Latest Chicago restaurant reviews
Which Chicago restaurant should you dine at tonight? Read through our most recent Chicago restaurant reviews.
![Bunny, the Micro Bakery [Closed]](https://media.timeout.com/images/103170101/630/472/image.jpg "Bunny, the Micro Bakery [Closed]")
Bunny, the Micro Bakery [Closed]
Delicious breads and dishes shine at Iliana Regan's itty bitty bakery
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Longman & Eagle
At Longman & Eagle, there are old fashioneds, stirred slowly and carefully behind a dark, gorgeous bar. There are dozens of whiskeys for three bucks; the house favorite, Cabin Still, is mellow and gentle. And there are flannel shirts, and mustaches, and Grandma sweaters. A lot of them. But if you’ve gotten it into your head that eating at a restaurant owned in part by the Empty Bottle guys means that you’ll be systematically ignored by a waitstaff of smelly, aloof, strategically scruffed dudes and the waifish, Lycra-clad women who dig them, then you have seriously underestimated the genre. Truth is, the folks working here are some of the friendliest and most professional hipsters you’ll ever meet, and their graciousness isn’t lost on the neighborhood. Why else would I have been seated next to couples with babies and families with tweens? Yet, however welcoming and well-informed my server was, T.G.I. Friday’s this is not, and it was hard not to notice that those groups were ordering their fair share of burgers. And, not to start things off on the wrong foot, but the Kobe burger, like most Kobe burgers I’ve had, is nothing to get excited about. The meat’s mushy, the bun’s too big for the patty, and mine reeked of smoke from the bacon, despite the fact that the strips were scarcely cooked. (If those tweens were ordering it simply for the awesome beef fat–fried fries, though, bless their hearts.) To do this restaurant right, you’ve got to allow yourself organ meats. Get the bee
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Bohemian House
Restaurant review by Amy Cavanaugh All throughout my dinner at Bohemian House, I wondered why the restaurant had opened in River North and not, say, a hot dining ‘hood like Logan Square or Randolph Street. It’s not just that the space feels homey, with mismatched flowered china, couches for lounging, and a back bar made up of blue tables stacked on top of each other and mounted on the wall. The décor is a stark contrast to the slick restaurants all over the neighborhood, but it’s more because the food, from chef Jimmy Papadopoulos (formerly of Schaumburg steak house Sam & Harry’s), feels intensely personal, like he invited you into his house and made you dinner. This is serious, thought-provoking food, but Papadopoulos makes it approachable. For starters, it’s a treat to dine at a new restaurant that isn’t a big Italian place or a fried chicken joint. I love these things, obviously, but the world is a big place—there are so many more cuisines to celebrate and flavors and ingredients to try. Here, the menu melds Czech, Austrian and German influences into a cuisine that’s rich and deeply flavored with pickles and vinegars to cut through heavier dishes. Start with a drink. There’s a list of straightforward cocktails, like basil lemonade spiked with Pimm’s and an old-fashioned made with house vanilla-fig bourbon. Drink these while you’re perusing the menu, because while they’re pleasant, this is Central European food, and when you eat that area's food, you want to be drinking
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Maple & Ash
I didn’t expect to find myself in the middle of a clubby lounge in a steakhouse at midnight, but Maple & Ash inverts expectations. You enter the Gold Coast restaurant through a crowded bar, then take the elevator upstairs to a lively lounge before being whisked into the calm, elegant dining room. I also didn’t expect the chef's choice option to be called "I Don't Give a Fuck” or the “Baller” seafood tower, but I did expect classic steaks and sides from chef Danny Grant and exceptional wines from sommelier Belinda Chang. The dichotomy places Maple & Ash in line with other new steakhouses, like RPM Steak, Swift & Sons, STK and Boeufhaus, which update classic dishes while offering a cooler ambience than old-school spots. The meal begins with a round of freebies—a mini gin cocktail, citrus-cured olives, nubs of Hook’s cheddar and radishes with butter—to snack on while you peruse the menu. Seafood is a good choice to start. Pile refreshing salmon tartare atop pieces of fried phyllo dough and order coal-roasted seafood, available in a tower or individual pieces. Fat, sweet crab legs are rich and spicy from garlic butter and chili oil, and the half lobster with the surf and turf has the same presentation. It’s perfect, though the accompanying filet is mushy rather than tender. The bone-in rib-eye is a better choice, with a juicy center, mineral flavor and charred edge. Nearly every table in the dining room ends with sundae service, a $19 tower of ice cream toppings—hot fudge, salt
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The Angry Crab
Before going to the Angry Crab, some advice: Wear clothes you don’t mind getting messy and bring lots of booze. The new BYOB Cajun-style seafood restaurant gets packed at dinnertime, so track down the server doubling as a host and get your name on the list. You’ll probably need to wait for 30 minutes to an hour, but once you’ve cracked open a beer, it’s not so bad. Especially because the wait is worth it. The menu is simple, with seafood like clams, crabs, lobsters and shrimp sold by the pound and tossed with your choice of spice—lemon pepper, garlic butter, Cajun or all three mixed together. While the lemon pepper didn’t offer much flavor, the luxurious garlic butter and spunky Cajun spice really complemented the seafood. Then choose a heat level. The second level offered slight spice, but the third made my lips burn, and that’s what I’d get again. Don’t miss the two-pound Dungeness crabs, which are packed with sweet meat. They’re a mess to eat, and you need to really work at them with crackers. The tender crawfish and plump shrimp were easier to unshell, and we dipped everything in excess garlic butter at the bottom of the plastic bag, which is how the food arrives to the table. There’s not much beyond seafood, though Cajun fries sated our hunger before we ordered, and steamed rice helped quell the spice. Some post–Angry Crab advice: Take a shower, as my hair smelled like garlic the next day. Gross, yes, but it just reminded me how much I can’t wait to return. Vitals A
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Fat Rice
Let’s knock this out right away: You’re getting the arroz gordo. It’s a spectacle to behold, a paella-like thicket in which sausage, pork, clams and prawns are piled on a bed of rice—a dish worthy of sharing its name (which translates to fat rice) with the restaurant itself. Tackle the prawns first: Crack their shells and disengage their plump insides. Now the clams. There might be a stray sandy one in there, but the rest have integrity. Next, a tea egg (boiled, then cracked and steeped in tea and soy sauce, such that the liquid seeps in, marbling the exterior): It’s fragrant and saturated with seasoning. And now the unsightly hunks of pork, a disappointing mass of tough and chewy meat. Just when the arroz gordo becomes almost senseless, there’s an olive: an acidic reprieve. And then there’s the soul of the dish, crisped black at the pot’s edges, packed with nuggets of Chinese sausage and pickled raisins that burst with sweet, tangy juices. I’m talking about the rice. There’s something about big, conglomerate dishes like this—the fat rice, the low-country boil at Carriage House, the moqueca at La Sirena Clandestina—that makes them immensely pleasurable to eat. They’re the opposite of faddish: They’re dishes with long histories, things you don’t have to think about to enjoy. This sense of history and of place is what makes Fat Rice’s approach so successful: Owners Abraham Conlon and Adrienne Lo (formerly the duo behind the supper club X-Marx) are cooking the food of Macau,
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A10
Restaurant review by Amy Cavanaugh Until last month, I had only been to Hyde Park three times. The neighborhood is not exactly a bastion of great dining, and there wasn’t much to lure me to the area. That’s about to change. In November, Matthias Merges (Yusho, Billy Sunday) expanded beyond Logan Square and opened A10, helmed by Billy Sunday chef John Vermiglio. Merges, a former Charlie Trotter’s chef, will also be opening a second Yusho in the neighborhood in the next few months. And then the Longman & Eagle team is opening the Promontory (at some point…it was slated to open last spring, so I won’t get too excited yet) at 1539 East 53rd Street. If A10 is any indication, Hyde Park is soon going to be a restaurant destination. The new spot, which is named for a road that runs through France and Italy, straddles the cuisine of the two countries. “The concept is roughly based on our experiences traveling through those areas,” Merges told us. “We’ve been traveling off and on through those areas since, I would say, 1995 or so. I’ve been maybe six to eight times.” That inspiration results in a menu that’s available at both the bar, which is warm and cozy and has a casual neighborhood atmosphere, and the main dining room, where colorful tapestries hang on the white brick walls, Francoise Hardy plays and the tables are mostly filled with dates. Large windows in both rooms are perfect for watching snow fall outside. Whether you choose to sit in the bar or restaurant, you’ll want
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Beatrix
