The Best Places to Eat and Drink in Chicago

Hooligan is a small Logan Square bistro that cooks the Great Lakes with French technique, which is how you end up with perch under gribiche and pike dumplings in a sauce that sounds like it has a title. The caviar service comes with crispy potatoes and house dip, a very Midwestern way to dress up fish eggs. Dinner only, a la carte or a two-person spread, and every table gets a nightly treat, so cookies and milk may be waiting.

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1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar

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.

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Taan is a Thai restaurant and wine bar on West Augusta in Humboldt Park, where the menu rotates with whatever produce shows up and noodles are conspicuously absent. Fish, meat, and vegetables get cooked in traditional Thai sauces instead, with wings glazed in fish sauce caramel and a small, shifting wine list that includes bottles from Logan Square's Middle Brow. Expect the kind of neighborhood spot where nobody asks you to dress up.

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The Logan Inn is a neighborhood cafe by day and a cocktail bar by night, with 28 rooms stacked overhead like an upstairs neighbor who never complains. Mornings mean Graffeo coffee, pastries, and sandwiches, then the lights drop and the martinis take over, Vesper included, with a nonalcoholic one for anyone driving or pacing themselves. Plan for a casual laptop-and-latte stop that turns into a date.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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Gilda is a Basque-style pintxos bar in West Town, named for the skewer of anchovy, pickled pepper, and olive that arrives early and sets the tone for a lot of small, salty things on toothpicks. Cod croquettes and a cheesecake round out the food, and the cocktails get weird in a good way, like mezcal washed in jamón fat. Reservations are the rule most days, with Mondays left for walk-ins.

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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

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.

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1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

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

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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.

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

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.

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

Cadinho is a sunny Portuguese bakery and cafe in McKinley Park, and the tarts are the whole conversation. There's the pastel de nata, vanilla-scented custard in flaky pastry, sometimes wearing a little chocolate shell like a tiny hat. There are also palm-sized passionfruit pies with a crust that gives up immediately. The other baked goods are perfectly pleasant, but you'll see people leave carrying a box of tarts and nothing else.

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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.

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1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

Good Ambler is a Fulton Market bakery tucked into the lobby of a snack-food conglomerate's headquarters, and the pastry case has the good manners not to mention it. Macarons, kouign-amann, petit gateau and handmade chocolates line up behind the glass, but the plain croissant is the one doing the heavy lifting. It's a counter-service stop, so nobody needs a reservation or a dress code.

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1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. AAA Approved

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.

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

1. AAA Approved

Long-fermented dough is the whole point at this casual Lincoln Park pizzeria, where the crust is meant to be light enough that a second slice doesn't feel like a moral failing. The round pies lean classic but wander happily, and the all-day format means sandwiches and salads fill out the menu for those not committed to pizza before noon. Relaxed neighborhood room, no dress code implied.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza USA Excellent Pizzerias

1. AAA Approved

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Akahoshi is a small, casual ramen shop in Logan Square run by a guy who built a following as "Ramen Lord" before ever owning a stove. The menu is four items long, two with soup and two without, so deliberation is brief. The noodles are made in-house, Sapporo-style, and the specials rotate monthly into ramen styles you've probably never had to pronounce. It's a ramen shop with a fan club, and the fan club has opinions.

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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.

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1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

Au Levain is a North Center bakery and cafe where the morning rush is a mix of couples nursing coffee, commuters grabbing a pastry on the way to work, and parents running crumb containment while a toddler dismantles a pain au chocolate. The croissants are the draw, with a honeycomb interior, and the sourdough english muffin breakfast sandwich has a way of lingering in your thoughts around dinnertime. It's on The Infatuation's list of Chicago's best bakeries.

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This is a casual Logan Square counter where the name is the entire menu philosophy: pie and biscuits, no further questions. The biscuits come big and a little crisp, with butter inside and more butter on the side, plus seasonal jam in case that felt like too little butter. The pies rotate through flavors like apple cider donut and German chocolate, by the slice or whole, and eating one before noon is an option nobody will stop you from taking.

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The back bar holds what might be the most bewildering collection of vintage Italian Fernet you'll encounter outside of Milan. Billy Sunday is a polished amaro and cocktail bar in Logan Square, narrow and dark-wooded, with green walls and vintage lamps that suggest a gentlemen's club that loosened up considerably. The bar stools fill early with people who know their bitter spirits, and the classically built cocktails give them good reason to stay.

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Black Briar is a gastropub in the old Bar Takito space on North Morgan, which means it has 110 seats and a menu that wanders from raw oysters to venison tartare without apologizing. Snail toast shares the page with handmade cavatelli, so nobody has to commit to a single personality. There's a U-shaped bar for the solo diners and an open kitchen for anyone who likes to watch dinner get argued over.

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This is a small counter-service bakery in Greater Grand Crossing where the cakes are sold by the slice, so you can sample the whole case without committing to a wedding order. The caramel cake is the one people talk about, with light, open layers frosted so neatly it looks like a surveyor was involved. Cheesecake, pies, and cupcakes crowd the case too, and the line tends to move with the focus of people who already know their order.

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Carlyle Club sits on the Chicago River and runs a menu that can't decide between a steakhouse and a sushi bar, then declines to choose. Dry-aged steaks share the table with raw bar towers, handmade pasta, and a wagyu cooked over binchotan. There's a small sushi counter for the committed, plus hand rolls at the bar for everyone else. Expect an all-day, expense-account kind of room where a burger and a lobster pie coexist peacefully.

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This is an old-school Chinatown bakery on Wentworth where the pastry case does all the talking and the register takes only cash, so bring some. The baked BBQ pork buns are soft and fluffy, the sesame balls and egg tarts are the other usual suspects, and the egg tart crust flakes enough that you should check a mirror before rejoining society. Everything is made fresh daily, and a few dollars buys a bag.

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1. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

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.

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