The Best Breakfast in Chicago

A neighborhood restaurant in Logan Square that won a James Beard Award for Outstanding Hospitality, which tells you something before you've even sat down. The menu rotates with the seasons, so regulars show up trusting the kitchen rather than ordering from memory. The room fills fast from morning through dinner, and the bar in the adjacent space is a solid solo option. The Michelin Guide lists it as a Bib Gourmand.

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Winner · Outstanding Hospitality
2. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Jason Hammel
3. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The foie gras Monte Cristo at brunch should tell you where this is headed. Obélix is a white-tablecloth French bistro in River North where duck, foie gras, and pâté en croûte run through a menu of hearty classics, all made in-house. The sun-drenched dining room fills with seafood platters and bottles of wine at a pace that suggests nobody here came to be sensible. Save room: the pastries alone make a case for staying through dessert.

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Best New Restaurant
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Brunch Restaurants

A wood-fired hearth anchors this Gold Coast steakhouse, casting the kind of light that makes everyone look like they have somewhere more important to be later. Maple & Ash leans hard into the party-steakhouse genre, with deep leather couches, clubby music, and a photo booth tucked somewhere in the multilevel room. Dry-aged cuts come in generous portions, and the seafood menu holds its own. The bar is a Top 10 U.S. Nominee at the Spirited Awards.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Brunch Restaurants

Naan as a pizza base, naan as a butter chicken calzone brushed with ghee, naan as the main argument for coming back: this Logan Square Indian restaurant has built a personality around the flatbread, then filled out the menu with Kerala crab curry and chana chaat to prove it isn't a one-trick kitchen. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, with a James Beard semifinalist nod behind it. The exposed brick and long bar make the room feel loose, which matches the cooking.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Brunch Restaurants
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza

A Bridgeport pub that takes the British meat pie seriously enough to earn a Michelin Bib Gourmand, without a single tea cozy in sight. The room runs marble tables and handmade pottery, and the crowd arrives for flaky, butter-crusted pies filled with things like steak and ale alongside minty peas and mash. The menu wanders into rarebit mac and cheese and a pub burger that pulls its weight. Fish and chips land on Fridays.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Brunch Restaurants

Servers roam the floor with hot coffee and donut holes before you've even ordered, which tells you everything about what kind of diner Lou Mitchell's is. Booths, counter stools, eggs cooked every way imaginable, and an open-faced Reuben on homemade rye that has anchored many a morning near Union Station. An old-school Chicago institution that has never once tried to be anything else.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Breakfast Spots

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Brunch Restaurants
2. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Paul Fehribach
3. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Paul Fehribach

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Brunch Restaurants
2. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Darnell Reed

La Catedral is a casual Mexican breakfast spot in Little Village where the decor runs to saints and religious imagery, a collection that keeps growing because customers keep gifting more of it. The menu covers eggs, omelets, pancakes, and licuados, but the chilaquiles are the sermon, with at least fifteen versions. The verdes and the smoky, very spicy A La Diabla draw the most devotees. It's Eater's list of Chicago's best Mexican restaurants.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Brunch Restaurants
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

Ox Bar & Hearth is a full-service Lincoln Park restaurant that sits right across from the North and Clybourn el stop and keeps a valet lot, which in this neighborhood is practically a luxury amenity. Brunch leans carb-heavy, with soft blue cornbread and pastries from Fat Peach Bakery. For a $95 smoked ribeye with fried eggs, the kitchen will also shave black truffle on top if you ask nicely.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Brunch Restaurants
2. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Breakfast Spots