When I first glimpse the menu at Beatrix, I’m confused and, frankly, a bit skeptical. Chili-chocolate salmon with corn tacos butts up against a snack of potato salad deviled eggs. Hummus (served with naan, rather than pita) is coming out of the same kitchen window as a hamachi crudo with citrus that looks like it’s straight from a sushi bar. Could a menu that just seems cobbled together from every food trend of the past five years possibly be good? Somehow, it is. The latest offering from Chicago restaurant empire Lettuce Entertain You, Beatrix builds a menu mostly of dishes from the Lettuce test kitchen that couldn’t find a home. These orphans were so delicious that Lettuce boss Rich Melman decided to create a place just for them. Despite the restaurant’s slogan, “taste over trend,” in reality each dish could come straight from a food trend roundup. Kale salad! Deviled eggs! Vaguely Mexican flavored fish! Savory bread pudding! Quinoa! Each craze has swept the restaurant world in the last few years, and they’re all together at Beatrix, like an awkward family reunion of has-beens. But as I dig into each dish, I realize that there was a reason that each trend became, well, a trend. Even better, each dish has a spin that makes it seem a little bit new. Take that kale salad, called the “Emerald City Salad” in Lettuce-speak. Instead of the tired, obligatory kale dish that’s on every menu in Chicago at the moment, this kale salad is fresh and crunchy. The leaves are mixed with c
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The Lobby
This time last year, the Peninsula Hotel was deep in its search for a new chef for Avenues, a process that, in the Chicago restaurant scene, is a little like the hunt for the Dalai Lama. Avenues doesn’t just hire chefs; it launches them. The Peninsula was looking for its next Graham Elliot. The search focused on a chef named Lee Wolen. At the time, Wolen was a sous chef at Eleven Madison Park in New York, but he had put in time here at Moto and Butter, and, in between, at Spain’s famed El Bulli. For a chef who wanted to come back to Chicago, there is probably no greater pull than Avenues. So when he was offered the job, he accepted. The plan was to rehab Avenues from top to bottom—not just the food but also the room. But then, the plan changed. The Peninsula, responding to pleas for more event space, decided to turn Avenues into a wedding hall. That left Wolen with the Lobby—the Peninsula’s least-revered space, the one tossed off as a place for guests to eat pancakes. I’m guessing this was a little soul-crushing for the chef. But I’ll also posit the Lobby might have been an unexpected gift. Wolen doesn’t come from the Graham Elliot or Curtis Duffy school of food—he is less infatuated with visual tricks and powders—and had he taken over Avenues, the inevitable comparisons would have muddled the conversation about Wolen’s food. And in the Lobby—which of course is both the literal lobby of the Peninsula Hotel but also a beautiful space unlike any other hotel lobby in the city
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Cold Storage
Restaurants within restaurants and bars within bars have been taking off lately—it helps owners maximize space and try out smaller concepts. Recently, Heavy Feather opened inside Slippery Slope and DAS Doner inside the Radler, and now Swift & Sons joins them with Cold Storage. The oyster bar only takes up a fraction of Boka and B. Hospitality’s sprawling steakhouse, but it makes a big impact, with fresh and cooked seafood dishes. Start with oysters, which are available by the half or whole dozen or as part of a seafood tower. The perfectly shucked offerings change regularly, and on my visit included bivalves from Rhode Island and Massachusetts, teeming with liquor. Chilled crab legs aren’t on the menu, but ask nicely and you’ll receive fat chunks of crab to dip in horseradish-heavy cocktail sauce or creamy mustard. It’s hard to fill up on raw seafood, so order a refreshing Louie wedge salad with a generous amount of crab, or grilled octopus tentacles atop a bell pepper-nduja spread. The best, though, are the sardines, large, meaty fillets, accented with salsa verde. To eat: Spritz the fish with lemon, then place atop a saltine. End with a sundae or shake from Meg Galus, whose fresh mint ice cream is marvelous. Employees of the future West Loop Google office will be able to pop over to Cold Storage for lunch, and the menu includes sandwiches like shrimp banh mi. They’re extra lucky, because they can also head right next door to the steakhouse for dinner. Vitals Atmospher
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Honey Butter Fried Chicken
