Chicago bar reviews

If you order the Daiquiri Tropical at Cantina Rosa—which I highly recommend doing—you may become convinced you've bitten into a fantastical mashup of a fresh peach and a passionfruit, so balanced and purposeful is each component of this magical sour. I closed my eyes mid-first sip and floated elsewhere, my feet still firmly planted inside this beautiful, Mexican-inspired Hyde Park bar from chef and restaurateur Erick Williams. The tiki-tinged cocktail menu—which legendary mixologist Paul McGee consulted on—packs numerous delights, many of them starring agave and sugarcane spirits. Consider the bright, smoke-kissed Paddle Cactus, with mezcal, tart prickly pear, chile and just enough pineapple to bring out the vegetal notes in the agave and cactus. Glancing around the room, I saw a Jushu in front of probably three-quarters of customers. This refreshing sorta margarita is a no-brainer indeed, with mezcal, floral acacia honey, lime and mango.  As I waffled between the demure Rebujito (nutty manzanilla sherry, orgeat, ginger and lime) and the daiquiri, the server plainly suggested the latter “if you like to drink.” Her candor was a balm on that particular Friday, much like this sophisticated yet inviting room, while outside the winter wind howled and democracy’s foundations shook. In that moment I could simply marvel at how the baked apple notes of the calvados and sweet citrus of the passionfruit, lime and pineapple cleverly muffled the drink’s boozy foundation of rum-like...

From the team behind Peruvian restaurant Tanta, this River North bar is a cocktail journey around the globe. The exploration at Arbella begins with a menu showcasing a progressive craft approach towards cocktails found in exciting parts of the world. With playful displays and presentations, each concoction aims to transport drinkers to a specific place and evoke a sense of travel. Old fashioned enthusiasts have a wealth of options to choose from, including versions made with ube whiskey (Manila), aged rum (Havana) and spiced turmeric syrup (Goa Coast). Each drink on the menu is rated on a scale that ranges from light to boozy so guests have an understanding of what they’re ordering. Don’t skip on the food— crab rangoons and potato croquettes are great shareable bites, but there are heartier items like confit Spanish octopus and family-style lambo tacos as well. There are also live DJs nightly in Arbella’s music space, The B-Side.

Crossing the threshold of Broken Hearts on a frigid Thursday night after taking a proverbial lickin’ at work, I felt my shoulders drop a few inches instantly. Despite its sprawling size and newness, the red-lit bar with exposed brick walls feels comfortable and lived in, in the vein of the city’s finest alt-country and punk rock taverns.  Then again, Heisler Hospitality (Sportsman’s Club, Lone Wolf, Queen Mary) knows its way around this decidedly Midwestern brand of bar. Broken Hearts is a smart remake of the flashier Nights & Weekends, which struggled to fill seats on weeknights. The clubby vibes also didn’t suit Heisler, as its director of operations Jeff Donahue told Eater. Better to let Chicago’s own late country-folk legend John Prine, whose song “Souvenirs” inspired the bar’s name, guide the way. (A well-placed disco ball nods to Broken Hearts’ forerunner.)  Indeed, this quiet, still vaguely industrial stretch of the West Loop beneath the rumbling “L” seemed to want for a regular bar—the kind of place that doesn’t punch customers in the face with a “concept” like so many bars do these days through a glut of twee neons and “living” walls of climbing plastic plants, while sports flash on a dozen oversized flatscreens. Sometimes you just need to scooch a barstool up to a mile-long wood bar and get lost in conversation over a cold Budweiser or an herbaceous, bittersweet draft Amaro Daiquiri with Meletti and rum (this is the West Loop, after all). To that end, there’s...

Bar review by Amy Cavanaugh Before a new bar or restaurant opens, chefs and publicists usually inundate social media with updates, obsessively document recipe testing via Instagram, and provide “first looks” to every media outlet in town. By the time the place actually opens, you’ve already seen everything.   Not so with Celeste, which I listed as “new bar in Swirl Wine Bar space” under “date unknown” on the document I use to track new openings, right up until February 3, the day it actually opened.  The lack of buzz means two things: One, there’s plenty to discover on a menu that hasn’t obsessively been covered. And two, you can get a seat. Celeste has become a popular industry spot—on my first visit, Sepia head bartender Griffin Elliot was sitting at a booth in the Deco Room upstairs; on another, I sat next to Steve Dolinsky at the first floor bar. Celeste is owned by brothers Nader, Fadi and Rafid Hindo; Freddie Sarkis (Sable Kitchen & Bar) and Sterling Field (Carriage House) handle bar duties. Former Sepia bartender Josh Pearson also helped with the opening before becoming the brand ambassador for Absolut Elyx. There are two bars: A first floor bar that’s long and sleek, with a more approachable cocktail menu and a DJ, and a quieter upstairs bar, which glows with light from big chandeliers and where Field makes cocktails that are more complex—and more expensive. Food, from Aaron Lirette (last at Acadia, he’s been working on Celeste for the last year and a half), is...

