The Best Italian Food in Chicago

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

The wood-grain bar wraps around the pasta station, where sheets are rolled, cut, and hung to dry in full view, which tells you everything about what Sarah Grueneberg is doing at this West Loop Italian spot. Counter stools fill by 5:30, and the regulars who claim them rarely need menus. The cucina tipica runs deeper than pasta, but the pasta is why people talk. A Michelin Selected restaurant.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Emerging Chef · Bailey Sullivan
3. The Banchets Nominee · Chef of the Year · Sarah Grueneberg

The wood-fired oven in this Ravenswood Neapolitan pizzeria burns through dough the way it's done in Naples, leaving a soft, charred crust that folds without argument. The chef trained in Italy and the obsession shows, with many ingredients sourced from there directly. The menu stays traditional, appetizers and desserts rounding out the pizza, and the room has an easy warmth that makes an hour feel like twenty minutes.

1. 50 Top Pizza 2025 · Outstanding Career Achievement · 50 Top Pizza World Special Awards
2. AAA Three Diamonds
3. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza USA Excellent Pizzerias

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

Checkered tablecloths and red-sauce ambition fill this cozy Italian-American fine dining spot in River North, where the Hogsalt group went full throwback and meant it. Pastas are made in-house, portions are unapologetically generous, and the tiramisu is heavier on the booze than most places would dare. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a room this loud with this much garlic in the air.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

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.

1. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago
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

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Counter Service
2. The Infatuation #10 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Chicago

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses

Crystal pendants, hand-painted tile floors, and an amber sculpture drifting overhead set the tone at this West Loop Italian from the Boka Restaurant Group. The menu moves through freshly made pasta, puffy-edged pizzas, and a confident roasted half chicken, with a long stone bar doing brisk sandwich work at lunch. It's the kind of room where you can linger over a bottle or be in and out in forty minutes, and the staff reads the difference without being asked.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

Sinatra murmurs overhead, leather banquettes fill the room, and the bread basket arrives before you've even settled in. Elina's is a neighborhood Italian-American restaurant done with real affection for the canon: clams casino, rigatoni alla vodka, chicken parm under a blanket of marinara and mozz. The kitchen doesn't reinvent anything, which is rather the point. Cozy, intimate, and thoroughly absorbed in its own nostalgia.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

A curing chamber visible from the dining room sets the tone at this all-day salumeria in Logan Square, where the pig cutout over the door is not subtle and not meant to be. The Michelin Bib Gourmand spot runs charcuterie boards and deli sandwiches by day, then pivots to steak frites and duck confit on weekend evenings. Honeycomb tile floors and old wood joists give the room an unhurried, old-world feel.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Roman-style pizza cooked in electric deck ovens is the whole idea at this Andersonville neighborhood pizzeria, and the pies come out oblong, puffy, and blistered with a bubble-like crunch. The kitchen makes all its pasta in-house too, so this is more than a one-trick spot. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the unfussy room fills up fast with people who figured that out early.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. The Banchets Nominee · Sommelier of the Year · Patti Robison

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

The glass garage façade on Armitage opens into a warm room of bare wood tables and glowing Edison bulbs, the kind of osteria that takes Piedmont seriously without taking itself too seriously. The menu stays tight and regional, meaning tajarin with ragù, hand-pinched cheese ravioli, and vitello tonnato done properly. The staff moves like they actually want you there, which in Chicago is not always a given.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Weathered wood, a playlist with opinions, and a menu that splits its loyalties between Sicily and the bayou. This small, intimate Italian-Creole restaurant on Chicago Avenue is the project of a chef paying tribute to his Sicilian grandfather, and the kitchen's personality comes through in calamari stuffed with jalapeños and banana peppers, and trenette with cognac-splashed shrimp scampi. The portions are built for sharing, so bring a table's worth of people.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The name comes from an obscure white Campanian grape variety, which tells you everything about how seriously this Lakeview spot takes its Southern Italian bona fides. It's a Neapolitan pizza restaurant, wood-fired and traditionally minded, with a patio that leans into the convivial-trattoria feeling. The crust has the soft, charred-edge character the style calls for. 50 Top Pizza USA has taken notice, landing it at number 43 on their national list.

1. 50 Top Pizza #43 · 50 Top Pizza USA

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar – U.S. Central

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

Mano a Mano is a dimly lit Italian trattoria on Milwaukee Avenue, run by the people behind the neighboring Andros Taverna and Asador Bastian, so the block is basically a family reunion with better lighting. The pastas are made in-house, with seafood-stuffed shapes and a cacio e pepe, and the focaccia arrives with stracchino. Expect a wine list with some ambition and a mid-to-upper bill, so dress like you planned this.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

Mart Anthony's is a family-run Italian restaurant on West Hubbard, in its third generation, and it began as a spot for the founder to hang out with friends. The walls are covered in black-and-white photos of regulars, so you're basically dining inside a very long group chat. Expect red-sauce classics from family recipes, a dozen handmade pastas, and a meatball salad credited to Nana. Come as you are, as the place intends.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Tavern-Style Thin-Crust Pizza Restaurants

Tortello is a pastifico on Division with a storefront window that doubles as a live show, staff cutting and kneading dough for anyone who slows down on the sidewalk. The flour comes from Italy, and a master sfoglina was brought in to train the team, which tells you how seriously they take noodles. It's casual and moderately priced, with fresh pasta by the pound to go and a patio that fills up the minute the weather allows.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants