The Best Places in Chicago

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A boutique hotel in River North that takes its Silver LEED certification, Chicago's first, as seriously as its décor. The classic brick shell was preserved during renovation partly for sustainability reasons, which makes the contemporary interior feel like a quiet statement. Rooms lean understated with a nod to Chicago's modernist tradition. A French bistro, a coffee shop, and borrowed access to the Godfrey's spa next door round things out.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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

River North's density of bars and galleries practically demanded a hotel like this one. Moxy Chicago Downtown leans into the neighborhood's energy: Bar Moxy runs as a co-working space during daylight hours, then pivots to local beers, cocktails, and weekend DJ sets by night. There's also a games room with shuffleboard and arcade cabinets, a gym, and a podcast booth, which suggests the kind of guest who checks in with a carry-on and a content strategy.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A rooftop pool high enough to make you feel like you're swimming through the skyline sets the tone at this full-service hotel in River North. It runs on a go-big logic, with a 24-hour fitness center and complete business facilities, yet somehow still feels approachable, the kind of place that fusses over your dog and your kids in equal measure. Midwestern warmth, it turns out, scales up just fine.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A wraparound marble bar anchors the two-level room at this polished River North steakhouse, where the décor runs black, white, and wood in a way that says "expense account" without quite shouting it. The menu rotates through Japanese and American cuts alongside shellfish and sides, and the wine list covers Napa to Burgundy with room to roam. The semicircular booths fill with people who dressed for it.

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

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Four Diamonds

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A 1929 Art Deco skyscraper in Wicker Park, repurposed by Mexico's Grupo Habita into 89 rooms with the brand's signature low-key cool. A Belgian design team carved the old North Tower offices into spare, elegant guest quarters, and the 13th-floor indoor-outdoor bar is the kind of thing that makes you forget you came here on business. Tokyobike rentals at the door nudge you toward the neighborhood rather than the lobby.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Ceramics shipped directly from Mexico line the walls of this lively Mexican restaurant from Carlos Gaytán, and the earth-toned room hums at a volume that suggests nobody has ever eaten alone here. The chef's counter is the seat to angle for, where the kitchen turns out dishes that sit comfortably between traditional and inventive. Tacos, aguachile, tinga de pollo, and a horchata tres leches that tends to follow you home.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The old Atlantic Bank building on Michigan Avenue, a downtown landmark, now runs as a lifestyle hotel with Millennium Park views from many of the contemporary rooms. The gym is properly equipped, and the in-house restaurant, About Last Knife, folds West African and Latin American flavors into an American bistro menu. A solid base for anyone who'd rather walk to the lakefront than deal with a cab.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Bistro Monadnock is a wood-paneled French bistro on a quiet side street near the Art Institute, which makes it a natural place to go after a morning of looking at French things and deciding you'd like to eat some. There's an open kitchen, a bar, and booths that rarely require a plan. Your server may volunteer a tour of the dry-ager or a short lecture on the building, and it's wise to let them.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers
3. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

1. AAA Approved
2. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

A sunny corner spot in Logan Square where the kitchen skips the tweezers and the fancy glassware in favor of food that tastes like itself. Cellar Door Provisions is a casual, Mediterranean-leaning restaurant with the kind of unfussy cooking that makes you wonder why anyone bothers with the other kind. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks. Counter seats, date nights, and wandering-in-off-the-street all work equally well here.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The U-shaped bar and oceanic color scheme set the mood before you've ordered a drink. Chef's Special is a cocktail bar and Chinese-American kitchen in Logan Square doing crab rangoon and shrimp chips without a hint of irony, which is exactly the point. The dan dan noodles and the bone-in pork shank with black bean sauce pull serious weight. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, and the room is loud and happy enough that nobody's surprised.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Studded leather banquettes and low, nostalgic lighting set the tone at this moody River North gastrobar, where the front bar runs cocktails at a steady clip and the kitchen leans into big plates and bolder flavors. Fried chicken with a proper crust, beef cheek pot pie with bone marrow gravy, a carrot cake you'll talk yourself into ordering despite having no room: the Michelin Bib Gourmand crowd knows what it's doing here.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The name isn't a coincidence: this boutique hotel on the Magnificent Mile took Einstein's formula as its organizing thesis, and the stacks of books in the lobby are there to prove it. Rooms lean into an art-meets-science conceit with Deco-inspired design that manages to feel clever without being exhausting about it. The kind of place where the décor has a point of view, which is either appealing or a lot, depending on your mood.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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

The whiskey list at this Logan Square gastropub runs long enough to suggest the bar is the main event, and the dim wood-paneled room backs that theory up. Then the kitchen, tucked into a corner, starts sending out terrines and sweetbreads and omelets folded with brie that quietly reframe the whole situation. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the kind of neighborhood place where people wander in at breakfast and somehow stay for dinner.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. AAA Approved
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

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 Winner · Best Counter Service

Glass doors open into a bright, modern dining room on Belmont, fitted with a leather banquette and planters that look suspiciously well-tended. Sochi is a modern Vietnamese restaurant where the menu leans into careful sourcing and pho built on long-simmered bone broth. The Michelin Bib Gourmand crowd skews local and unhurried, the kind who know to save room for the cassava cake when it appears on the dessert card.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Walls painted in tropical pinks, blues, and oranges set the tone at this traditional Mexican restaurant on Cicero, where Dia de los Muertos artifacts share space with live mariachi. The mole manchamanteles, whose name translates to "tablecloth stainer," earns the warning: mahogany-dark, nutty, and rich enough to demand every freshly made tortilla on the table. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the kind of place that makes you wonder what you've been doing at lesser spots.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Taxidermy on the walls, an Art Deco bar, and big comfy booths: Sportsman's Club is a neighborhood tavern that looks like it's been on Western Ave forever but drinks like something that arrived much more recently. The rotating menu leans spirit-forward and serious, even if the vibe emphatically does not. It's the kind of place that made this particular Chicago formula feel worth copying.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central

1. The Banchets Winner · Best Heritage Restaurant

The name is lifted from a German fable, which tells you something about what you're in for. This Logan Square neighborhood restaurant does Alpine cooking in a rustic inn setting, with communal tables, an inviting bar, and a charcuterie selection long enough to be its own evening. The kitchen has a playful streak that runs all the way through to pretzel ice cream with jalapeño caramel. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The Allegro Royal Sonesta sits inside the Loop connected directly to the Cadillac Palace Theater, which tells you something about its disposition. This is a hotel for people who want to see a show, or who just want a room that feels like one. The Art Deco interiors nod to the era when Chicago's skyline was still an argument in progress. Atelier Bloem bath products and a lounge serving all-day dining round things out.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The Art Deco exterior belongs to what was once home to Chicago's two biggest banks, which tells you something about the scale of ambition inside. The LaSalle Chicago is a luxury hotel in the Financial District where the retro styling isn't a costume but a genuinely fitting one, from the lobby lounge built for deal-making over cocktails to suites sized for people who sign things. Grill on 21 handles the steakhouse duties upstairs.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Rooms on the river side look straight down onto the Riverwalk and across at Tribune Tower, which is a better alarm clock than most hotels can offer. The Royal Sonesta is a luxury hotel on the Chicago River, right where it bends around the Magnificent Mile, and that address is rarer than it sounds. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels. Pack accordingly for the architecture views alone.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A Gold Coast hotel that was doing the boutique thing before anyone called it that, the Talbott has the bones of an older, quieter Chicago and a recent overhaul by local designer Kara Mann to keep it feeling current. Rooms are residential-scale rather than grand, which suits the neighborhood, where the vibe runs more old-money discreet than convention-circuit splash. A solid, unfussy base for the North Side.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Edison bulbs, dark wood, and long high tops set the tone at this gastropub in Logan Square, where the same team behind next-door Lardon turned their attention to dinner. The menu leans comfort without losing its nerve, running from fried cheese curds to shawarma-spiced chicken with flatbread. Craft beer gets serious treatment, with a locally sourced lineup. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and every table seems to have at least one cheeseburger on it.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The minibar charges corner-shop prices, a small act of decency that sets the tone for this Loop hotel inside a restored building that's been around forever. Rooms split in two with sliding doors for travel companions on different sleep schedules, and the beds convert into lounge configurations, since apparently a chair that works is too much to ask of most hotels. A rooftop bar and two restaurants round things out.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central

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

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options
3. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · James Martin

1. The Banchets Nominee · Bar of the Year

The Beef & Liberty Bar is the second-floor cocktail room of a London steakhouse that took over a restored River North building, all barrel-vaulted ceilings and jewel-toned booths. It's known for sub-zero martinis served cold enough to count as a personality trait, plus a happy hour with Reuben nuggets. Expect dressed-up regulars and a bar program that landed a Top 10 Nominee spot for U.S. Bartender of the Year.

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · U.S. Bartender of the Year · Daddy Long Legs
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses
3. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

A long, slow ferment gives the NY-style crust at this Montrose Avenue slice shop a chew and crispness that makes the whole thing feel intentional rather than accidental. Jimmy's also does a square pan style for those who prefer their dough a little softer inside. 50 Top Pizza ranked it among the top slice shops in the country. Order a pepperoni, grab a seat, and try not to already be thinking about the next slice.

1. 50 Top Pizza #13 · 50 Top Pizza Slice USA
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza

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

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Counter Service

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Pizza

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Heritage Restaurant

Perilla is a Korean steakhouse tucked into a downtown Chicago hotel, where the staff cook the cuts on a grill at your table so you can supervise without technically lifting a finger. Wagyu and marinated short rib are the draw, but the Caesar with milk bread croutons and the Korean fried chicken keep the non-beef contingent fed. Since it's a hotel restaurant, steak and eggs start at 7 a.m. Eater lists it among Chicago's steakhouses.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses
2. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

Pizza Dada is a New York-style slice counter tucked inside the Sterling Food Hall, which makes it the Loop's answer to the question "what if lunch weren't a sandwich." The slices are big enough that two could pass for a meal, with a charred crust and a zippy sauce. Whole pies are available too, and sharing remains strictly optional. Expect office badges, lanyards, and people eating over paper plates.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options
2. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

Exposed brick, custom tile floors, and floor-to-ceiling wine storage fill what was once a 19th-century print shop, now a Michelin-starred fine dining room in the West Loop. Chef Andrew Zimmerman folds Southeast Asian, Korean, and Mediterranean instincts into American cooking without making it a thesis. Wine Enthusiast put the cellar in its Restaurant Hall of Fame, and the room's warm enough that you'd never know you were being impressed.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Heritage Restaurant

Multi-bedroom suites with full kitchens and gas grills on private balconies make this Andersonville boutique hotel feel like you borrowed a friend's apartment, except the friend's apartment overlooks a cemetery, which is quieter than it sounds. A rooftop deck, a Club Room, and a bookable Library round out the communal spaces. The Red Line is a short walk if you need downtown, but the neighborhood's low-key charm tends to keep people close.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers
2. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

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

Wrigley Field fills the window from certain rooms, which is either the point or the warning, depending on your feelings about baseball. This boutique hotel pays tribute to the stadium's architect through dark woods, leather wing chairs, and copper detailing that split the difference between classic and mid-century. The building houses a relaxed bar and lounge plus a cluster of restaurants for pre- or post-game eating, making it the rare hotel where you might not leave the block.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

Cindy's is a rooftop cocktail bar on top of the Chicago Athletic Association, with a terrace looking over Millennium Park and Lake Michigan. It's a hotel bar, so expect dressed-up visitors, bachelorette sashes, and relatives in town, plus plates meant for three or four people to share. Regional Top 10 for hotel bars at the Spirited Awards, which is one more reason the terrace fills up first.

1. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar – U.S. Central

Hyde Park has long been the city's most bookish neighborhood, and the Sophy leans into that without apology. The hotel's decor pulls from the University of Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry, filling rooms with art and curiosities that feel more cabinet of wonders than standard-issue lobby art. Rooms run plush and sunny, and Mesler Chicago downstairs covers the bases with a cocktail bar and an outdoor space they call The Sanctuary.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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

Barrels and wine bottles line the walls here, and the shop and tasting bar out front make clear that wine is the whole point. Cooper's Hawk is a full-service American restaurant with a globally roaming menu, the kind of place suburban date-nighters discover and then return to every few weeks. The food swings from Asian-inflected starters to churrasco and braised short ribs, with pasta filling the middle ground for anyone who can't decide.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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 move here is the caramelized crust, where cheese climbs the edge of the pan and turns amber in the oven, somewhere between crispy and deeply fragrant. Pequod's has been doing deep-dish this way since the 1970s, and the result is a pizza that's almost architectural: soft dough, abundant fillings, a bold, substantial bite. It's a no-frills Chicago pizzeria where getting a table takes patience and the slices arrive hot enough to require some too.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza USA Excellent Pizzerias
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

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