The Best Places to Eat and Drink in Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

1. The Infatuation #9 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

A restored coach house on Division Street sets the scene for one of Chicago's more quietly ambitious tasting menus, where the kitchen pulls from South and Southeast Asia through a lens shaped by India, the Middle East, and a detour through finance. Pickling and fermentation run through the menu like a through-line, and desserts tend toward the joyfully unruly. The chef earned a James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist nod in 2024.

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Emerging Chef · Zubair Mohajir

The bar is in the basement, which is the point. The Drifter is a tiny subterranean cocktail lounge tucked beneath the Green Door Tavern, a speakeasy in the old sense of the word, not just the aesthetic. Low ceilings, dim light, and the general feeling that you've wandered somewhere you weren't supposed to find. The kind of place where a well-made drink tastes better simply because you had to descend a staircase to get it.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

A 10,000-square-foot steakhouse in South Barrington built for the kind of night that ends with someone else signing the check. The menu runs to wagyu, roasted seafood towers, and lobster rolls, all designed to photograph well and eat even better. The chef came up through Gibsons Restaurant Group, so the kitchen knows its way around a serious piece of beef. Suburbs have had the chains; this is the splurge alternative.

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. The Infatuation #18 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

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

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

1. The Infatuation #5 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

Villa Nova is a no-frills, family-run pizzeria in suburban Stickney, the kind of place where the pie arrives square-cut, the way thin-crust tavern pizza is supposed to. The sausage is fennel-forward and left in chunky, meatball-ish clumps, which is a bold choice for a topping and a good one. It's been around forever, so expect regulars who haven't looked at the menu in years. Eater included it among Chicago's best tavern-style thin-crust spots.

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

Void is a neighborhood Italian American spot on Milwaukee Avenue in Avondale that skips the "you're family now" routine and just cooks. The menu rotates, though the four-cheese lasagna and fried chicken Vesuvio tend to stick around like they have tenure. The house SpaghettiOs arrive in an actual can, a small gesture of nostalgia that lands without anyone needing to explain it. Eater lists it among Chicago's best Italian restaurants.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

WG Pizzas is a Lakeview tavern-style pizzeria, a spin-off of an old suburban Highwood joint that has been feeding Lake County for ages. The crust is cut thin but keeps a few proud bubbles at the edges, so it lands chewier than the cracker-crisp stuff, closer to what South Side spots turn out. Order online, grab a BLT pie, and mind the monthly chef takeovers, which are a good excuse to pretend you planned ahead.

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

This is a deep-dish pizza joint with a sports bar's worth of televisions, built around a founder who developed her own dough, sauce, and sausage blend while raising seven kids. It spent decades as an Englewood fixture before landing in the South Loop. Eater has named it among Chicago's deep-dish picks. There are no reservations, so on game days the move is to show up early and claim a stool like it's a playoff seed.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

This is a burger operation that started as a weekend pop-up and now works out of a convenience store in Logan Square, which is about as Chicago a career arc as you can draw. Weekdays you order at the market, and on weekends the club follows its own social media posts to breweries and farmers markets. The smash burgers get playful, including a version that swaps the bun for a doughnut, so bring a casual appetite and zero fear of sugar.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

The thin, foldable crust at this New York-style slice shop on Clark leans into toppings that have no business being this interesting, truffled mushrooms and bacon jam among them. Grandma-style pies round out the menu, and the whole operation is BYOB, which keeps things relaxed and cheap. Eater named it one of Chicago's best pizza spots. Order online before you go.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A self-described "continental tavern" that reads more like an oversized gastropub once you're inside, Hubbard Inn is a big, convivial bar in River North with a serious beer program: around twenty draught handles and nearly as many cans and bottles, skewing craft. If you came for Miller Lite, it's on the menu too, quietly listed at the bottom of the beer page, which is a very polite way to handle the situation.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

82 Kimbap is a weekday-only stall in Sterling Food Hall, and it exists so the Loop's office workers have something to eat at noon that isn't a sandwich. The rice rolls come stuffed with spicy pork, bulgogi, or braised tofu, wrapped around egg, vegetables, and purple rice. Add-ons include instant ramyun and giant fishcake skewers, though the line is there for the rolls. Expect to eat at a food-hall table under fluorescent lanyard energy.

1. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

This Greek restaurant started in suburban Winnetka and then crept into the city, which is the opposite of how chains usually migrate. The River North room is all plants and pale wood, built to feel like a long lunch on an island with a better ferry schedule than yours. The menu goes past the gyros-and-flaming-saganaki starter pack, though you should still order the saganaki. Eater lists it among the area's best.

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

Bereket is a casual Turkish spot in the Loop that inherited a counter-service space, so the bright yellow room still has drop ceilings and a retired metal cafeteria station. It looks like a place for a ten-minute lunch, but the bread, manti, and döner-topped iskender are all made in-house and ask to be eaten slowly. It's open all day, every day, which removes your last excuse. The Infatuation lists it among the Loop's best.

1. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

1. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

Cafe Bionda is a red-sauce Italian American spot on South State, where the menu still runs on rigatoni in Nonna's gravy and a carbonara that knows what it is. The bar got bigger after the 2022 reopening, and happy hour now draws a loud, cheerful crowd for $9 cocktails and $10 fried things. The lasagna is enormous and takes half an hour, so order it early and have a second cocktail.

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

Cafecito is a casual Cuban counter on East Congress, right next to the Auditorium Theatre, which makes it the default pregame for anyone with curtain time on their mind. Sandwiches on crisp pressed bread are the main event, with platters of rice and beans for people who want a fork. The cortaditos and cafe con leche are there to get you through a long first act, and they cost less than a theater snack.

1. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

Crying Tiger is a big, lavish Southeast Asian restaurant in River North, where the menu roams from Vietnam to Thailand to China, so clay pot lobster pad Thai and prawn toast share a table without apology. The plating is arranged with photography in mind, and the ladies' room has apparently become a selfie destination. It's a Lettuce Entertain You production, so expect dress-up energy and a check to match.

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

By day it pulls coffee; by night the Latin-American vintage vinyl goes on and the mezcal comes out. Estereo is an agave bar on Milwaukee Avenue where the cocktail list is organized by spirit category and the drinks lean toward the unexpected, think cold-brew tea and shochu sharing a glass with pisco. The crowd tends to find it on the younger, cooler end of Logan Square, which is saying something in that neighborhood.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

Il Culaccino is a sit-down Italian American restaurant across from Wintrust Arena, which explains the pre-game crowd and the chicken Vesuvio. The menu runs red-sauce classics, prime steaks, and lighter pastas, all under burgundy leather banquettes that look like they've heard a few secrets. A wine bar spills onto a covered patio for warmer nights, and the owners also run Franco's in Bridgeport.

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

MingHin is a big, banquet-style dim sum hall in the Loop, with white tablecloths that promise formality and a room full of families that never got the memo. The menu runs long, and the sesame buns tend to start a small stampede toward the middle of the table. It makes a sensible pit stop once the boat tour, the Sears Tower, and the Bean have all been checked off for your out-of-town guests.

1. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

Momento Cantina is a sprawling, pink-lit Mexican restaurant with self-serve tequila machines and a soundtrack better suited to a Cancun pool deck than a Monroe Street block. It's the kind of place you'd expect in the West Loop, yet here it sits, a short walk from the symphony. The freshly made corn tortillas carry the menu, showing up under birria, tuna tostadas, and a whole fish in zarandeado sauce.

1. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

Mr. Beef is a no-frills Italian beef stand, and the building you'll recognize as the exterior of The Bear's sandwich shop, though the cameras only borrowed the outside. The beef gets cooked on-site rather than reheated from a bag, which Chicagoans treat as a matter of principle. Expect a line, a cheap sandwich you'll eat standing up, and a wall of celebrity photos to study while you wait.

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

Naia is a Greek-leaning, see-and-be-seen restaurant on the Chicago River, and the view is good enough that the kitchen could have phoned it in. It didn't, which is how you end up with crab on the falafel and caviar offered for the potato fritters. There's a roving hummus cart and a cheese course that catches fire, so dress like someone who expects to be looked at, and be ready for the next yacht to steal your attention.

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

Petite Edith is a French bistro on the ground floor of a luxury apartment building, which means the neighbors can claim it without ever putting on a coat. The big U-shaped bar seats solo diners comfortably, and the banquettes in back suit a quiet dinner for two. The kitchen takes French classics through a Midwestern filter, so you get two kinds of bread, and brunch brings duck fat hash browns.

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

Planta Queen is an upscale vegan restaurant on North Clark, part of a chain that dresses its plant-based menu in design-forward rooms. The sushi stands in for fish with eggplant, watermelon, and carrots, which is a lot of faith in a carrot. Monday brings unlimited maki for $35, and lunch has a two-course special. Expect a polished crowd that came for dinner, not a lecture.

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

Reggies is a heavy metal bar and live music venue that happens to serve jumbo, crispy, sauce-soaked chicken wings, which is a sentence you don't often get to write. Rock, rap, and metal shows fill the stage, with the odd cover band, and the rooftop deck runs on heat lamps once the weather turns. Expect fried pickles, sandwiches, and a respectable beer list, plus a dress code best described as band shirt.

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

Schneider Deli is a counter-service Jewish deli tucked into the old Ohio House Motel diner, where the midcentury bones survived the renovation and so did the booths. Breakfast runs from corned beef hash to bagels with lox, then lunch turns to pastrami, brisket, and turkey sliced to order while you watch. Casual, quick, and priced like a sandwich shop, which is the correct amount of money for a deli.

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

Seville is a rooftop Mediterranean restaurant on top of a Hilton, which sounds like a warning and mostly isn't. The menu leans on tapas, pasta, fish, and pinsa, all sized for splitting, so it suits coworkers on the company card and out-of-town friends who just got talked into the Skydeck. The big patio gets you the Loop skyline without pressing your face against glass. The Infatuation lists it among the Loop's best.

1. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

Southern Chicago is a steakhouse-ish dinner spot in the South Loop where the crystal chandeliers and plush velvet seating suggest the Las Vegas Strip got lost on the way to Soldier Field. The kitchen cooks steaks over open flame and stacks seafood towers, and the sides lean decadent, like deviled eggs topped with shrimp and caviar. Plan on dressing a notch up, and on a lot of conventioneers.

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

1. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program

You ride a repurposed service elevator to reach this speakeasy-inspired rooftop cocktail bar perched atop the Rafaello Hotel. Dim lighting, dark wood, bronze fixtures, and mushroom-toned walls set a moody, upscale tone, and a resident DJ keeps the energy pointed firmly toward party. The crowd skews young and loud, so if you're after a quiet drink and a view, the elevator goes both ways.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Emerging Chef · Ben Grupe

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Rodolph Cuadros

1. The Infatuation #8 · Chicago’s Best New Restaurants

1. The Infatuation #11 · Chicago’s Best New Restaurants

1. The Infatuation #7 · Chicago’s Best New Restaurants

1. The Infatuation #6 · Chicago’s Best New Restaurants

1. The Infatuation #3 · Chicago’s Best New Restaurants

1. The Infatuation Chicago’s Best New Restaurants

The server who silently tops off your bowl with consommé from a water pitcher, without being asked, tells you everything about this birrieria. Braised goat has been the one thing on the menu here since forever, and the New York Times named the birria among the best dishes eaten anywhere in the U.S. in 2024. It's a South Chicago institution, cash and early mornings, crumbled chile de árbol on the side.

1. The New York Times 2024 · Birria · The 26 Best Dishes We Ate Across the U.S. in 2024

1. The Infatuation Chicago’s Best New Restaurants

1. Esquire #18 · The Best New Restaurants in America

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants