The Best Places to Eat in Chicago

A basement small-plates spot on Broadway, Chilam Balam holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a rotating menu of modern Mexican shared plates that changes often enough to keep regulars guessing. The kitchen has a knack for pairing unexpected ingredients without it ever reading as a stunt. Waits can run long, but the staff will talk you through the menu until you feel like a regular, which helps.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

This West Loop steakhouse cooks Argentinian-style asado over an open hearth in a dining room built so you can watch your dinner get the full campfire treatment. It's a dressed-up night out with a check to match, and the menu has fun with itself: the bone marrow doubles as a shot glass for mezcal, and the "Party Steak" arrives with a trio of sauces, presumably so no one has to share a favorite.

1. The Banchets Nominee · Restuarant of the Year
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses

The name translates to "eat rice," which turns out to be solid advice. This casual Northern Thai spot on Cermak runs BYOB, with graffiti-style signage, colorful murals, and hip-hop keeping the room from taking itself too seriously. The menu is short, the flavors run hard at spicy, salty, sour, and sweet all at once, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand means the math works in your favor. Bring friends and a cooler.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Thai Food

The nigiri pieces here are cut large, scored deep, and pressed onto generous mounds of rice, which tells you something about what the chef thinks omakase should feel like. Ten seats, nigiri only, and fish shipped twice weekly from Japan. A tuna handroll with avocado and a scallop the size of the rice beneath it keep things from getting too reverent. The beverage list is kindly priced for a room this serious.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The Infatuation #4 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Chicago

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Winner · America's Classics: Great Lakes

Servers roam the floor with hot coffee and donut holes before you've even ordered, which tells you everything about what kind of diner Lou Mitchell's is. Booths, counter stools, eggs cooked every way imaginable, and an open-faced Reuben on homemade rye that has anchored many a morning near Union Station. An old-school Chicago institution that has never once tried to be anything else.

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

This Korean pub on Northbrook's Milwaukee Avenue strip treats baseball, karaoke, and a very large amount of fried chicken as one coherent plan. Beer arrives in a tableside tower, which turns a seafood pancake into a group project. It's casual and loud in the way a place with a karaoke setup has to be, and it works best with a crowd that doesn't mind sharing a tteokbokki skillet and an opinion on the pitching.

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Heritage Restaurant
2. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Korean Restaurants

The hummus arrives looking like a still life, crowned with charred and crispy chickpeas, zhoug, and za'atar, and the table hasn't even filled up yet. This wood-fired Middle Eastern restaurant in River North comes from the team behind Indienne, and earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand by loading the table with dips, small plates, and things fresh off the grill. The menu is built for sharing, though everyone will test that theory over the last scoop of house-made ice cream.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

Street food from Mexico City filtered through a chef-driven kitchen in the West Loop, where duck carnitas and blood sausage tacos share a menu with the al pastor. This taqueria earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and orders come on freshly griddled corn tortillas while you wait under a covered patio. Seasonal specials move fast, so regulars follow the Instagram. Bold flavors, casual setting, and the kind of place that makes a standard taco feel like a missed opportunity.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Nicolas Poilevey and Oliver Poilevey

1. Time Out #9 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Tavern-Style Thin-Crust Pizza Restaurants

1. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

Floriole is a Lincoln Park bakery and cafe that started life at a farmers' market and never lost the habit of making everything from scratch. The morning crowd treats the place as a shared office with better pastry, laptops open beside the croissants and sticky buns. Come lunchtime, a ham-and-butter baguette shows up for anyone who has finished their emails or at least stopped looking at them.

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants
2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

White linen on dark polished wood, a mounted swordfish on the wall, and a bar that fills up fast, Hugo's is a big, old-school Chicago seafood house that has never felt the need to be subtle about any of it. Stone crab claws, oysters, crab cakes, frog's legs, and a few steaks for the holdouts keep things honest. The family-style sides arrive in quantities that assume you came hungry, and the Muddy Bottom Pie requires friends.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

This pie shop moved into a former dentist's office, so the only drilling now happens when someone attacks a whole key lime pie dressed up with strawberries and basil. Slices make it easy to build a flight, say lemon espresso against cucumber, mango, and chili lime. Chicken pot pie shows up after 11am, and strangers in line tend to start chatting. The owner was a James Beard Outstanding Baker nominee.

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Baker · Maya-Camille Broussard
2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

The two-story wine tower visible from the door sets the tone: this is a big, glitzy steakhouse on the Chicago riverfront, and it has no interest in being subtle about it. Barrel-vaulted ceilings, chandeliers, and a dry-aging room on display make the priorities clear before you've touched the menu. The thick-cut bacon, flared tableside, arrives as both appetizer and personality statement. Las Vegas would have taken it.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago
2. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

A renovated meat and produce warehouse in Fulton Market, now a grand steakhouse where sweeping wood-trimmed arches and polished brass make the room feel like an occasion before the food arrives. USDA Prime beef hits a high-heat broiler and comes with a trio of sauces; Australian and Japanese Wagyu round out the beef program. The Boka Restaurant Group runs it with the kind of quiet polish that makes a large room feel effortless.