There’s a lovely moment in Won’t You Be My Neighbor?—the HBO documentary on the late Fred Rogers—that discusses the importance of creating quiet spaces. A peeler slowly works its way around an apple; Rogers sets an egg timer to show the actual length of a minute. It’s meant to reject the loud, crude mass media aimed at children in television’s early days, but it also echoes the overstimulation with which many of us live, work and eat now, thanks to a certain device we keep glued to our sides. But from the moment I entered Kumiko’s plant-filled foyer to a welcome cup of cinnamon chai tea, a sense of meditative calm washed over me. This Japanese-inspired cocktail bar and restaurant from Julia Momose (GreenRiver), Cara and Noah Sandoval and chef de cuisine Mariya Russell (all Oriole), is one of measured pace and care. Kumiko’s eight-seat omakase bar lends a peek into the humming kitchen through an intricately carved wood shade that acts as a focal point of the restaurant. My date and I had booked our barstools about a month in advance for the $130 omakase experience, in which Momose and her skilled team pair a series of fixed Japanese bites with sakes and bespoke cocktails. “Do you tend to go for bright and citrusy? Bitter or savory?” asked our meticulously suited bartender once we were settled. His easy warmth goaded me into oversharing beyond my cocktail preferences in the same way I sometimes psychologically unload on hospitable baristas. A progression of nigiri came...

When Grant Achatz does a cocktail bar, it should go without saying that it's no ordinary cocktail bar. At the Aviary, which opened next door to Next in 2011, cocktails receive the same innovative treatment as the food at Next or Alinea. That is to say, you should expect to drink cocktails like the Junglebird, a science experiment in liquid density, with layers of rum, campari, pineapple-lime syrup and rum "pearls" suspended in the drink. O'Doyle Rules comes with a fried banana snack on top of the rum-curry-cognac concoction, while Loaded to the Gunwalls is delivered with a single tapered candle. The drink, with pineapple, hazelnut and Batavia Arrack, is served in a glass ship in a bottle. You've never seen a drink like it, and given how rare a visit to the Aviary is, you may never again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Cheers theme song and the idea of a place “where everybody knows your name.” The thing is, on nights when I can sneak away and splurge on a round of craft cocktails, I seek out places where no one knows my name. It’s not that I’m anti-social—more than anything, it’s about reveling in quality time with close friends. Lazy Bird, the bar in the basement of the Hoxton hotel helmed by Lee Zaremba, ticks all the right boxes for that kind of night out. The space is so dimly lit that you can barely see across the room, and seating is configured in a way that gives each party a sense of privacy—even if you are seated two feet away from the next table. And don’t plan on checking your email or Instagram feed while you’re here; the subterranean space is a black hole for cell service. Those qualities alone make Lazy Bird a solid watering hole. But when you toss in Zaremba’s pièce de résistance of a menu—a whopping 52 classic cocktails that have been refined and perfected—this place easily enters Best New Bar of 2019 territory. Just as my date and I snagged seats along the wall opposite the bar, our server presented us with a beautiful book of tipples to choose from—each accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations from Kate Dehler and bite-sized descriptions penned by Zaremba. When we asked for a second menu so that we could browse simultaneously, our server told us that there weren’t enough to go around. As soon as we ordered our first sips—an Aviation...

There are two options when you enter John and Karen Urie Shields’ Smyth + The Loyalist. You can head upstairs to Smyth for a modern fine dining experience, complete with a prix fixe menu, or you can walk downstairs to the Loyalist, a sultry bar with upscale bites (including an amazing cheeseburger) and killer cocktails. Positioned in the West Loop, the spot is perfect for a before- or after-dinner drink, but you could also spend a whole night there. The Loyalist’s cocktail menu is the centerpiece, springing from the mind of former MFK bartender Roger Landes. The menu is well rounded, with a mix of light and spirit-forward drinks, including twists on classics and more original ideas. All the cocktails have at least one special component, such as the use of Chinato in place of Campari in the Innocents Abroad with Gentiane, creating a citrusy and bitter negroni. Likewise, the Nothing Noble combines bourbon with demerara sugar, a bit of Amargo Valet and mint for an herbal twist on a classic old-fashioned. It isn’t just the variations and balance that makes these cocktails interesting—there’s also something to be said for the presentation. Drinks come in beautiful etched glass goblets and fancy thin-walled lowballs that exude quality and attention to detail. The food works well for the space too, with primarily small plates made for sharing—a sharp contrast to the fine dining dishes served upstairs. The most notable thing on the menu is the cheeseburger, served on a sesame seed...

