The Best Places in Chicago

1. The Banchets Winner · Best Neighborhood Restaurant
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Nicolas Poilevey and Oliver Poilevey
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options

1. Time Out The best Chinese restaurants in America

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. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

Tall ceilings and low light inside the Belden-Stratford give this contemporary restaurant a quietly dramatic feeling before the food even arrives. The menu roams freely, pairing roasted lamb meatballs with tikka masala butter one course and bibimbap with mushroom bulgogi the next, and the banana budino has outlasted every menu refresh for good reason. The sommelier took home a Banchets award in 2025, which explains a lot about the wine list.

1. The Banchets Winner · Sommelier of the Year · Jelena Prodan
2. The Banchets Nominee · Chef of the Year · Stephen Gillanders
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The oxtail gumbo here carries a whiff of hardwood smoke, which tells you everything about how this Beverly smokehouse operates. Sanders BBQ Supply Co. sits about twelve miles south of the Loop, deep in a neighborhood few tourists reach, doing the kind of slow, wood-fired barbecue that connects to Chicago's Great Migration roots. The New York Times put it on their 2025 restaurant list, and the pitmaster earned a James Beard semifinalist nod.

1. The New York Times 2025 · The Restaurant List
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now
3. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago

1. The Infatuation The Best Ice Cream In America
2. The Infatuation #1 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

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.

1. The Infatuation Our Favorite Bakeries In The Country Right Now
2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
3. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

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

Bungalow is the Logan Square brewpub where the beer runs on wild yeast and the wine is made with as little intervention as the law allows. Tavern-style thin-crust pizza shows up on Tuesdays, cut in squares, but the toppings come from regional farms and the sauces wander off script. Order a pepperoni pie here and you'll feel like you've missed the point. The Beard folks named the beverage program a semifinalist in 2024.

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Neighborhood Restaurant
2. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
3. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago
3. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

Culebra is a narrow, dark Puerto Rican cocktail bar in Logan Square where the entrance is the first puzzle, so expect to ask a stranger where it is. Inside, a loud bomba soundtrack keeps everyone bouncing, drinks run to a Malta-sweetened highball, a spicy rum swizzle, and a plantain shot. The Infatuation put it on its list of the 'it' bars across America, which is how the line out front got started.

1. The Infatuation The ‘It’ Bars Across America Right Now

1. The Infatuation 11 Of The Best Donuts In America

1. The Infatuation Donuts · The Best Potato Dishes In America

The menu is organized by ingredient rather than course, with an entire section devoted to goat, which tells you everything about the kitchen's sense of humor and ambition. This lively New American restaurant on Randolph Street fills every night with groups working through shareable plates in a warm, beamed room full of dim corners and elevated platforms. A Michelin Bib Gourmand spot where the flavors are direct and the portions, upon request, flexible.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago
3. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
3. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America

A tiny Filipino coffee shop in Bowmanville where the menu leans on flavors you won't find at any other cafe in the city. Pandan, ube, and macadamia nuts show up where oat milk and brown sugar usually do. The room is small enough that regulars eventually stop ordering off the menu and let the baristas improvise. Its sibling spot, Drip Collective, handles the Fulton Market crowd if you need more elbow room.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago
3. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

Smash Jibarito is a counter-service burger spot on Division Street where the bun is a flattened, fried plantain, which turns lunch into a mild argument about whether this counts as a sandwich. It's the Puerto Rican jibarito run through a smashburger press, with thin, crisp-edged patties and a tangy house sauce that nods toward In-N-Out. It's a casual, order-and-grab operation, so wear whatever you were already wearing.

1. The Infatuation The Best Burgers In America

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
3. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

The cheeseburger, griddled and stacked with onion aioli and double cheese on a toasted sesame bun, has its own reputation to manage. But The Loyalist is a proper basement brasserie doing quiche Lorraine, anchovy toasts, and trout grenobloise with a polish that quietly nods to the tasting-menu restaurant upstairs. It sits below Smyth, which holds three Michelin stars, and the kitchen shares the same sensibility at a fraction of the formality.

1. Time Out #18 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

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

Apolonia is a hotel restaurant in the South Loop with the calm, spare look of a place that doesn't need to shout, and a Euro-Mediterranean menu with white-tablecloth ambitions. The handmade pastas are the main event, and a truffle puff bread arrives at the table with enough theater to turn heads two booths over. Its sommelier took home a Banchet, so the wine list probably isn't an afterthought. Dress like you've been somewhere.

1. The Banchets Winner · Sommelier of the Year · Jelena Prodan
2. The Banchets Nominee · Chef of the Year · Stephen Gillanders
3. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

Bad Butter is a no-seating bakery on Cortland where the pastries lean savory and a little unruly, like a pretzel loaded with cream cheese and mustard or monkey bread with a salsa macha kick. The line has become its own local pastime, so pre-order if you can. Eat your haul on a bench along the 606, where you can hold the bag a bit higher than necessary for the joggers.

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

1. Wine Enthusiast Top 50 New Restaurants
2. The Banchets Nominee · Rising Chef · Madalyn Durrant

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Frank Callero, Joe Flamm, and Steven Zaleski - Day Off Group

1. Time Out #8 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Neighborhood Restaurant
2. The Infatuation #19 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Chicago

1. Wildsam The 50 Most Essential Bars in America

Table-shaken margaritas set the tone at Rick Bayless's long-running regional Mexican restaurant on Clark Street, where the menu rotates around whatever's local and the molé gets the kind of attention most kitchens reserve for special occasions. The room runs warm and loud in the best sense, with music that makes the wait feel shorter than it is. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand, and Eater counts it among Chicago's essential restaurants.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago

A French-ish bakery in West Town where the bakers trained in patisserie but treat tradition as a suggestion. Expect baguettes, Brie sandwiches, and sugar-crusted kouign amann, plus a line out the door. Inside, there's room for booths facing the glass-walled baking room, which is a nice way to watch the people who make your four-pastry limit. Eater counted it among Chicago's best new restaurants, and the sandwiches and bread come with no cap.

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

A New Orleans-style tavern in Wicker Park named for the chef's great-grandmother, which tells you the food comes with some actual stakes. The bar up front runs three-deep, the dining room behind it hums with the kind of staff that keeps things loose without losing the thread. Gumbo, po'boys, and beignets anchor the menu, and the Nashville fried chicken has quietly become the thing regulars steer everyone toward.

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

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

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

Edward Kim's Bucktown restaurant plays Midwest and Chinese off each other in ways that feel neither forced nor fussy. It's a casual, feast-style spot where the menu roams freely and the cooking has enough personality to pull it off. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a place where the food is ambitious but the vibe stays loose. Go with a group and order widely.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

1. The Banchets Nominee · Rising Chef · John Dahlstrom
2. Time Out #20 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago

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

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

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Design
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses

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

A basement small-plates spot on Broadway, Chilam Balam holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a rotating menu of modern Mexican shared plates that changes often enough to keep regulars guessing. The kitchen has a knack for pairing unexpected ingredients without it ever reading as a stunt. Waits can run long, but the staff will talk you through the menu until you feel like a regular, which helps.

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

This West Loop steakhouse cooks Argentinian-style asado over an open hearth in a dining room built so you can watch your dinner get the full campfire treatment. It's a dressed-up night out with a check to match, and the menu has fun with itself: the bone marrow doubles as a shot glass for mezcal, and the "Party Steak" arrives with a trio of sauces, presumably so no one has to share a favorite.

