The Top 46 Cocktail Bars Near The Robey

1. 50 Best #80 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Esquire Martini Service · The Best Martinis in America
3. Esquire Market Price Martini · The Best Martinis in America

1. Eater Best New Bar
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best New Bar
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. 50 Best #65 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Esquire The Best Bars in America
3. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. 50 Best #16 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Bar Team

Julia Momosé's Japanese-inspired dining bar on West Lake holds a James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar and the Spirited Awards title for World's Best Bar, which tells you something before you've even sat down. Staff in sharp black uniforms somehow manage to feel genuinely warm rather than stiff, and the tasting menu now matches the cocktail program's precision, leaning into Japanese flavors and technique. Come for the drinks, stay through dinner, and plan to linger longer than you intended.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 3 Pins
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Winner · World's Best Bar
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Winner · Outstanding Bar

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

Two buildings knocked into one give Scofflaw two distinct personalities: an industrial front room with the bar counter, and a Victorian-ish back room with wingback armchairs that somehow doesn't feel ironic. It's a gin-focused cocktail bar in Logan Square that also leans dive, with craft beer and pub grub to prove it. Expect a line on weekends; they don't take reservations, and forty minutes is a reasonable opening bid.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Wildsam The 50 Most Essential Bars in America
3. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. 50 Best #30 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Esquire The Best Bars in America
3. The Banchets Winner · Bar of the Year

1. VinePair Food & Beverage Program of the Year · The Next Wave Awards
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. 50 Best #27 · North America's 50 Best Bars

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. 50 Best One to Watch Award
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Bars
2. 50 Best #76 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Esquire The Best Bars in America

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central

You find this tiki bar by following strangers down a narrow alley off Clark Street, which is either a great sign or a terrible one depending on your instincts. A staircase descends under a wall of skulls into a big, dim basement decked out in modern tiki grandeur. The drinks are serious and the room knows it. Difford's Guide gives it five stars, and the wait on weekends is its own kind of endorsement.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

The back bar holds what might be the most bewildering collection of vintage Italian Fernet you'll encounter outside of Milan. Billy Sunday is a polished amaro and cocktail bar in Logan Square, narrow and dark-wooded, with green walls and vintage lamps that suggest a gentlemen's club that loosened up considerably. The bar stools fill early with people who know their bitter spirits, and the classically built cocktails give them good reason to stay.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

The ground floor runs dark wood and dim light, with a long bar and clandestine booths; upstairs it's velvet couches and armchairs, like someone's very well-stocked living room. This Lincoln Avenue cocktail bar leans into an old-time saloon feel without making it a costume, pulling sixty-plus classics-leaning drinks organized by spirit and style. The Harry Johnson-style etchings on the menu are either charming or insufferable, depending on your mood.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. Midwest Living 2023 · Best of the Midwest
2. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurant
2. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

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. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Bar Program
2. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Speakeasies and Secret Bars