This fun, honky tonk-style taqueria in the Windy City’s Wicker Park neighborhood couldn’t be more serious about its tacos, and it shows: its al pastor variety is a thing of pure beauty. Marinated pork shoulder is roasted to crackling on a spit, then carved into tortillas and topped with grilled pineapple and onions, plus plenty of fresh cilantro. 

Like the first time I tried to go to the Violet Hour and walked straight past the door, I had no idea how to get into the Drifter, a new bar located underneath Green Door Tavern. But while the Violet Hour was Chicago’s first nouveau speakeasy, bar culture has changed over the past eight years—now, when a bar claims to be a speakeasy, all that means is that it’s dark, with well-made cocktails and bartenders in retro clothes. The Drifter breaks the mold, since it’s actually located in an old speakeasy space, and it’s missing the pretentious trappings a lot of cocktail bars have. In speakeasy days, people would enter a door a couple blocks away and get into the bar through a window, which has been covered over. We had to ask at Green Door how to get in, so I’ll save you the trouble: Walk through Green Door, head downstairs and enter through the wooden door that’s next to the restrooms. There’s no sign, but if the door guy isn’t there taking names for a waitlist that grows longer as the night goes on (though we walked right in at 5:30pm on a Saturday), knock and he’ll let you in. Once inside, the space is dark, cozy and full of objects that were already there when bartender Liz Pearce (Gage, Drawing Room, Aviary) took over the unused space. There are old paintings, like one of FDR that overlooks the end of the bar, a bullet-riddled Mobil sign, flags billowing from the ceiling and dozens of dusty old bottles lined up atop the bar. It’s a comfortable, low-key spot to hang out,...

Crossing the threshold of Broken Hearts on a frigid Thursday night after taking a proverbial lickin’ at work, I felt my shoulders drop a few inches instantly. Despite its sprawling size and newness, the red-lit bar with exposed brick walls feels comfortable and lived in, in the vein of the city’s finest alt-country and punk rock taverns.  Then again, Heisler Hospitality (Sportsman’s Club, Lone Wolf, Queen Mary) knows its way around this decidedly Midwestern brand of bar. Broken Hearts is a smart remake of the flashier Nights & Weekends, which struggled to fill seats on weeknights. The clubby vibes also didn’t suit Heisler, as its director of operations Jeff Donahue told Eater. Better to let Chicago’s own late country-folk legend John Prine, whose song “Souvenirs” inspired the bar’s name, guide the way. (A well-placed disco ball nods to Broken Hearts’ forerunner.)  Indeed, this quiet, still vaguely industrial stretch of the West Loop beneath the rumbling “L” seemed to want for a regular bar—the kind of place that doesn’t punch customers in the face with a “concept” like so many bars do these days through a glut of twee neons and “living” walls of climbing plastic plants, while sports flash on a dozen oversized flatscreens. Sometimes you just need to scooch a barstool up to a mile-long wood bar and get lost in conversation over a cold Budweiser or an herbaceous, bittersweet draft Amaro Daiquiri with Meletti and rum (this is the West Loop, after all). To that end, there’s...

If you order the Daiquiri Tropical at Cantina Rosa—which I highly recommend doing—you may become convinced you've bitten into a fantastical mashup of a fresh peach and a passionfruit, so balanced and purposeful is each component of this magical sour. I closed my eyes mid-first sip and floated elsewhere, my feet still firmly planted inside this beautiful, Mexican-inspired Hyde Park bar from chef and restaurateur Erick Williams. The tiki-tinged cocktail menu—which legendary mixologist Paul McGee consulted on—packs numerous delights, many of them starring agave and sugarcane spirits. Consider the bright, smoke-kissed Paddle Cactus, with mezcal, tart prickly pear, chile and just enough pineapple to bring out the vegetal notes in the agave and cactus. Glancing around the room, I saw a Jushu in front of probably three-quarters of customers. This refreshing sorta margarita is a no-brainer indeed, with mezcal, floral acacia honey, lime and mango.  As I waffled between the demure Rebujito (nutty manzanilla sherry, orgeat, ginger and lime) and the daiquiri, the server plainly suggested the latter “if you like to drink.” Her candor was a balm on that particular Friday, much like this sophisticated yet inviting room, while outside the winter wind howled and democracy’s foundations shook. In that moment I could simply marvel at how the baked apple notes of the calvados and sweet citrus of the passionfruit, lime and pineapple cleverly muffled the drink’s boozy foundation of rum-like...

From the team behind Peruvian restaurant Tanta, this River North bar is a cocktail journey around the globe. The exploration at Arbella begins with a menu showcasing a progressive craft approach towards cocktails found in exciting parts of the world. With playful displays and presentations, each concoction aims to transport drinkers to a specific place and evoke a sense of travel. Old fashioned enthusiasts have a wealth of options to choose from, including versions made with ube whiskey (Manila), aged rum (Havana) and spiced turmeric syrup (Goa Coast). Each drink on the menu is rated on a scale that ranges from light to boozy so guests have an understanding of what they’re ordering. Don’t skip on the food— crab rangoons and potato croquettes are great shareable bites, but there are heartier items like confit Spanish octopus and family-style lambo tacos as well. There are also live DJs nightly in Arbella’s music space, The B-Side.

Bar review by Amy Cavanaugh Before a new bar or restaurant opens, chefs and publicists usually inundate social media with updates, obsessively document recipe testing via Instagram, and provide “first looks” to every media outlet in town. By the time the place actually opens, you’ve already seen everything.   Not so with Celeste, which I listed as “new bar in Swirl Wine Bar space” under “date unknown” on the document I use to track new openings, right up until February 3, the day it actually opened.  The lack of buzz means two things: One, there’s plenty to discover on a menu that hasn’t obsessively been covered. And two, you can get a seat. Celeste has become a popular industry spot—on my first visit, Sepia head bartender Griffin Elliot was sitting at a booth in the Deco Room upstairs; on another, I sat next to Steve Dolinsky at the first floor bar. Celeste is owned by brothers Nader, Fadi and Rafid Hindo; Freddie Sarkis (Sable Kitchen & Bar) and Sterling Field (Carriage House) handle bar duties. Former Sepia bartender Josh Pearson also helped with the opening before becoming the brand ambassador for Absolut Elyx. There are two bars: A first floor bar that’s long and sleek, with a more approachable cocktail menu and a DJ, and a quieter upstairs bar, which glows with light from big chandeliers and where Field makes cocktails that are more complex—and more expensive. Food, from Aaron Lirette (last at Acadia, he’s been working on Celeste for the last year and a half), is...

When Grant Achatz does a cocktail bar, it should go without saying that it's no ordinary cocktail bar. At the Aviary, which opened next door to Next in 2011, cocktails receive the same innovative treatment as the food at Next or Alinea. That is to say, you should expect to drink cocktails like the Junglebird, a science experiment in liquid density, with layers of rum, campari, pineapple-lime syrup and rum "pearls" suspended in the drink. O'Doyle Rules comes with a fried banana snack on top of the rum-curry-cognac concoction, while Loaded to the Gunwalls is delivered with a single tapered candle. The drink, with pineapple, hazelnut and Batavia Arrack, is served in a glass ship in a bottle. You've never seen a drink like it, and given how rare a visit to the Aviary is, you may never again.

There are two options when you enter John and Karen Urie Shields’ Smyth + The Loyalist. You can head upstairs to Smyth for a modern fine dining experience, complete with a prix fixe menu, or you can walk downstairs to the Loyalist, a sultry bar with upscale bites (including an amazing cheeseburger) and killer cocktails. Positioned in the West Loop, the spot is perfect for a before- or after-dinner drink, but you could also spend a whole night there. The Loyalist’s cocktail menu is the centerpiece, springing from the mind of former MFK bartender Roger Landes. The menu is well rounded, with a mix of light and spirit-forward drinks, including twists on classics and more original ideas. All the cocktails have at least one special component, such as the use of Chinato in place of Campari in the Innocents Abroad with Gentiane, creating a citrusy and bitter negroni. Likewise, the Nothing Noble combines bourbon with demerara sugar, a bit of Amargo Valet and mint for an herbal twist on a classic old-fashioned. It isn’t just the variations and balance that makes these cocktails interesting—there’s also something to be said for the presentation. Drinks come in beautiful etched glass goblets and fancy thin-walled lowballs that exude quality and attention to detail. The food works well for the space too, with primarily small plates made for sharing—a sharp contrast to the fine dining dishes served upstairs. The most notable thing on the menu is the cheeseburger, served on a sesame seed...

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Cheers theme song and the idea of a place “where everybody knows your name.” The thing is, on nights when I can sneak away and splurge on a round of craft cocktails, I seek out places where no one knows my name. It’s not that I’m anti-social—more than anything, it’s about reveling in quality time with close friends. Lazy Bird, the bar in the basement of the Hoxton hotel helmed by Lee Zaremba, ticks all the right boxes for that kind of night out. The space is so dimly lit that you can barely see across the room, and seating is configured in a way that gives each party a sense of privacy—even if you are seated two feet away from the next table. And don’t plan on checking your email or Instagram feed while you’re here; the subterranean space is a black hole for cell service. Those qualities alone make Lazy Bird a solid watering hole. But when you toss in Zaremba’s pièce de résistance of a menu—a whopping 52 classic cocktails that have been refined and perfected—this place easily enters Best New Bar of 2019 territory. Just as my date and I snagged seats along the wall opposite the bar, our server presented us with a beautiful book of tipples to choose from—each accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations from Kate Dehler and bite-sized descriptions penned by Zaremba. When we asked for a second menu so that we could browse simultaneously, our server told us that there weren’t enough to go around. As soon as we ordered our first sips—an Aviation...

There’s a lovely moment in Won’t You Be My Neighbor?—the HBO documentary on the late Fred Rogers—that discusses the importance of creating quiet spaces. A peeler slowly works its way around an apple; Rogers sets an egg timer to show the actual length of a minute. It’s meant to reject the loud, crude mass media aimed at children in television’s early days, but it also echoes the overstimulation with which many of us live, work and eat now, thanks to a certain device we keep glued to our sides. But from the moment I entered Kumiko’s plant-filled foyer to a welcome cup of cinnamon chai tea, a sense of meditative calm washed over me. This Japanese-inspired cocktail bar and restaurant from Julia Momose (GreenRiver), Cara and Noah Sandoval and chef de cuisine Mariya Russell (all Oriole), is one of measured pace and care. Kumiko’s eight-seat omakase bar lends a peek into the humming kitchen through an intricately carved wood shade that acts as a focal point of the restaurant. My date and I had booked our barstools about a month in advance for the $130 omakase experience, in which Momose and her skilled team pair a series of fixed Japanese bites with sakes and bespoke cocktails. “Do you tend to go for bright and citrusy? Bitter or savory?” asked our meticulously suited bartender once we were settled. His easy warmth goaded me into oversharing beyond my cocktail preferences in the same way I sometimes psychologically unload on hospitable baristas. A progression of nigiri came...

This fun, honky tonk-style taqueria in the Windy City’s Wicker Park neighborhood couldn’t be more serious about its tacos, and it shows: its al pastor variety is a thing of pure beauty. Marinated pork shoulder is roasted to crackling on a spit, then carved into tortillas and topped with grilled pineapple and onions, plus plenty of fresh cilantro. 

Like the first time I tried to go to the Violet Hour and walked straight past the door, I had no idea how to get into the Drifter, a new bar located underneath Green Door Tavern. But while the Violet Hour was Chicago’s first nouveau speakeasy, bar culture has changed over the past eight years—now, when a bar claims to be a speakeasy, all that means is that it’s dark, with well-made cocktails and bartenders in retro clothes. The Drifter breaks the mold, since it’s actually located in an old speakeasy space, and it’s missing the pretentious trappings a lot of cocktail bars have. In speakeasy days, people would enter a door a couple blocks away and get into the bar through a window, which has been covered over. We had to ask at Green Door how to get in, so I’ll save you the trouble: Walk through Green Door, head downstairs and enter through the wooden door that’s next to the restrooms. There’s no sign, but if the door guy isn’t there taking names for a waitlist that grows longer as the night goes on (though we walked right in at 5:30pm on a Saturday), knock and he’ll let you in. Once inside, the space is dark, cozy and full of objects that were already there when bartender Liz Pearce (Gage, Drawing Room, Aviary) took over the unused space. There are old paintings, like one of FDR that overlooks the end of the bar, a bullet-riddled Mobil sign, flags billowing from the ceiling and dozens of dusty old bottles lined up atop the bar. It’s a comfortable, low-key spot to hang out,...