This is not an exaggeration: I’ve eaten fried chicken at more than half the restaurants I’ve reviewed since starting this job three months ago. I’ve also eaten it at places that I’ve covered for other stories, or where I ate it just for fun (sometimes I get to go out to dinner for fun). I’ve eaten it for dinner, lunch and brunch, in sandwiches and as part of fried chicken dinners. We’re clearly in a golden age of fried chicken in Chicago. So when a restaurant opens that’s centered around fried chicken, they need to do something special to set themselves apart. And Honey Butter Fried Chicken does—the chicken is served with soft, whipped honey butter that you slather all over it. This namesake dish at the new Avondale restaurant debuted at Sunday Dinner Club, the longstanding pop-up dinner series hosted by chefs Christine Cikowski and Josh Kulp, and it was so successful that they decided to open a restaurant around it. But you should get everything else on the menu instead. Don’t get me wrong—the chicken is good. If you order the two, four or eight-piece orders of fried chicken, they’ll come out on a brown paper–lined silver tray, deboned (except for the chicken leg, which didn’t appear in our order), with a piece of cornbread and a small dish of honey butter. The chicken is locally sourced and brined with sugar, salt, spices and citrus, then battered and fried, and topped with smoked paprika salt. It’s good fried chicken, salty and sweet, but something (besides the bones),
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Takito Kitchen
I have observed weekend lines to get into a bar called Fatpour, where I once shared something called a Fish Bowl with a man whose politics were as repulsive as the Sprite-based beverage. I have imagined—but never been brave enough to ascertain—what sort of things take place at the Shambles, that rare venue whose name appears to be an honest reflection of its ambitions. I have stood by idly as Crust gave way to Pizano's. I have learned what it looks like when the absolute minimum amount of effort is put into opening a bar, and the name for that is Paradise Cantina. (It closed.) I'm perfectly comfortable acknowledging that the gelato at that Caffe Gelato place is not very good, and that occasionally I go there anyway. What I'm saying is that I live here, just up the street from the strip of Division between Damen and Hoyne, and if I'm not at Rainbo or Small Bar, it can be a very dark place. Rarely does one encounter such a dense concentration of restaurants and bars, so few of which demonstrate even the minimum of aspiration. And then, the powers that be gave us Takito. I can't help myself from mentioning that they gave it to us in a long, narrow room where I once had a meal I would rank among my ten worst in Chicago, at the questionable-at-best Sabor Saveur. But that only heightens the contrast between Takito and so many of its neighbors. In fact, if I have one bone to pick with this newcomer, it's that certain of its features (the faux-graffiti logo, the predominance of taco
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Dove's Luncheonette
Restaurant review by Amy Cavanaugh The morning after attending a rather boozy party, two friends and I slumped over the counter at Dove’s Luncheonette, hoping that a hefty serving of diner food would cure us. Dove’s isn’t your typical diner, though, so we wouldn’t be getting a greasy plate of overcooked bacon and rubbery eggs. No, we’d be eating blood sausage and drinking Bloody Marys, as Dove’s is the latest entrant into the nouveau diner landscape, which is already populated by Little Goat Diner and Au Cheval. But neither of them really feels like an old-school diner—Au Cheval is dark and glamorous, like all Brendan Sodikoff restaurants, and Little Goat is a loud family restaurant serving foot-tall goat burgers. But Dove’s has the spirit of one. The latest spot from One Off Hospitality (Publican, Avec and others), Dove’s is located next door to One Off’s Big Star and it shares a building with the relocated taco take-out window. The only seating option is padded stools placed along steel counters, which line the perimeter of the cozy restaurant. It’s open from 9 in the morning to 10 or 11 at night. There’s a black and white board listing breakfast and dessert specials and a record player spinning in the corner, with a jukebox to come. There are big windows overlooking the CTA construction on Damen Avenue, retro photos on the walls and counters set with paper placemats printed with pictures of mountains. The menu, which features Norteño cuisine (that's food from northern Me
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Big Jones
Paul Fehribach's exploration of Southern culinary history draws on historic recipes (like farmhouse chicken and dumplings, circa 1920) to tell the story of Southern cuisine. The collard green sandwich, with tender greens and cheddar tucked between fried corn pone, is a Native American dish, while crispy catfish a la Big Jones is lightly fried and served with grits and piccalilli. Brunch, which begins with complimentary beignets, is a similarly epic affair.
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Boeufhaus
The restaurant is called Boeufhaus and its tagline is “eat carnivorously,” which might mislead you into thinking that this is merely a palace of beef, where vegetarians and pescatarians will be left out. You’d be wrong, since the French and German-inflected steakhouse, led by chef Brian Ahern, gives as much thought to its non-meat dishes. The menu is blessedly focused, and you begin with a mix of snacks and starters. A firework of fresh crudités are beautifully presented in a glass dish and served on ice alongside a creamy Green Goddess dressing. Thin slices of salmon are drizzled with ginger oil, then decorated with pickled mushrooms, chilies and crispy skin. A velvety polenta comes topped with nubs of escargot, a dish I’ll dream about come cold temperatures. A foray into meat led us to the fleischschnacka, pork sausage pinwheels wrapped up in pasta. The starters are so ridiculously good that it’s a little let down when the meal starts to falter. There are steaks, of course, like the 55-day aged ribeye, pricey for the area at $60 (though not for the city), which is well-salted with a nice funk. But it, and the seared halibut, were served lukewarm, while the bread crumbs atop the cauliflower gratin were burned. Desserts change frequently, which is good, since the tiny apple tart felt like an afterthought. Still, there’s a ton to like here, including the delightful server, who knowledgeably guided us through the wine list. Boeufhaus isn’t perfect, but I’m already thinking
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Baker Miller Bakery & Millhouse
Restaurant review by Amy Cavanaugh I've eaten many bowls of oatmeal in my life, starting with the Oatmeal Swirlers I was obsessed with when I was six until today, when it’s one of my go-to breakfasts (except now with significantly less sugar and much less fun). But I've never had a bowl of oatmeal quite like the one at Baker Miller Bakery & Millhouse, where the oats are cooked until they still have some bite. They’re served with a moat of milk and twin dollops of cultured cream and jam (on my visit, cherry), then sprinkled with raw sugar and pecans. Tangy from the cream and sweet from the jam, with perfectly cooked oats, this oatmeal is a revelation. But it’s not quite surprising, given how the oats are rolled right in the shop, and the pair behind the new venture, Dave and Megan Miller (formerly of Bang Bang Pie Shop), who are changing the idea of what a bakery is. They’re milling all of their own heritage grains on site and if you walk past the butter and jam toast bar, you’ll see mills, a mill/sifter and a flaker, which are used to prepare all the grains. These range from oats, found in the oatmeal, to the whole wheat pastry flour used in the chocolate chip cookies. There are numerous benefits to using these housemade grains. First off, they’re better for you than plain white flour. Second, they actually taste like they’re supposed to. Take the grits, which are easily the best in the city. Made with three types of corn—yellow, red and blue—the grits are a mix of fine an
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Balena
Between the warmth of the room and the compelling simplicity of Chris Pandel’s food, there is something especially comfortable about Balena, a collaboration between the Bristol and the BOKA Restaurant Group. Settle in with a few amaro cocktails (our pick: the Montenegro), share a pizza (mortadella with chili oil), don’t miss the smoked mackerel or gorgeous tagliolini nero, an uni, crab and chile pasta, and wrap things up with the tiramisu (a light and sophisticated take on the staple). Finally, fall asleep on a banquette. With any luck, nobody will wake you up.
