The Best Places to Eat and Stay in Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options

Immm Rice & Beyond is a casual Thai street food counter on Broadway, where the hot bar up front does the talking and the staff will hand you samples if nothing looks familiar. At lunch you can build a plate of rice or noodles with up to three curries, stews, or wok-tossed things, and a chalkboard behind the counter tracks the day's specials. It's Eater's pick for Chicago's best Thai food, and you order at the counter.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

In-On Thai is a casual Uptown Thai spot with a short menu built around Central Thai cooking, the sort of place where the salad section gets more thought than most restaurants give their entrees. The green bean salad arrives with hard-boiled eggs and tender shrimp in a sharp, sour sauce. The fried chicken is the easy first order, and it's wise to say you can handle the heat and mean it. Online ordering is available.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

Istmo is a Lakeview Mexican restaurant devoted to the food of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a corner of Oaxaca most menus treat as a footnote. It serves breakfast too, which is where the green enchiladas come in, built on the chef's mother's sauce, so there's a family stake in them. Dinner gets tlayudas and baked fish, and the drinks have their own point of view. Eater lists it among Chicago's best Mexican restaurants.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

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

This is the dressier, sit-down cousin of the Archer Heights spot that made its name on pozole, and it keeps that dish while wandering off into aguachiles, mole, cochinita pibil, and grilled meats. The sirloin comes with pineapple-habanero sauce and avocado mousse, which is a lot of sauce for one cut and somehow works. Weekend brunch, plus a tequila and mezcal list long enough to need a plan, and sotol and raicilla for the brave.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

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1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

Joong Boo is a Korean grocery, and the cooking happens at Snack Corner, a few tables tucked in the back of the Kimball Avenue store. You can get bibimbap, soondubu-jjigae, or a bowl of rice cake soup, then do your shopping with a full stomach, which every grocery trip should begin with. A dumpling shop up front is there if lunch doesn't feel complete yet. Cheap, casual, and nobody minds the cart.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

Kfire is a fast-casual Korean American spot on Milwaukee Ave where you build your own bowl, and nearly everything on the menu bends to your will, including swapping the rice for salad. The galbi gets compared favorably to sit-down barbecue places, and the Impossible crumbles come marinated like galbi and pressed into patties, which is a sentence nobody expected to write. Eater lists it among Chicago's best Korean restaurants.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

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2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best New Restaurant
3. The Infatuation Chicago’s Best New Restaurants

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1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

1. The Infatuation #12 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

La Chaparrita is half Mexican grocery and half taco counter in Little Village, so you can pick up a bag of dried chiles on the way to eating a taco, which is efficient. The cooking happens on a comal con sombrero, the domed griddle you'd see on a Mexico City street corner. The menu runs from al pastor and asada to cabeza, crispy tripe, and sesos, and there's tepache and aguas frescas to wash down whatever you were brave enough to order.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

1. The Infatuation #7 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

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

A deep-dish pizzeria wedged into the part of Michigan Avenue otherwise devoted to flagship stores and corporate chains. The focaccia-style dough gets a layer of mozzarella before baking, which builds a crunchy, caramelized crust. There's a skinny deep dish for the dough-averse, and an umbrella-shaded patio where you can nurse a spritz and forget the tourist current rushing past. Eater has named it Chicago's Best Deep-Dish Pizza.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

1. The Infatuation #11 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

Manchamanteles is a Bucktown Mexican restaurant named after a mole, which is a bit like naming your place Birthday Cake. The room is bright and permanently dressed for a party, and the menu is built around those sauces, sampled side by side on sopes and spooned over slow-braised pork ribs. It's sit-down but relaxed, with plenty of vegetarian and gluten-free options. Eater put it on a list of Chicago's best Mexican restaurants.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

Mano a Mano is a dimly lit Italian trattoria on Milwaukee Avenue, run by the people behind the neighboring Andros Taverna and Asador Bastian, so the block is basically a family reunion with better lighting. The pastas are made in-house, with seafood-stuffed shapes and a cacio e pepe, and the focaccia arrives with stracchino. Expect a wine list with some ambition and a mid-to-upper bill, so dress like you planned this.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

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Mart Anthony's is a family-run Italian restaurant on West Hubbard, in its third generation, and it began as a spot for the founder to hang out with friends. The walls are covered in black-and-white photos of regulars, so you're basically dining inside a very long group chat. Expect red-sauce classics from family recipes, a dozen handmade pastas, and a meatball salad credited to Nana. Come as you are, as the place intends.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

Mas Allá del Sol is a sit-down Mexican restaurant on North Broadway where a buttered, griddled telera shows up in place of the usual chip basket. The chef once cooked for an archbishop, which sets a high bar for the enchiladas and the chipotle lamb shank. The mezcal list wanders well past Oaxaca, so plan on a slow dinner. Eater has it on its roundup of Chicago's Mexican restaurants.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

Matilda is a River North restaurant that puts Mexican and Peruvian cooking in one kitchen and lets them argue it out on the plate. The guacamole arrives as a roasted avocado you mash yourself at the table, which feels like homework you'd happily do. The wine list is entirely Mexican, tequila and mezcal run the cocktails, and a hidden door leads to a speakeasy, because of course it does. Eater lists it among Chicago's best Mexican restaurants.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

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

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza

Mister Tiger is a family-run Korean restaurant on West Grand, the sort of place where the free banchan arrives before you've decided anything, including whether you like fermented fish cakes. Eater has listed it among Chicago's Korean restaurants. The galbi jjim, braised short rib with carefully carved vegetables in a broth that's sweet with a bitter edge, is the dish to order. The fried chicken and bulgogi hold their own around it.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

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

Palilgu is a Logan Square Korean bar-food spot where the menu is built for splitting, which is the polite way of saying nobody orders alone. Fried chicken comes whole or in half, with sauces and pickled radish arranged around it like an entourage, and the hot stone bibimbap arrives still crackling with crispy rice. The bar covers soju, makgeolli, Korean beers, and cocktails with a few twists, so the evening tends to run long.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza

1. The Infatuation #3 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

Peanut Park Trattoria is a red-sauce Italian spot on Taylor Street, run by the people behind Coalfire Pizza, and it's the kind of place where the meatballs arrive before you've finished deciding. The room leans into the theme with a wine-cave wall and enough memorabilia to qualify as a small museum. Walk to the back for the Tony Fitzpatrick art, then order the baked ziti, which comes with 'nduja.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options

Piccolo Sogno is a sit-down Italian restaurant in River West, and its main trick is a lush garden patio that makes you forget Halsted Street exists. The name means "little dream," which is a lot to put on a menu of wood-fired pizzas and pasta, but the kitchen manages. Pasta comes in appetizer-sized portions, a gift to anyone who orders for the table and then argues about it. Eater lists it among Chicago's best Italian spots.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza

Pizano's is a casual deep-dish pizzeria in the Gold Coast, part of the small chain run by a son of the Malnati family, which in Chicago pizza circles is roughly the equivalent of royalty with better cheese. The crust comes from a recipe the owner's mother developed, and the sausage, mushroom, onion, and green pepper pie is the one to order. Eater lists it among Chicago's best deep-dish. Expect a long bake and no regrets about sitting still.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

Pizza Matta is a small Logan Square pizzeria from the team behind Giant and Chef's Special, which tells you the people running it have opinions about pie. You build your own 16-inch pizza from red, white, or green sauce, then pile on things like mortadella or caramelized pineapple, no judgment. Seating is limited, so order online and take the whole project home. Eater has it on its list of Chicago's tavern-style thin-crust spots.

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

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

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Professor Pizza is a casual West Town pizzeria run by a competitive pizza maker, which means the pies come with a résumé. The tavern-style thin crust cuts to cracker-snap, and the deluxe pepperoni gets hot honey and whipped ricotta, as if the sausage needed a little more going on. The Grand Avenue spot adds two more pie styles, and the pizzas turn up backstage at comedy clubs around town. Eater includes it among Chicago's best tavern-style thin-crust spots.

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

Complimentary valet parking at a Greek taverna in Lincolnwood is either a punchline or a promise, and Psistaria delivers on both. White tablecloths and a long menu of Mediterranean staples, from saganaki and gyros to grilled octopus and broiled whole fish, make it the kind of place that works for a birthday or a Tuesday. The wine list leans heavily Greek, the ouzo flows, and the servers know the menu well enough that you don't have to.

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Pueblo Nuevo is a casual Portage Park spot built around Mexican street food, where the pambazo, a soft roll dunked in red guajillo sauce and stuffed with fried potato, is the kind of sandwich that ends any argument about whether bread can be a main character. The pozole runs green, made with tomatillos and chicken, and you set the heat yourself. Eater put it on its list of Chicago's best Mexican restaurants.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

Rubi's Tacos is a Pilsen taqueria that started as a stall at Maxwell Street Market and kept the market's sense of urgency. Tortillas come in blue, yellow, or nopal and are made to order, which is why a line forms and nobody complains about it. Guisados run from beef tongue to chicharrón to zucchini blossom, so vegetarians and the tongue-curious both get fed. Expect cheap, fast, and no dress code beyond pants.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

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1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

Detroit-style squares with names like Sausage Singularity come out of this space-themed pizzeria on Elston, where the kitchen leans hard into technique. The crust is the point: crispy-edged, airy inside, the way a proper Detroit pie should land. Toppings skew eclectic, and the combinations are stranger and better than they sound. Order online for pickup, which is half the charm of a slice shop that takes itself just seriously enough.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

Ssyal is a Korean restaurant on Lawrence Avenue, and the move here is the samgye-tang: a whole Cornish hen stuffed with sticky rice, jujubes, garlic, and ginseng, then simmered until the broth could talk you out of a cold. The hen arrives in its own tiny bird-sized sleeping bag of rice. Dolsot bibimbap, bulgogi, and ox bone soup fill out the menu, and takeout and delivery are an easy call when you're sniffling.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses

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1. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

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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.

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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. The Infatuation #18 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

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

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

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.

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