The 35 Best Taverns in the World

Candlelit tables inside an 18th-century building that, to be honest, should never have stopped being an inn. Clare de Boer of King in the West Village runs this Pine Plains tavern, and the kitchen treats apparent simplicity as a discipline rather than a shortcut. Food & Wine named it one of the top US restaurants in 2025, and it landed a James Beard semifinalist nod for Best New Restaurant. Probably worth the drive from anywhere you are.

1. Food & Wine The Top 15 US Restaurants
2. The New York Times The Restaurant List
3. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants in Hudson Valley

A below-ground Tuscan tavern where the kitchen leans into luxe ingredients without losing the rustic soul. The team behind it comes from fine-dining stock, and the pasta is made in-house, sauced simply. Grilled bread with whipped ricotta and pickled green tomatoes show up early and are hard to argue with. The wine list tilts Italian, and the room has a warmth that makes a two-hour dinner feel like a reasonable Tuesday. It landed on Canada's 100 Best list.

1. Air Canada 2025 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Canada's 100 Best #28 · Best Restaurants

Pizz'amici is a tavern-style pizza shop in West Town, where the thin, cracker-crisp crust gets charred on the bottom and cut into squares. It's a nostalgic room with a pepperoni Negroni on the menu, plus tall focaccia and sausage and peppers for the old-school completists. Tables go quickly, so plan ahead or order carryout, which is easier than winning the lottery and only slightly less crowded.

1. The Infatuation #10 · The Top-Rated New Restaurants
2. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America
3. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago

Bungalow is the Logan Square brewpub where the beer runs on wild yeast and the wine is made with as little intervention as the law allows. Tavern-style thin-crust pizza shows up on Tuesdays, cut in squares, but the toppings come from regional farms and the sauces wander off script. Order a pepperoni pie here and you'll feel like you've missed the point. The Beard folks named the beverage program a semifinalist in 2024.

1. The Banchets Nominee · Best Neighborhood Restaurant
2. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
3. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program

A New Orleans-style tavern in Wicker Park named for the chef's great-grandmother, which tells you the food comes with some actual stakes. The bar up front runs three-deep, the dining room behind it hums with the kind of staff that keeps things loose without losing the thread. Gumbo, po'boys, and beignets anchor the menu, and the Nashville fried chicken has quietly become the thing regulars steer everyone toward.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Mark Domitrovich, Brian Jupiter, and Aaron Torricelli - Pioneer Tavern Group

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

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

The copper-topped bar fills up early with Rockridge regulars who treat this neighborhood restaurant like a second living room. It's Italian-inflected California cooking in a rustic room, the kind of place where the charcuterie board arrives before you've fully settled in. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and surrounded by bookshops and antique stores, which tells you pretty much everything about the crowd.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

Two beer barrels mark the entrance to this small Galician tavern in the always-buzzing Ponzano stretch of Chamberí. The kitchen calls itself an Atlantic tavern and takes zero-waste cooking seriously, though the menu reads more like a laid-back sharing spread than a manifesto. Galician wines dominate the list, the bar has seats if you want them, and the name itself is a Galician word for affection, which sets the tone pretty well.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A wine tavern tucked down a quiet lane in Baden-Baden, the kind of place where the daily specials arrive on a wooden board or just spoken aloud, depending on who's working. Flammkuchen, mussel dishes, and regional classics fill the menu, and in summer the secluded courtyard becomes the whole point. Regulars pack it reliably, so a reservation is less a formality and more a survival skill.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Dimmi Dimmi is a corner Italian spot in Lincoln Park that took over a three-decade neighborhood fixture and somehow kept the regulars from rioting. The tavern-style pizzas have crackly edges and come cut in squares, and the handmade pastas hold their own beside them. It's a sit-down dinner, so book ahead, or try your luck at a weekday lunch, which is when the people who know things tend to walk in.

1. Eater Lincoln Park’s Best Restaurants
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Tavern-Style Thin-Crust Pizza Restaurants
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Italian Restaurants

1. The New York Times 2026 · 1 star · Restaurant Review
2. Eater The Best New Cocktail Bars in New York City

Thirty craft beers on tap and a menu long enough to settle any argument about what to order on game day: Finney's Crafthouse is a sports tavern with brick walls, reclaimed wood, and a dog-friendly patio. Pub staples share the menu with wagyu and bison burgers and ahi poke bowls, while the cocktails lean on fresh-squeezed juice. It's the California chain's Las Vegas debut, and the crowd has treated it accordingly.

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Las Vegas

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A tiny tasca in Ajuda where the walls belong to a Belém football club and the menu belongs to regulars who know exactly what they came for. The bitoque is the reason to show up: a fried steak with fries and a crispy egg, served on a stainless-steel tray with a garlicky pan sauce that makes no apologies. Braised gizzards and alheira fill out a short, honest tavern menu cooked by Dona Maria José while her husband works the 18 tightly packed seats.

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

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

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

Zarella is a River North tavern-style pizzeria run by the Boka group, which means the thin, cornmeal-dusted pies come with a cocktail menu and a downstairs speakeasy lounge. Two well-known Chicago chefs developed the crusts, and the toppings include mortadella and all-beef pepperoni, so expect River North prices for what is, technically, bar pizza. Eater has named it among the city's best tavern-style pizza spots.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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