1. World's 101 Best #73 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops & Cafes In Chicago

The ceiling is draped in colorful fabric to conjure a Bedouin tent, and the smell of mesquite smoke handles the rest of the welcome. This sprawling Middle Eastern grill in the southwest suburbs sends out kefta, shish kebab, and lamb on platters sized for a small wedding party, with hummus and rice enough to guarantee leftovers. The New York Times put it on their short list of Chicago's best restaurants right now, which is the kind of thing that's hard to ignore.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now
2. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

The focaccia here arrives stuffed with ricotta, taleggio, and truffle oil, which a Times writer once described as a quesadilla for superyacht owners, and he wasn't wrong. This rustic Mediterranean small-plates restaurant is the larger River North sibling of a West Loop original that made communal bench seating feel like a good idea. Shareable plates, a warm room, and a crowd that lingers long past the last bite.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery
3. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

The mochiko fried chicken, made exclusively from dark meat, is a reasonable place to start understanding what this Hawaiian plate lunch spot in Highwood is about. The chef went from feeding co-workers at a carwash to a brick-and-mortar in what feels like about fifteen minutes. Loco moco, huli huli chicken, and grilled pork belly land on your tray with the kind of confidence that got the place onto the New York Times list of top Chicago restaurants.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now
2. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

The mochiko fried chicken, made with dark meat only, has apparently non-negotiable opinions about itself. This Hawaiian plate lunch spot grew from pandemic-era pop-up dinners to a downtown Chicago address, serving huli huli chicken, loco moco, and grilled pork belly to a city where 60 degrees is not, in fact, considered freezing. The New York Times named it one of Chicago's 25 best restaurants right now.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now
2. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

1. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago
2. Eater Best New Bakery · The 2025 Eater Chicago Award Winners

Etc. is a stylish Southern restaurant in the Loop, a neighborhood not known for fluorescent pillars or an R&B soundtrack that makes you forget you're a few blocks from a Willis Tower gift shop. Couples split smoked turkey rice and fried okra, friends pass lamb chops, and the oxtail comes under gravy, next to purple grits. The chef is a James Beard Best Chef: Great Lakes semifinalist, if you like your comfort food credentialed.

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Lamar Moore
2. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

Gavroche is a modern French restaurant in Old Town, and the burger gets most of the attention. It's a brisket and short rib patty dressed in seared foie gras, caviar, and black truffle, with beef-fat fries, for $55. That tells you the rest of the menu isn't playing it cool either. Expect a date-night room where people dress up a little, then order a hamburger like it's perfectly normal.

1. Time Out #21 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers

The dough ferments for a full week before anyone slides a pizza into the oven, which is an unusual amount of patience for a shoe-box takeout counter in suburban Chicago. The result is a tavern-style pie where even the center squares crack, the sauce runs deep, and the Italian sausage stays juicy. The New York Times put it on their Chicago list. Get there early on weekends; it sells out by 5:30.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now
2. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

Loba is a minimalist coffee shop and small-batch bakery where the ovens sit behind a window, so you can watch your white chocolate curry scone's origin story. The menu rotates, the hours are short, and the seating is limited, so weekend crowds line up early to beat the sellouts. It was a James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Bakery. Come early, order boldly, and accept that the pineapple sourdough muffin may already be a memory.

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bakery
2. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

1. AAA Four Diamonds

Pan Artesanal is a Mexican bakery on Fullerton where the cinnamon rolls come in tiramisú, arroz con leche, and chocoflan, which is a lot of dessert to ask of a roll. Past the conchas you'll find egg sandwiches in red sauce, chilaquiles, and tacos on handmade tortillas. It tends to sell out early and a line forms, so arrive before the pastry case starts looking picked over. Eater has it on its Best Mexican Restaurants list.

1. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

The Omakase Room is a ten-seat sushi counter tucked inside the louder, more casual Sushi-san, so you walk past the regular dining room to get to the quiet part, except it isn't quiet. Eighteen courses run about $260 a head, and the chefs actively encourage you to talk to them and the strangers on either side of you. The sake list is one of the city's biggest, which pairs well with chatting.

1. Time Out #14 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago
2. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Brunch Restaurants
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Paul Fehribach
3. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Paul Fehribach

1. US Coffee Championships #1 · U.S. Coffee Roasters Championship · Diego Guartan

1. US Coffee Championships #1 · U.S. Coffee Roasters Championship · Diego Guartan

1. US Coffee Championships #1 · U.S. Coffee Roasters Championship · Diego Guartan

1. US Coffee Championships #1 · U.S. Coffee Roasters Championship · Diego Guartan

1. US Coffee Championships #1 · U.S. Coffee Roasters Championship · Diego Guartan

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses

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

Tanta is a big, lively Peruvian restaurant in River North, where the menu treats Peru's Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and Spanish influences like a family reunion that went well. That means pork fried rice crowned with a shrimp omelet, and nigiri topped with wagyu and a quail egg, so sushi and steak finally stop pretending they don't know each other. Happy hour pulls in regulars with $10 drinks and similarly gentle food prices.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

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

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

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. AAA Four Diamonds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Heritage Restaurant

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Heritage Restaurant

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

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. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
2. The New York Times The Restaurant List
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now

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. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds