisely that the layers curl back on themselves like something from a geometry class, and then a breakfast sandwich gets stacked on top. Loaf Lounge is an all-day cafe where a pastry-and-savory team splits duties, one side producing sourdough and oatmeal cream pies, the other composing serious sandwiches. The chocolate cake the team made for "The Bear" has taken on a life of its own, which tracks.

1. The Banchets Nominee · Pastry Chef of the Year · Sarah Mispagel-Lustbader & Ben Lustbader
2. The New York Times 22 of the Best Bakeries Across the U.S. Right Now
3. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

Bar Tutto is an all-day Italian cafe from Top Chef winner Joe Flamm, which means you can start with a pastry and an egg sandwich and, if the day cooperates, still be there when the handmade pasta shows up. The wood-fired grill handles razor clams and prawns with Calabrian chile, and the Fernet-leaning cocktail list suggests the staff has opinions about digestivi. It was a James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Restaurateur.

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2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Frank Callero, Joe Flamm, and Steven Zaleski - Day Off Group
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

Sugar Moon is a takeout-only bakery in Logan Square, so there's no table to claim, just a sidewalk line that starts forming a good half hour before the 9am opening and doesn't care about the weather. The reward is a curried cauliflower croissant or a Nutella-pear brioche bun, plus scones that crumble the way scones should. Pastry runs cheap, the wait costs you a Saturday morning, and it's been named among the country's favorite bakeries by The Infatuation.

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2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

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This pie shop moved into a former dentist's office, so the only drilling now happens when someone attacks a whole key lime pie dressed up with strawberries and basil. Slices make it easy to build a flight, say lemon espresso against cucumber, mango, and chili lime. Chicken pot pie shows up after 11am, and strangers in line tend to start chatting. The owner was a James Beard Outstanding Baker nominee.

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Baker · Maya-Camille Broussard
2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

1. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago
2. Eater Best New Bakery · The 2025 Eater Chicago Award Winners

Loba is a minimalist coffee shop and small-batch bakery where the ovens sit behind a window, so you can watch your white chocolate curry scone's origin story. The menu rotates, the hours are short, and the seating is limited, so weekend crowds line up early to beat the sellouts. It was a James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Bakery. Come early, order boldly, and accept that the pineapple sourdough muffin may already be a memory.

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bakery
2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

Cadinho is a sunny Portuguese bakery and cafe in McKinley Park, and the tarts are the whole conversation. There's the pastel de nata, vanilla-scented custard in flaky pastry, sometimes wearing a little chocolate shell like a tiny hat. There are also palm-sized passionfruit pies with a crust that gives up immediately. The other baked goods are perfectly pleasant, but you'll see people leave carrying a box of tarts and nothing else.

1. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago
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Good Ambler is a Fulton Market bakery tucked into the lobby of a snack-food conglomerate's headquarters, and the pastry case has the good manners not to mention it. Macarons, kouign-amann, petit gateau and handmade chocolates line up behind the glass, but the plain croissant is the one doing the heavy lifting. It's a counter-service stop, so nobody needs a reservation or a dress code.

1. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

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