The Best Places to Eat in Chicago

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

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.

1. Eater All the New Restaurant Openings to Know in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

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

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Breakfast Spots

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Dublin, Ireland

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

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.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

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

1. The Infatuation #17 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Chicago

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

1. Time Out #17 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago

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

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

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

1. Eater All the New Restaurant Openings to Know in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops

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

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops

1. Time Out #24 · The 25 best restaurants in Chicago

1. Eater All the New Restaurant Openings to Know in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

Susu is a steakhouse on West Randolph that borrows from Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and Asian kitchens, so the usual creamed spinach has some company. It also runs a weekend bakery out of the back entrance, where pre-ordered croissants, shakshuka danish, and tahini canele get picked up like contraband. The breakfast sandwich comes loaded with house-made wagyu sujuk, which is a lot of ambition for a pita.

1. Eater All the New Restaurant Openings to Know in Chicago

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

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

1. Time Out The 40 best coffee shops in Chicago

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

1. The Infatuation #13 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now

Rick Bayless runs a small empire in Chicago, and somehow his airport torta counter at O'Hare landed on the New York Times list of the city's 25 best restaurants. It's a quick-service spot, so expect a counter and a tray, but the choriqueso, a griddled sandwich of molten Jack cheese, chorizo, and avocado, audibly crunches when you bite it. The tortilla soup is the same recipe they pour at Frontera Grill. Boarding group 7 has never been so bearable.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now

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

The aquarium smoker in the window tells you what kind of place this is before you get through the door. Uncle John's is a South Side Chicago BBQ shop running one of the city's rarest traditions: pork hot links and rib tips cooked in a plexiglass box, fire controlled by hose, a technique tracing back to Delta pitmasters who came north during the Great Migration. The New York Times named it among Chicago's 25 best restaurants.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now

1. Eater All the New Restaurant Openings to Know in Chicago

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

This Edgewater pizza shop does deep-dish on a sourdough crust that borrows from a Greek bread called lagana, then turns around and makes cracker-thin tavern pies from the same dough. There's barely any seating and the oven is small, so most people order online and take it home, where an uncut pizza stays crunchy. Eater has put it on its lists for deep-dish, thin-crust, and best pizza overall.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Tavern-Style Thin-Crust Pizza Restaurants
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza

1. Eater Best New Restaurant · The 2025 Eater Chicago Award Winners
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses

1. Eater Best New Bar · The 2025 Eater Chicago Award Winners

Flo & Santos is a South Loop pub that can't pick a lane, so it picked three: tavern-style thin-crust pizza, Polish comfort food, and a beer garden with daily specials. Order the pie with kielbasa and sauerkraut and a pierogi sampler on the side, and your cardiologist will lose track of the subplots. Casual, reasonably priced, and equally happy to see you in a work shirt or a ballgame jersey.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Tavern-Style Thin-Crust Pizza Restaurants
2. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chicago’s South Loop

The Beef & Liberty Bar is the second-floor cocktail room of a London steakhouse that took over a restored River North building, all barrel-vaulted ceilings and jewel-toned booths. It's known for sub-zero martinis served cold enough to count as a personality trait, plus a happy hour with Reuben nuggets. Expect dressed-up regulars and a bar program that landed a Top 10 Nominee spot for U.S. Bartender of the Year.

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · U.S. Bartender of the Year · Daddy Long Legs
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses
3. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

This Pilsen pizza-and-coffee spot wears its owners' Filipino and Mexican roots on the crust, most memorably with longganisa and giardiniera together on a tavern-style pie. The menu includes pan pies and slices, plus coffee drinks from the people behind Side Practice, so you can have breakfast and dinner in one visit. It tends to sell out, which is the polite way of saying go early and bring a plan B.

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

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

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

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

This is an upscale steakhouse operating out of a former Chicago Fire Department firehouse, which in a city with no shortage of steakhouses counts as a differentiator. Red leather stools ring a central bar, the main room is all wood paneling, and the back patio has white marble tables. Happy hour brings oyster deals, wagyu sliders, and lobster bisque under a puff pastry lid. Upstairs rooms host office holiday parties, naturally.

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

Uncle Jerry's is a casual deep-dish pizzeria in Cary, tucked inside a butcher shop, so the sausage on your pie was probably made a few feet away and the steak case sits right there as a quiet reminder of your priorities. The crust runs neither thick nor thin, the sauce leans a little sweet, and the pepperoni comes cupped. The beer list is solid, and the drive from Chicago is about an hour.

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

The name comes from the owner's childhood in Guerrero, where he and his siblings sold radishes at the market and got saddled with the nickname Cinco Rabanitos. This is a casual Pilsen taqueria, the order-at-the-counter, nobody-dresses-up kind, and the menu runs from tacos to tortas to caldos. Guerrero shows up in the slow-roasted pork in red mole and in the cecina, and Eater has it on its list of Chicago's best Mexican spots.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

1. The Infatuation #10 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

1. The Infatuation #19 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

The kind of Lincoln Square storefront you'd walk past without a second glance, which is exactly the point. Inside, Atelier is an intimate fine dining room built around a tasting menu that pulls from nearby farms and wanders across cuisines without ever losing focus. A Michelin star landed here, and the kitchen earns it quietly, sending out dishes that feel both deeply familiar and genuinely strange in the best possible way.

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Best New Restaurant

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

1. The Infatuation #6 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza

Carnitas Uruapan is a casual carnitas house where the order is measured in pounds, not tacos, though a single taco is allowed. The pork follows a recipe from Michoacán, the region that more or less invented the whole idea, and it comes with cactus salad, pickled chiles, and chicharrón. Brain quesadillas are on offer for the committed. The family now runs three locations, and the one on 55th St hosts the loyal regulars.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Mexican Restaurants

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar – U.S. Central

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Pizza

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

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

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

1. The Infatuation #8 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Suburban Chicago

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

1. The Infatuation #15 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

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. The Infatuation #7 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

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

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

1. The Infatuation #20 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

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