The Best Restaurants in Chicago

1. The Banchets Culinary Excellence of the Year · Roland Licioni

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Counter Service

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Heritage Restaurant

1. The New York Times The Restaurant List
2. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

Stainless-steel plates land on the table the way they would at someone's home in Kerala, which is exactly the point. Thattu is a Keralan restaurant in Chicago where fish fries, coconut curries, and yogurt rice anchor the menu, and the appam, lacy rice-and-coconut domes, exist mostly to drag through whatever's left. The Tater Tots dusted in chaat masala read less like a gimmick and more like a clever raid on the pantry.

1. The New York Times The Restaurant List
2. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

Tucked into the ground floor of the Drake hotel in Oak Brook, COA is a Spanish restaurant where the kitchen splits its attention between tapas, paella, and prime cuts for anyone who wandered in expecting a steakhouse. The vibe shifts noticeably after dark, when the music climbs, the cocktails multiply, and the dining room starts feeling more like a party someone forgot to end.

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

Fried chicken with mashed potatoes and hot sauce is the thing Art Smith is known for, and this Southern comfort restaurant at Navy Pier keeps it on the menu alongside buttermilk biscuits, deviled eggs, and fried green tomatoes. Smith cooked privately for celebrities before going public, and the cooking reads that way, crowd-pleasing but not careless. A casual, lively room where nobody is pretending they didn't come for the chicken.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

The glass-enclosed rooftop dining room sits on top of a furniture showroom, which says a lot about Oak Brook and even more about RH's ambitions. Olive trees and a fountain give the room a garden-house feel, and the American menu runs from a burger to whole branzino, with shareable plates and composed salads filling the middle ground. It draws a dressed-up suburban crowd happy to linger over a long lunch with a view.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

A ceiling mural of blue sky and clouds floats over white-tableclothed dining rooms spread across two floors, one block off the Magnificent Mile. This is a classic Italian-American restaurant, the kind where portions arrive larger than any reasonable person expected and the housemade pasta makes that very easy to forgive. Roasted chicken Vesuvio with red potatoes and white wine sauce is the move for the old-school contingent. Relaxed, prompt, and reliably generous.

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 wood-burning oven does most of the talking at this upscale Greek taverna just off Logan Square Park, kissing nearly everything on the menu with smoke. Warm pita arrives with a lineup of dips, lamb chops come in serious portions, and the baklava froyo with pistachio sauce is the kind of thing you didn't see coming. The wine list runs entirely Greek, from Macedonia to Santorini, which takes a certain confidence.

1. Esquire #29 · The Best New Restaurants in America
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Murals by street artist Senkoe climb the walls of this lively Pan-Mexican restaurant on a corner that the surrounding industrial stretch does nothing to prepare you for. Aqua-blue chairs, cement floors, and a DJ booth set the tone before the food arrives. The menu roams Mexico freely, and the kitchen has a flair for the dramatic. A whole grilled pineapple stuffed with octopus and Chihuahua cheese makes the point pretty quickly.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A tasting menu format in a cozy Ravenswood dining room where Cuban and Filipino cooking share the same plate, cooked by a husband-and-wife team working through both heritages on their own terms. Wagyu stands in for vaca frita, and arroz caldo gets lobster poached in calamansi butter. None of it reads as fusion tourism; it reads as two people cooking what they actually know. Their diner next door handles the casual lumpia crowd.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Stone walls, an arched ceiling, and a lower level with its own fireplace make this Lebanese restaurant feel more like a Beirut cellar than a Fulton Market address. The chef draws on family recipes for his mezze and tasting menu, moving through charred pita and parsley hummus before landing on stylized takes on traditional stews and fish dishes. The bar pours cocktails built around arak and tahini for a shorter, looser visit.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A former billiard hall that now keeps the lights low and the candles lit, so it feels more like a speakeasy than a pool room, though nobody's chalking a cue. It's a Mexican small-plates and cocktail spot on Halsted, with a menu that riffs on a few classics and a bar that leans on Chicago-based, Mexican-owned brands. The tequila espresso martini is the drink people keep ordering, naturally.

1. The Infatuation #4 · Chicago’s Best New Restaurants
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

The velvet-curtained windows and chandelier glow of this French bistro on Taylor Street have been drawing nostalgic expats and neighborhood regulars for what feels like forever. A cozy back bar invites lingering, but the real draw is the dining room, where frogs' legs Provençale and a properly Gruyère-blanketed French onion soup anchor a menu of classic French cooking with the odd global detour. The courtyard opens when Chicago allows it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Colorful wicker seats ring a communal table at the center of this bright Uptown Ethiopian restaurant, where injera arrives in the traditional way and doubles as your only utensil. The menu runs vegetarian and omnivore-friendly, with a small glossary tucked in for first-timers, which is a thoughtful touch in a neighborhood that attracts plenty of them. Picture windows face the street for anyone more interested in Broadway than their dining companions.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant

The okonomiyaki griddle in the center of the room is the whole point, and it makes conversation difficult in the best way. This is Paul Virant's Japanese comfort food spot on Lake Street, small and izakaya-ish, with brass fittings and exposed brick keeping things warm. Guests build their own path through Osaka and Hiroshima styles, with a custom Moody Tongue brew on hand to accompany whatever direction that takes.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A rotisserie chicken counter named for the chef's mom, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe. Order at the counter, pick your portion size, add the smashed potatoes cooked in chicken drippings, and try not to feel smug about your choices. The dirt cup with gummy worms is there for adults who prefer their nostalgia unironic. The staff are warmer and more composed than the format requires.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A Lakeview izakaya and sushi bar where the menu ranges wide enough that ordering feels like a small project. The room is airy and modern, all hardwood floors and natural light, with the kind of calm that makes you want to linger. The kitchen mixes Japanese technique with roaming influences: robata skewers, handrolls, and a donut with a dipping well of matcha semifreddo that earns its place at the end of the meal.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Named for M.F.K. Fisher, the great American food writer, this Iberian restaurant sits in a whitewashed, tile-lined basement on Diversey that somehow feels like a terrace in the sun. The menu runs small to large, with the kind of clean, confident cooking that makes an anchovy crostini feel like a complete argument. Lakeview locals fill it early and often, which means booking ahead is less optional than it sounds.

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

Deep blue velvet seats across two floors mark this upscale Indian restaurant at the edge of West Randolph's dining strip. The cocktail list comes with its own flavor matrix, which is either endearing or a lot, depending on your mood. The kitchen runs classic Indian technique through a contemporary lens, turning out dishes that feel familiar and surprising at once, the kind of place where you dress up a little and nobody feels overdressed.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Kurdish cooking on the north side, where breakfast alone draws a crowd: sesame-studded bread, house preserves, and eggs scrambled with roasted peppers arrive alongside bottomless Kurdish tea. The menu spans spreads, hearty meats, and flavors that pull from Turkey, the Middle East, and India in equal measure. The room is low-key, with exposed brick and leather banquettes, the kind of place that looks casual and then quietly surprises you.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Large steel fermentation vats line the back wall of this cozy Wicker Park brewpub, making the beer program hard to ignore. The kitchen holds its own with filet sliders layered with blue cheese and caramelized onions, a grilled fish sandwich with house-made remoulade, and a warm carrot cake with candied pecans that earns its spot on the menu. Tastings help you navigate the draft list before committing, which is a small mercy.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A New American restaurant attached to Schubas Tavern, which tells you something about the room: relaxed enough for a show night, sharper than it needs to be. The menu is wide on purpose, covering enough ground that the whole group lands somewhere happy, but the kitchen keeps surprising you, with butternut squash schnitzel over spaetzle or Spanish mackerel on coconut-braised chickpeas. Good food that doesn't require an occasion.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Diners queue on the sidewalk before the doors open, which tells you something about how this no-reservations live-fire restaurant on Milwaukee Ave operates. Everything passes over, under, or through the flames, from the foie gras ganache on grilled hearth bread to the butter cake that comes out of the fire with a crackling crust. The chefs' counter, where you can watch the whole production up close, is the seat everyone actually wants.

1. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The glass-enclosed kitchen at the front is the first thing you notice, and if you can grab a table facing it, you'll watch the whole operation. This Sichuan spot in Chinatown is named for its signature dish, a fiery pickled fish with sour greens that comes in sizes running up to a platter for six. The wontons in chili oil are a foregone conclusion. A long list of cold sides fills out the table without much effort.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater All the New Restaurant Openings to Know in Chicago

Mazor is a casual River West spot named for the ear of corn, and the menu behaves accordingly: tetelas, tacos, and tostadas, all built on masa, with a short list that suggests nobody here is hiding behind options. The chef pulls from both Mexico and Guatemala, where he grew up, and the food stays unfussy while still feeling like an occasion. Come in whatever you wore to work, and expect Eater to have already told your friends.

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

1. Wine Enthusiast Top 50 New Restaurants

Beaumont's American Tavern is a 200-seat Lincoln Park restaurant that took over an old Halsted Street space and filled it with the kind of menu your grandfather would call "proper food." Downstairs runs on pub burgers, shrimp and grits, and fresh pasta, while a steakhouse called the Bull Moose sits upstairs, which is a lot of square footage for a tavern. Expect mid-range prices and a sticky toffee pudding built for sharing.

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Chicago

This is a casual birrieria on North Broadway, and the menu is basically one idea: slow-cooked goat, served with handmade tortillas and the usual fixings. The Uptown spot took over after a fire shut the family's original Archer Heights location, and the recipe came along intact. It's lunch food that closes early, so plan around the goat, not the other way around. The Bear crew ate here while filming, which is its own kind of review.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Emerging Chef · Nicolai Mlodinow

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Mark Domitrovich, Brian Jupiter, and Aaron Torricelli - Pioneer Tavern Group

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Chicago

The flaming saganaki arrives tableside, and in Niles, Illinois, that feels correct and necessary. Kouklas is a big, boisterous Greek eatery in Chicago's inner-ring suburbs, with a menu to match: wood-fire grilled octopus, spicy tirokafteri, souvlaki, and a Greek salad that makes you wonder about the lamb's provenance. The New York Times put it on their 2026 Restaurant List, which tracks for a place this mission-driven about making suburban Greek food something people drive for.

1. The New York Times 2026 · The Restaurant List

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Mark Domitrovich, Brian Jupiter, and Aaron Torricelli - Pioneer Tavern Group

This is a cafeteria-line Jewish deli where you grab a tray, slide it past the steam tables, and let a man pile corned beef onto rye until it stops resembling lunch and starts resembling a load-bearing wall. The walls are papered in old newspaper clippings and notes from Chicago big shots, a nod to when deals got brokered between bites. Prices are easy, the dress code is whatever you wore to work.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options
3. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best New Restaurant

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Chicago

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Bo Fowler

Carnitas sold by the pound at a front counter is the whole premise, and it has been in Pilsen long enough to feel like civic infrastructure. This is a no-frills carnitas shop where you pick your cuts, grab tortillas and salsa from the fixings spread, and assemble your own tacos at a table, if you can claim one on a weekend. The cactus salad is a quieter argument for going than the carnitas, but the carnitas is the reason anyone's in line.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

The Depression dog, a Chicago hot dog variant that arrives with fries piled right on top of the bun, is a good reason to find this counter-service hot dog stand on Armitage. Redhot Ranch uses natural-casing sausages, which means an actual snap when you bite in. The smash burgers are a serious value. The same owners run 35th Street Red Hots near Sox Park, same menu, if that's closer.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Mari Katsumura and Adam Sindler

1. AAA Approved

1. The Infatuation #5 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Chicago

Colorful fabric drapes the ceiling like a Bedouin tent, and the smell of mesquite smoke hits you before you find a table. Al Bawadi is a sprawling Middle Eastern grill in Niles where the portions arrive on banquet platters, hummus and rice piled high enough to guarantee tomorrow's lunch. Kefta, kebabs, lamb, chicken, seafood, all over hardwood. The New York Times put it on their list of the 25 best restaurants in Chicago right now.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

From the street, Hermosa looks like the hot dog and beef stand you grew up near, which is the joke, because inside it's a Cambodian sandwich shop with a fried chicken sandwich that has opinions. At night it quietly becomes a dinner tasting, where a group of up to 14 can take over the whole room for an 11-course BYOB spread. It's casual and counter-service, so dress for sandwiches, and bring the wine.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

1. Time Out #17 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago

Lao Peng You is a tiny, no-frills dumpling and noodle spot where the dumplings arrive plump, in a dried shrimp broth, and the chile oil is homemade enough to sell by the jar. Two brothers took their grandmother's lessons and ran with them, and the noodles have a pleasing chew. Seats are scarce, so arrive early or spend the wait watching other people's dinner with open envy.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

1. Time Out #24 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago

Susu is a steakhouse on West Randolph that borrows from Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and Asian kitchens, so the usual creamed spinach has some company. It also runs a weekend bakery out of the back entrance, where pre-ordered croissants, shakshuka danish, and tahini canele get picked up like contraband. The breakfast sandwich comes loaded with house-made wagyu sujuk, which is a lot of ambition for a pita.

1. Eater All the New Restaurant Openings to Know in Chicago

1. The Infatuation #13 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Chicago

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now

Rick Bayless runs a small empire in Chicago, and somehow his airport torta counter at O'Hare landed on the New York Times list of the city's 25 best restaurants. It's a quick-service spot, so expect a counter and a tray, but the choriqueso, a griddled sandwich of molten Jack cheese, chorizo, and avocado, audibly crunches when you bite it. The tortilla soup is the same recipe they pour at Frontera Grill. Boarding group 7 has never been so bearable.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now

1. Eater All the New Restaurant Openings to Know in Chicago

1. Eater Best New Bar · The 2025 Eater Chicago Award Winners

The name comes from the owner's childhood in Guerrero, where he and his siblings sold radishes at the market and got saddled with the nickname Cinco Rabanitos. This is a casual Pilsen taqueria, the order-at-the-counter, nobody-dresses-up kind, and the menu runs from tacos to tortas to caldos. Guerrero shows up in the slow-roasted pork in red mole and in the cecina, and Eater has it on its list of Chicago's best Mexican spots.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

The kind of Lincoln Square storefront you'd walk past without a second glance, which is exactly the point. Inside, Atelier is an intimate fine dining room built around a tasting menu that pulls from nearby farms and wanders across cuisines without ever losing focus. A Michelin star landed here, and the kitchen earns it quietly, sending out dishes that feel both deeply familiar and genuinely strange in the best possible way.

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Best New Restaurant

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

Bartoli's is a casual deep-dish pizzeria on Addison, run by the grandson of one of the guys who started Gino's East, so the family has been loading pies with cheese for a while. The crust is on the light, flaky side, the sauce leans sweet, and a spinach-and-cheese number named for a nonna is the one regulars point to. Slices are sold for lunch, which spares you a two-pound commitment on a Tuesday.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options