The Best Places to Eat and Stay in Bucktown & around

No servers, rap music overhead, and a Michelin star: Schwa has always done things its own way. This tiny BYOB tasting menu spot runs on the chef's terms, which means the kitchen sends out whatever it feels like that night, and "whatever it feels like" might be chilled gumbo or foie gras ice cream in a cinnamon shell. The cooking is genuinely strange in ways that somehow cohere. Shots of whiskey may arrive at the end, which feels about right.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
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Mindy's is a Wicker Park bakery where the menu shifts often enough to keep regulars guessing, running from donuts to pot pies, with the occasional turnover stuffed with mortadella and giardiniera. The bagels get plenty of attention too. The room is tiny and there are only a couple of window seats, so most people end up eating in the car, which is fine, since crumbs are cheaper to vacuum than to explain.

1. Time Out The best bakeries in America
2. The Banchets Nominee · Pastry Chef of the Year · Bo Durham
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Dum biryani folded with lamb barbacoa is a reasonable sign that this Bucktown restaurant is not picking a lane between Mexican and Indian, and has no intention of starting. The kitchen weaves the two cuisines into a menu that earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand and an Eater Chefs of the Year nod. Exposed brick, a long banquette, an open kitchen, and a crowd that arrives loud and leaves louder. Share everything.

1. Midwest Living 2025 · Best of the Midwest
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
3. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America

1. The Banchets Winner · Best Neighborhood Restaurant
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Nicolas Poilevey and Oliver Poilevey
3. Eater Chicago’s Best Lunch Options

Bad Butter is a no-seating bakery on Cortland where the pastries lean savory and a little unruly, like a pretzel loaded with cream cheese and mustard or monkey bread with a salsa macha kick. The line has become its own local pastime, so pre-order if you can. Eat your haul on a bench along the 606, where you can hold the bag a bit higher than necessary for the joggers.

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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

Edward Kim's Bucktown restaurant plays Midwest and Chinese off each other in ways that feel neither forced nor fussy. It's a casual, feast-style spot where the menu roams freely and the cooking has enough personality to pull it off. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a place where the food is ambitious but the vibe stays loose. Go with a group and order widely.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
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A 1929 Art Deco skyscraper in Wicker Park, repurposed by Mexico's Grupo Habita into 89 rooms with the brand's signature low-key cool. A Belgian design team carved the old North Tower offices into spare, elegant guest quarters, and the 13th-floor indoor-outdoor bar is the kind of thing that makes you forget you came here on business. Tokyobike rentals at the door nudge you toward the neighborhood rather than the lobby.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Emerging Chef · Nicolai Mlodinow

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

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1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
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Sarima is a small bakery that shares a room with a burger chain, which is the kind of living arrangement that sounds like a sitcom premise. The pastries mix Filipino and Indian flavors, so the donuts come filled with calamansi and shrikhand cream, and the cookies borrow from kaju katli. There are a few tables, but most people treat it as a grab-and-go morning stop before work.

1. The Infatuation The 29 Best Bakeries In Chicago

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2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar – U.S. Central

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1. The Infatuation #5 · The Ice Cream Power Rankings

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Rodolph Cuadros