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Bavette's
A couple of weeks after Brendan Sodikoff opened Bavette’s, I started hearing reports. “It’s just like all his other spots,” a friend told me. “It’s exactly the same,” another said. Having now made a few visits to Bavette’s, I’m guessing these reports were based purely on conjecture. Which isn’t fair, except that, well, Sodikoff does have something of a track record. His first three restaurants act something like triplets, all with similar looks and personalities and food, but slightly different interests. Gilt Bar’s the clubby one. Maude’s is the aesthete. Au Cheval’s the hipster. Throw Doughnut Vault in there as the (pudgy) black sheep and you have a strong, if somewhat predictable, family of restaurants. Bavette’s messes with this metaphor. Contrary to the reports I heard, it’s a deviation, or, to put it in terms closer to my opinion, an evolution. The room is lit differently; golden light bounces between tufted red-leather booths and the mirrored bar. Like his other spots, the place is highly conceptual, but the concept—jazz-era steakhouse with light French touches—is more sophisticated. Sodikoff’s other spots are taste-specific; the loveliness of this one is, I believe, close to universal. You don’t even have to like steak. In fact, I had better luck with the chicken. The fried chicken is crazy good, the juicy wings encased in a flaky and crunchy crust; the roast chicken is otherworldly, with skin a very dark amber, delicate and moist flesh and a thickjus on the plate.
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The Gage
The people of the Loop have been waiting. They’ve been waiting for an alternative to Bennigan’s or for a liquor list that goes beyond Old Crow and Miller draft. Now, thanks to Billy Lawless, the wait is over. The Ireland native and his father (same name, but call him William) ventured far from their neighborhood pubs the Irish Oak and the Grafton to open a big-deal spot on a big-deal strip of Chicago. And they did it right. A lot of money was sunk into the Gage, and it shows—the design strikes the perfect balance between “What a swank new spot” and “Has this place been here forever?” Multiple rooms extend beyond a big, beautiful wooden bar, with shiny, sage-green subway tiles wrapping each room into the next. Booths are big and comfy, tables are dark wood and sturdy, a couple of TVs by the bar are unobtrusive, and little details give the place a touch of vintage class. Drinks and food sport downtown prices, so plan on spending some loot and don’t look back. Like sweet ’tinis? The signature Gage Cocktail— pear Grey Goose, Aperol, clove-infused apple juice with a splash of cranberry and lime— is your drink. Are you a brown liquor sipper? The whiskey list is lengthy and expertly selected. The beer list goes beyond the basics and wines are accompanied by clever, straightforward descriptions. Assuming that even happy hour–goers need something quality to munch on, chef Dirk Flanigan has created a “snack” menu that includes shrimp cocktail (fresh but with a blah aioli), crispy chi
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Tanta
“Is there a rule that at a certain hour every River North restaurant has to change their soundtrack?” my dining companion asked me as club-like beats started playing in the background at Tanta right at 9pm. At first glance, the new Peruvian restaurant feels like just another River North restaurant—a huge colorful mural on the wall lends a festive vibe, there’s a long bar where guys in suits are drinking vodka on the rocks and the restrooms are located downstairs. But once you move away from the bar and start eating and ordering off the cocktail menu, things at Tanta feel different. It’s more serious, more delicious, and the crowd skews older, with most tables filled with several generations. Tanta is the third American restaurant from Peruvian celebrity chef Gastón Acurio and his first in Chicago. Acurio has more than 30 restaurants around the world, including La Mar in San Francisco (a New York location of La Mar closed last month). He also has Lima’s Astrid y Gaston, which is on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants List. It’s also his third Tanta—there are already outposts in Lima and Barcelona. It may be because of this that Tanta is strong right out of the gate—service is prompt and knowledgeable and despite a few minor quibbles, chef Jesus Delgado’s kitchen is turning out dishes that are nuanced and thoughtful. Peruvian cuisine draws on influences from cultures that emigrated to the country, especially Japan and China, and Tanta’s menu reflects flavors and techniques from
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The Publican
Now under the talented Cosmo Goss, Paul Kahan's Publican is still as relevant as it was when it opened in 2008. It boasts a fantastic beer list, packed with Belgian and local brews; a menu that equally celebrates meat, seafood and veggies; and the best brunch in town, served Saturdays and Sundays. The chicken is legendary, the oysters pristine, and the desserts, from Anna Posey, are inventive—we'd happily eat every meal here, if we could.
