The Best Places in Near North Side & Loop

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

A bedside panel controls the temperature, lighting, curtains, and music without your ever leaving the 300-thread-count sheets, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Forbes Five Star hotel on the Mag Mile. Rooms run to light wood and muted earth tones, marble bathrooms have soaking tubs with their own TVs, and a skyline-level spa gives you a reason to eventually get up. Discretion is the whole point, and the staff has clearly rehearsed.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Rick Bayless's fine dining room on Clark Street holds a Michelin star and makes a strong case for Mexican cuisine as a serious tasting-menu occasion. The kitchen roots every dish in regional tradition, then tilts it somewhere unexpected, with the menu rotating through the seasons and sometimes zeroing in on a single state's food. The agave spirits pairing is its own curriculum.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. AAA Three Diamonds

The last building Mies van der Rohe ever designed now has a hotel on its lower floors, which is either a poetic ending or a very good address depending on your priorities. The Langham sits beside the Chicago River with travertine bathrooms, serious service, and afternoon tea if you want it. A Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys confirm the tier, though the river views from the upper rooms do most of the convincing on their own.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star

Leather window seats overlooking Lake Michigan come standard in many rooms here, which sets the tone for this luxury hotel perched above the Magnificent Mile. Rottet Studio gave the lobby and upper suites a refresh that reads crisp without trying too hard. The spa and indoor pool are genuinely calm, the staff is the kind that anticipates rather than reacts, and Bloomingdale's is literally one floor below, if that helps you decide.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
3. The 50 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award

The dim sum here comes plated like jewelry, each shumai crowned with a different color of tobiko. This is Chinese luxury dining of the kind you rarely find outside Asia, served on the fourth floor of the Peninsula with Michigan Avenue spread out below. A dedicated abalone section signals where the menu is headed, and the prices follow. Come with a reservation and dressed for the occasion.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. AAA Four Diamonds
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now

The 101-story tower was designed by Jeanne Gang, making it the tallest building by a female architect, which is the kind of fact that gets dropped at every rooftop cocktail hour. This St. Regis hotel sits along the Chicago River in quiet Lakeshore East, with Lake Michigan views and a wellness floor running spa, pool, and gym. Millennium Park is a short walk; a small private park sits right behind the building for when you'd rather not walk anywhere at all.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
3. The Banchets Nominee · Sommelier of the Year · Kat Hawkins

The 92-story glass tower sits right on the Chicago River, which means the floor-to-ceiling views from the rooms are doing serious work. This Forbes Five Star hotel leans into dark clubby wood, neutral tones, and custom furniture, so the feeling is more hushed residential than flashy. The fully-stocked in-room kitchens are a nice touch, and the hotel's chefs will come cook in them if you'd rather not go anywhere.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star

The marble lobby and English motor court set the tone for this full-service Gold Coast luxury hotel before you've even checked in. Art Deco bones, fireplaces in the guest rooms, white marble baths, and only ten rooms per floor mean it never feels like a convention block. Staff famously decline tips, which either says something about the service culture or about Chicago. A Forbes Four Star and a Michelin Key.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Floor-to-ceiling windows in the library look out over Chicago Avenue, which sets the tone for a hotel that frames the city as part of the decor. It sits on the Magnificent Mile in the Gold Coast, and the rooms and public spaces carry the cool, contemporary feel of a recent top-to-bottom renovation. The art collection leans Chicago, the staff leans warm, and the whole thing earns its Forbes Four Star without ever seeming to try.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Caviar arrives on mother-of-pearl spoons, and the potato gets the Robuchon purée treatment, which tells you exactly where you are: a polished French restaurant in an era when that's a rarer breed than it once was. The kitchen still bakes madeleines to order, and for a modest surcharge a waiter will shower Périgord truffles on whatever you're eating. The New York Times named it among Chicago's 25 best restaurants. Dress accordingly.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. The Banchets Nominee · Best Hospitality
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

The facade of a 1929 Chicago landmark wraps this boutique luxury hotel on Rush Street, where Art Deco details share space with 21st-century comforts. It's named for sculptor Gwen Lux, whose work still ornaments the exterior, and the fifth-floor lobby leans into that Jazz Age identity hard. A rooftop bar with firepits, a weekend Tipsy Tea, and a see-and-be-seen cocktail lounge round out a property that holds a Michelin Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. The Banchets Winner · Best Design
3. The Banchets Nominee · Sommelier of the Year · Kat Hawkins

A mosaic-tiled lap pool and changing rooms lined with white stone set the Greek-inspired tone at this hotel spa on the fourth floor of the Waldorf Astoria. Massages and facials are the bread and butter, but the signature two-hour treatment layers a coffee-and-lemon scrub, a clay wrap, and a full-body massage into something that reads less like a spa menu and more like a Roman senator's afternoon. Forbes Four Star.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

A wood-fired hearth anchors this Gold Coast steakhouse, casting the kind of light that makes everyone look like they have somewhere more important to be later. Maple & Ash leans hard into the party-steakhouse genre, with deep leather couches, clubby music, and a photo booth tucked somewhere in the multilevel room. Dry-aged cuts come in generous portions, and the seafood menu holds its own. The bar is a Top 10 U.S. Nominee at the Spirited Awards.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Brunch Restaurants

A lakeside terrace with a direct view of the water is a strong opening argument for any pizza shop, and Robert's doesn't squander it. The pies have a crispy, well-salted crust and toppings that lean generous rather than restrained, built for sharing. The room itself is airy, anchored by a big bar counter, and the staff treats you like an actual guest. It landed at #8 on 50 Top Pizza USA, which tracks.

1. 50 Top Pizza #26 · 50 Top Pizza World
2. 50 Top Pizza #8 · 50 Top Pizza USA
3. The Banchets Nominee · Best Pizza

Mid-century lines, leather and velvet, and eclectic artwork set the tone in the lobby of this boutique hotel tucked into the Gold Coast, where historic mansions and designer boutiques crowd the sidewalk outside. The 247 rooms lean luxe without tipping into stiff, the vibe is hip without the velvet-rope attitude, and a complimentary Lexus house car is the kind of quiet flex that earns its keep. Nico Osteria draws locals in off the street.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A 30-foot teal wall inscribed with Marcel Proust greets you in the lobby, which sets the tone for this Gold Coast boutique hotel with more personality than most. The 180 rooms lean midcentury, with a warm gold-and-teal palette and guest room doors in mismatched colors. A rooftop bar handles cocktails and skyline views, and Oak Street Beach is a short walk. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

1. Food & Wine Chocolate Bourbon Tiramisu · Best Dishes Our Editors Ate This Year
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Ten seats, one seating, everyone served together: Chef's Table runs like a dinner party where the host happens to have a Michelin listing and a thing for caviar. It sits inside the private Astor Club on the Gold Coast, though non-members can book a spot. The tasting menu leans luxe, with ingredients that suit the hushed, gilded setting. Forbes Four Star. Jacket-and-a-good-story territory.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. The Banchets Nominee · Sommelier of the Year · Kat Hawkins

1. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

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. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Table-shaken margaritas set the tone at Rick Bayless's long-running regional Mexican restaurant on Clark Street, where the menu rotates around whatever's local and the molé gets the kind of attention most kitchens reserve for special occasions. The room runs warm and loud in the best sense, with music that makes the wait feel shorter than it is. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand, and Eater counts it among Chicago's essential restaurants.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Chicago

A 52-floor tower built from the ground up in Streeterville, a few blocks east of the Mag Mile and a short walk to Navy Pier. The hotel leans into Chicago's architectural legacy with design choices that feel considered rather than corporate, and a 75-foot lap pool and rooftop lounge raise the stakes for an urban stay. Business travelers and weekenders both find their footing here without too much awkward overlap.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

The hotel sits inside Water Tower Place, which means stepping off the elevator lands you in a shopping mall with over 125 stores, and stepping outside puts Chanel, Cartier, and the Art Institute within a few blocks. It's a luxury hotel on the Magnificent Mile, so the Gold Coast energy is built in. Rooms run at Ritz-Carlton prices, and the location does a lot of the justifying for them.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

The vaulted ceilings and Venetian Gothic stonework on Michigan Avenue give away that this was never meant to be a hotel, and it wasn't, for most of its life. The Chicago Athletic Association is now a boutique hotel under Hyatt's Unbound Collection, holding a Michelin Key, and the bones of the old private club, once restricted to the city's male elite, do most of the atmospheric heavy lifting without anyone having to try too hard.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

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. Esquire Martini · The Best Martinis in America

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

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

The Art Deco bones of this Gold Coast lobby bar date back to the Jazz Age, and the cocktail program leans into that: Cuban classics and Caribbean-inflected originals served under ornate ceilings that most bars would kill for. Sparrow calls itself a neighborhood bar, which is technically true, though the neighbors here wear better shoes than most. A named honoree at the Spirited Awards, it draws people in from well outside the Gold Coast.

1. The Infatuation The Best Cocktail Bars In Chicago
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central

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. 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

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

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A boutique hotel in River North that takes its Silver LEED certification, Chicago's first, as seriously as its décor. The classic brick shell was preserved during renovation partly for sustainability reasons, which makes the contemporary interior feel like a quiet statement. Rooms lean understated with a nod to Chicago's modernist tradition. A French bistro, a coffee shop, and borrowed access to the Godfrey's spa next door round things out.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

River North's density of bars and galleries practically demanded a hotel like this one. Moxy Chicago Downtown leans into the neighborhood's energy: Bar Moxy runs as a co-working space during daylight hours, then pivots to local beers, cocktails, and weekend DJ sets by night. There's also a games room with shuffleboard and arcade cabinets, a gym, and a podcast booth, which suggests the kind of guest who checks in with a carry-on and a content strategy.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A rooftop pool high enough to make you feel like you're swimming through the skyline sets the tone at this full-service hotel in River North. It runs on a go-big logic, with a 24-hour fitness center and complete business facilities, yet somehow still feels approachable, the kind of place that fusses over your dog and your kids in equal measure. Midwestern warmth, it turns out, scales up just fine.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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

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

The old Atlantic Bank building on Michigan Avenue, a downtown landmark, now runs as a lifestyle hotel with Millennium Park views from many of the contemporary rooms. The gym is properly equipped, and the in-house restaurant, About Last Knife, folds West African and Latin American flavors into an American bistro menu. A solid base for anyone who'd rather walk to the lakefront than deal with a cab.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Bistro Monadnock is a wood-paneled French bistro on a quiet side street near the Art Institute, which makes it a natural place to go after a morning of looking at French things and deciding you'd like to eat some. There's an open kitchen, a bar, and booths that rarely require a plan. Your server may volunteer a tour of the dry-ager or a short lecture on the building, and it's wise to let them.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers
3. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The name isn't a coincidence: this boutique hotel on the Magnificent Mile took Einstein's formula as its organizing thesis, and the stacks of books in the lobby are there to prove it. Rooms lean into an art-meets-science conceit with Deco-inspired design that manages to feel clever without being exhausting about it. The kind of place where the décor has a point of view, which is either appealing or a lot, depending on your mood.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Approved
2. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The Art Deco exterior belongs to what was once home to Chicago's two biggest banks, which tells you something about the scale of ambition inside. The LaSalle Chicago is a luxury hotel in the Financial District where the retro styling isn't a costume but a genuinely fitting one, from the lobby lounge built for deal-making over cocktails to suites sized for people who sign things. Grill on 21 handles the steakhouse duties upstairs.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Rooms on the river side look straight down onto the Riverwalk and across at Tribune Tower, which is a better alarm clock than most hotels can offer. The Royal Sonesta is a luxury hotel on the Chicago River, right where it bends around the Magnificent Mile, and that address is rarer than it sounds. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels. Pack accordingly for the architecture views alone.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A Gold Coast hotel that was doing the boutique thing before anyone called it that, the Talbott has the bones of an older, quieter Chicago and a recent overhaul by local designer Kara Mann to keep it feeling current. Rooms are residential-scale rather than grand, which suits the neighborhood, where the vibe runs more old-money discreet than convention-circuit splash. A solid, unfussy base for the North Side.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The minibar charges corner-shop prices, a small act of decency that sets the tone for this Loop hotel inside a restored building that's been around forever. Rooms split in two with sliding doors for travel companions on different sleep schedules, and the beds convert into lounge configurations, since apparently a chair that works is too much to ask of most hotels. A rooftop bar and two restaurants round things out.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. Central

1. The Banchets Nominee · Sommelier of the Year · Patti Robison

1. The Banchets Culinary Excellence of the Year · Roland Licioni

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

Perilla is a Korean steakhouse tucked into a downtown Chicago hotel, where the staff cook the cuts on a grill at your table so you can supervise without technically lifting a finger. Wagyu and marinated short rib are the draw, but the Caesar with milk bread croutons and the Korean fried chicken keep the non-beef contingent fed. Since it's a hotel restaurant, steak and eggs start at 7 a.m. Eater lists it among Chicago's steakhouses.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses
2. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

Pizza Dada is a New York-style slice counter tucked inside the Sterling Food Hall, which makes it the Loop's answer to the question "what if lunch weren't a sandwich." The slices are big enough that two could pass for a meal, with a charred crust and a zippy sauce. Whole pies are available too, and sharing remains strictly optional. Expect office badges, lanyards, and people eating over paper plates.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options
2. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Burgers
2. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Loop

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
3. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. Central

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

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

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

A ceiling mural of blue sky and clouds floats over white-tableclothed dining rooms spread across two floors, one block off the Magnificent Mile. This is a classic Italian-American restaurant, the kind where portions arrive larger than any reasonable person expected and the housemade pasta makes that very easy to forgive. Roasted chicken Vesuvio with red potatoes and white wine sauce is the move for the old-school contingent. Relaxed, prompt, and reliably generous.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. Food & Wine The Top 10 Hotel Bars in the US

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best New Restaurant

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

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 Chicago’s Best Brunch Restaurants

Pierrot Gourmet is a French bakery-cafe attached to the Peninsula Hotel, which means it's the one place in that building where nobody asks you to dress up. Grab a seat among the brunching tourists if you like, but the to-go line is where the flaky chocolate croissants, hefty cinnamon rolls, and tarts shaped like chrysanthemums are moving. The Infatuation includes it on its Chicago bakeries list.

1. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

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

The cocktail menu runs 32 pages and opens with a table of contents, which tells you everything about how seriously this hotel bar takes its work. Originals are sorted by style; classics are filed by decade. The room holds up in daylight just as well as it does after dark, which isn't something most hotel bars can say without lying. Bring someone who likes to read before they order.

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

The Alston is a French-leaning steakhouse on the third floor in River North, where the bread gets sliced at your table and you pick your own candle holder, which is the kind of decision-making that makes a steakhouse feel like a party. Steaks are wood grilled with French sauces on the side, but the duck gets pressed tableside, with a metal contraption wringing out the jus. Eater lists it among Chicago's best steakhouses and River North's best restaurants.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Steakhouses
2. Eater The Best Restaurants in River North

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. The Infatuation #10 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza

Giordano's is a Chicago pizza chain built around the stuffed pie, which is deep dish with a second crust sealed over the cheese and then buried in tomato sauce, like a pizza that got tucked in for the night. Slices arrive tall and heavy, so plan on a fork and a nap. The menu riffs on gyros and Juicy Lucy burgers, and Eater has named it one of the city's deep-dish picks.

1. Eater Chicago’s Best Deep-Dish Pizza