The Best Places to Eat and Stay in Chicago

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. 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

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

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

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. 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

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