1. The Banchets Nominee · Restuarant of the Year
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses

The name translates to "eat rice," which turns out to be solid advice. This casual Northern Thai spot on Cermak runs BYOB, with graffiti-style signage, colorful murals, and hip-hop keeping the room from taking itself too seriously. The menu is short, the flavors run hard at spicy, salty, sour, and sweet all at once, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand means the math works in your favor. Bring friends and a cooler.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

The nigiri pieces here are cut large, scored deep, and pressed onto generous mounds of rice, which tells you something about what the chef thinks omakase should feel like. Ten seats, nigiri only, and fish shipped twice weekly from Japan. A tuna handroll with avocado and a scallop the size of the rice beneath it keep things from getting too reverent. The beverage list is kindly priced for a room this serious.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The Infatuation #4 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Chicago

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Winner · America's Classics: Great Lakes

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

This Korean pub on Northbrook's Milwaukee Avenue strip treats baseball, karaoke, and a very large amount of fried chicken as one coherent plan. Beer arrives in a tableside tower, which turns a seafood pancake into a group project. It's casual and loud in the way a place with a karaoke setup has to be, and it works best with a crowd that doesn't mind sharing a tteokbokki skillet and an opinion on the pitching.

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Heritage Restaurant
2. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

The hummus arrives looking like a still life, crowned with charred and crispy chickpeas, zhoug, and za'atar, and the table hasn't even filled up yet. This wood-fired Middle Eastern restaurant in River North comes from the team behind Indienne, and earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand by loading the table with dips, small plates, and things fresh off the grill. The menu is built for sharing, though everyone will test that theory over the last scoop of house-made ice cream.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

Street food from Mexico City filtered through a chef-driven kitchen in the West Loop, where duck carnitas and blood sausage tacos share a menu with the al pastor. This taqueria earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and orders come on freshly griddled corn tortillas while you wait under a covered patio. Seasonal specials move fast, so regulars follow the Instagram. Bold flavors, casual setting, and the kind of place that makes a standard taco feel like a missed opportunity.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Nicolas Poilevey and Oliver Poilevey

1. Time Out #9 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Tavern-Style Thin-Crust Pizza Restaurants

1. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

Cafe Yaya is an all-day neighborhood cafe in Lincoln Park from the team behind Galit, and it opens early enough to catch the weekday breakfast crowd. The menu blends Levantine, French, and Southern ideas, which sounds like a lot until you meet the smoked lamb bacon in a BLT. Order at the counter, stay for the lemon pound cake, and expect a casual, low-key morning that stays well under fine-dining money. Eater has it on its Chicago breakfast list.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Breakfast Spots
2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

1. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

Floriole is a Lincoln Park bakery and cafe that started life at a farmers' market and never lost the habit of making everything from scratch. The morning crowd treats the place as a shared office with better pastry, laptops open beside the croissants and sticky buns. Come lunchtime, a ham-and-butter baguette shows up for anyone who has finished their emails or at least stopped looking at them.

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants
2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

White linen on dark polished wood, a mounted swordfish on the wall, and a bar that fills up fast, Hugo's is a big, old-school Chicago seafood house that has never felt the need to be subtle about any of it. Stone crab claws, oysters, crab cakes, frog's legs, and a few steaks for the holdouts keep things honest. The family-style sides arrive in quantities that assume you came hungry, and the Muddy Bottom Pie requires friends.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

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. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

Milli is the Avondale cafe from the Metric Coffee people, a daytime bakery and coffee bar where the pastry case does the talking, from a carrot tarragon loaf to a breakfast hash galette. It's the sort of room where a pour over and a laptop can both be justified. Later on the cocktails show up, vermouth on draft included, and in warm weather the big patio fills with people who have nowhere to be.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

The two-story wine tower visible from the door sets the tone: this is a big, glitzy steakhouse on the Chicago riverfront, and it has no interest in being subtle about it. Barrel-vaulted ceilings, chandeliers, and a dry-aging room on display make the priorities clear before you've touched the menu. The thick-cut bacon, flared tableside, arrives as both appetizer and personality statement. Las Vegas would have taken it.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

A renovated meat and produce warehouse in Fulton Market, now a grand steakhouse where sweeping wood-trimmed arches and polished brass make the room feel like an occasion before the food arrives. USDA Prime beef hits a high-heat broiler and comes with a trio of sauces; Australian and Japanese Wagyu round out the beef program. The Boka Restaurant Group runs it with the kind of quiet polish that makes a large room feel effortless.

1. World's 101 Best #73 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America

The ceiling is draped in colorful fabric to conjure a Bedouin tent, and the smell of mesquite smoke handles the rest of the welcome. This sprawling Middle Eastern grill in the southwest suburbs sends out kefta, shish kebab, and lamb on platters sized for a small wedding party, with hummus and rice enough to guarantee leftovers. The New York Times put it on their short list of Chicago's best restaurants right now, which is the kind of thing that's hard to ignore.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now
2. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

The focaccia here arrives stuffed with ricotta, taleggio, and truffle oil, which a Times writer once described as a quesadilla for superyacht owners, and he wasn't wrong. This rustic Mediterranean small-plates restaurant is the larger River North sibling of a West Loop original that made communal bench seating feel like a good idea. Shareable plates, a warm room, and a crowd that lingers long past the last bite.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery
3. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

1. Esquire Martini · The Best Martinis in America

The mochiko fried chicken, made exclusively from dark meat, is a reasonable place to start understanding what this Hawaiian plate lunch spot in Highwood is about. The chef went from feeding co-workers at a carwash to a brick-and-mortar in what feels like about fifteen minutes. Loco moco, huli huli chicken, and grilled pork belly land on your tray with the kind of confidence that got the place onto the New York Times list of top Chicago restaurants.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now
2. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

The mochiko fried chicken, made with dark meat only, has apparently non-negotiable opinions about itself. This Hawaiian plate lunch spot grew from pandemic-era pop-up dinners to a downtown Chicago address, serving huli huli chicken, loco moco, and grilled pork belly to a city where 60 degrees is not, in fact, considered freezing. The New York Times named it one of Chicago's 25 best restaurants right now.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now
2. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

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

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America

Etc. is a stylish Southern restaurant in the Loop, a neighborhood not known for fluorescent pillars or an R&B soundtrack that makes you forget you're a few blocks from a Willis Tower gift shop. Couples split smoked turkey rice and fried okra, friends pass lamb chops, and the oxtail comes under gravy, next to purple grits. The chef is a James Beard Best Chef: Great Lakes semifinalist, if you like your comfort food credentialed.

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Lamar Moore
2. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

Gavroche is a modern French restaurant in Old Town, and the burger gets most of the attention. It's a brisket and short rib patty dressed in seared foie gras, caviar, and black truffle, with beef-fat fries, for $55. That tells you the rest of the menu isn't playing it cool either. Expect a date-night room where people dress up a little, then order a hamburger like it's perfectly normal.

1. Time Out #21 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

The dough ferments for a full week before anyone slides a pizza into the oven, which is an unusual amount of patience for a shoe-box takeout counter in suburban Chicago. The result is a tavern-style pie where even the center squares crack, the sauce runs deep, and the Italian sausage stays juicy. The New York Times put it on their Chicago list. Get there early on weekends; it sells out by 5:30.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now
2. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

1. The 50 One to Watch Award
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

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

1. AAA Four Diamonds

Pan Artesanal is a Mexican bakery on Fullerton where the cinnamon rolls come in tiramisú, arroz con leche, and chocoflan, which is a lot of dessert to ask of a roll. Past the conchas you'll find egg sandwiches in red sauce, chilaquiles, and tacos on handmade tortillas. It tends to sell out early and a line forms, so arrive before the pastry case starts looking picked over. Eater has it on its Best Mexican Restaurants list.

1. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

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 2023 · 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

The Omakase Room is a ten-seat sushi counter tucked inside the louder, more casual Sushi-san, so you walk past the regular dining room to get to the quiet part, except it isn't quiet. Eighteen courses run about $260 a head, and the chefs actively encourage you to talk to them and the strangers on either side of you. The sake list is one of the city's biggest, which pairs well with chatting.

1. Time Out #14 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants

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. US Coffee Championships #1 · U.S. Coffee Roasters Championship · Diego Guartan