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Girl & the Goat
There are cities in this country where the modern restaurant’s purpose is to take you somewhere else: London via a gastropub, North Carolina via a smoke shack. Restaurants become the tool of escapism. Chicagoans mostly have the opposite experience. In our buzziest contemporary American spots, a shared aesthetic has emerged, and it’s not American food—it’s Chicago food. Grubby and pubby at its base, Chicago cuisine is often accompanied by beer, and it venerates miscellaneous cuts of meat from an animal’s organs or forehead. It’s deceptively pricey (all those small plates add up). It claims European influences (but it’s really inspired by the Midwest). There are vegetables in Contemporary Chicago Cuisine, but they’re tossed with cheese or lard. And desserts— ironically, they’re afterthoughts: a waffle here, a shortbread cookie there. CCC is a masculine—no, a machismo—way of eating, and men eat meat. Dessert is for Nellies. Eating this food is the opposite of a transporting experience. You don’t escape Chicago at these restaurants. You fall deeper into it. The “roasted pig face” at Girl and the Goat is classic CCC. Two patties, looking like something thawed from a Jimmy Dean box, formed from the meat of a pig’s jowls and chin. Some fried potato sticks, almost identical to Potato Stix, are strewn around the plate. There’s a fried egg on top, of course, because, though not quite unique to CCC, fried eggs are the cuisine’s default garnish. Unpleasantly charred on the outside, th
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Slurping Turtle
Takashi Yagihashi’s foray into River North is the chef’s attempt to capture the taste of his noodle-slurping childhood in Japan. Based on the highlights of the menu—hamachi tartare in delicate little taro-root tacos, tan tan men ramen weighted with herb-packed pork meatballs, fried ramen noodles you toss with a dollop of spicy mustard for a dish called Chiyan Pon, and joyful desserts like softball-sized cream puffs—Yagihashi may have had the best childhood ever.
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Naoki Sushi
Walking back through Intro to Naoki Sushi feels like navigating a secret passageway to tender sushi and thoughtful dishes. Unlike its sister restaurant, Naoki offers a more laid-back atmosphere that still feels high-end—but maybe not so posh—and complements that with candid, savvy servers. Hidden behind the kitchen of Rich Melman’s Intro, the warmly lit sushi bar is the latest project from Naoki Nakashima (who also runs the sushi program at Shaw’s). Whether you’re a sushi veteran or just starting to explore dishes beyond tuna rolls, Naoki Sushi offers familiar items and interesting, original plates. Before diving into the sushi, the appetizers are a must, ranging from traditional to fun—like addictive tuna tacos made with crisp wonton shells and truffle chawanmushi, an egg custard with a dashi broth. You can’t go wrong by following your servers’ recommendations for the rotating sashimi and nigiri specials. On my visit, options included a slightly sweet and tender kinmedai topped with dehydrated yuzu lemon, to complement the fish. A melting salmon nigiri crowned with smoked soy and shallot is a great choice in the classic nigiri section. While the maki provide heartier portions, it’s easy to stick to nigiri and sashimi. Still, ordering the fatty yet delicate hamachi maki with scallion, cucumber and yuzu is anything but a miss. If there’s one thing to skip on the menu, it’s the main course—the seabass, while tender and buttery with soft bok choy, is too heavy next to a menu
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The Bristol
By the time I made my first visit to the Bristol, I’d gone online and read its menu, reread its menu and then read it again. To say it had a pull on me would not be accurate; it was more that it seemed to know me, as if the simple language of it was making an appeal to my specific weaknesses for fat, cheese, pickles and bread. I don’t think I was the only one who felt this way. When I watched the dining room fill up and saw people lining the walls, impatiently sucking down ginger-spiked cava sangria as they waited for my seat to be vacant, I got the feeling a lot of people have been waiting to get their hands on this food. It should be noted that at least some of the people I saw waiting were shunning seats at one of the two communal tables and holding out for a table of their own. Me, I scanned the room and saw that the individual tables were arranged in such proximity to each other that the communal tables actually seemed roomier. And as I soon learned, there’s an added benefit to a communal table: It’s easier to scope out dishes before committing to ordering them. I couldn’t help but notice that, one night, after my companion and I swooned over the combination of crisp, acidic fruit and creamy Manchego in the heirloom apple salad, the couple across the communal table from us ordered it, too. Same thing with the fried sardines, which they must have overheard us rhapsodize about, and for the crispy chicken thigh (pictured), which that night came with warm strands of shredde
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Crisp
This tiny chicken joint in Lakeview is constantly packed, and for good reason. The chicken is fresh, of good quality, and comes slathered in three different sauces: a sticky barbecue, a hot sauce–laced Buffalo and a sesame-soy glaze dubbed “Seoul Sassy.” While we love the latter, even unadorned, the chicken stands out for its juicy meat and crunchy black pepper–dotted crust. There’s also a decent bibimbap (best ordered with “marinated” vegetables, beef, an egg and brown rice), Korean-style burritos whose fresh vegetables benefit from a liberal slather of sweetish hot sauce, and skippable potstickers with innocuous fillings. But the chicken is the thing. At least it was the second time around.
Read moreMost popular Chicago restaurants
Longman & Eagle
At Longman & Eagle, there are old fashioneds, stirred slowly and carefully behind a dark, gorgeous bar. There are dozens of whiskeys for three bucks; the house favorite, Cabin Still, is mellow and gentle. And there are flannel shirts, and mustaches, and Grandma sweaters. A lot of them. But if you’ve gotten it into your head that eating at a restaurant owned in part by the Empty Bottle guys means that you’ll be systematically ignored by a waitstaff of smelly, aloof, strategically scruffed dudes and the waifish, Lycra-clad women who dig them, then you have seriously underestimated the genre. Truth is, the folks working here are some of the friendliest and most professional hipsters you’ll ever meet, and their graciousness isn’t lost on the neighborhood. Why else would I have been seated next to couples with babies and families with tweens? Yet, however welcoming and well-informed my server was, T.G.I. Friday’s this is not, and it was hard not to notice that those groups were ordering their fair share of burgers. And, not to start things off on the wrong foot, but the Kobe burger, like most Kobe burgers I’ve had, is nothing to get excited about. The meat’s mushy, the bun’s too big for the patty, and mine reeked of smoke from the bacon, despite the fact that the strips were scarcely cooked. (If those tweens were ordering it simply for the awesome beef fat–fried fries, though, bless their hearts.) To do this restaurant right, you’ve got to allow yourself organ meats. Get the bee
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The Dawson
Sometimes it can be hard to tell exactly what a restaurant is striving to do. While I know what I’m getting into when I go to, say, a steakhouse or a sushi restaurant, there’s a category of American restaurants that can be harder to classify. And then there are restaurants that can’t seem to classify themselves. The Dawson, the new restaurant from owners Billy Lawless (Henri and the Gage) and Branko Palikuca, opened in October with an all-star line-up: chef Rene De Leon, formerly of Next and Alinea; Clint Rogers, late of Henri, the general manager and leader of the beverage program; and Annemarie Sagoi, formerly of the Charleston, helming the cocktail program. And then De Leon left, less than a month after the restaurant opened. It never bodes well when the chef departs so swiftly, but sous chef Patrick Russ (who was most recently at Next) immediately took over as executive chef, then slowly started changing the menu, which once ranged from sausage pigs in a blanket and tofu spring rolls to Mughlai curry and wood-grilled whole fish. The changes have been subtle, as the pickled onion rings, pork tacos and curry remain. The burger got a little bit bigger and the toppings changed completely. The roast chicken was swapped for smoked chicken. There are a few more salads now. I’ve only eaten at the Dawson under Russ—I made my first visit, just for drinks, while De Leon was still there—and there were even more menu changes between my first and second dinners. But the changes have
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Ani
This Lincoln Park Japanese spot (and sister to Arami) wasn't where we expected to find one of the best bowls of ramen in the city. The tantanmen ramen can make you, albeit briefly, forget your winter woes. The broth, made with nutty sesame and chilis, shimmers with spicy oil and specks of green onion, and comes topped with a firework of cheveux d'ange (impossibly thin ribbons of red pepper). Crisp baby bok choy and tender pork meatballs float on top, and make sure to fish out the delicate bites of sweet kabocha squash that settled at the bottom of the murky sesame depths. Every bite is coated with a slick of chili oil, resulting in pleasant tongue-burning warmth. The cleanly cut sushi is another highlight, and the sake list has many well-chosen options.
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Southport Grocery and Café
Go ahead and believe the hype about the cupcake here: It’s moist, it’s substantial but not heavy, and the thick, sugary icing hides deep flavors of chocolate and vanilla. If you’re going to pick up a dozen, you may as well stick around for breakfast or lunch. A bright start is the sweet and savory French toast with rosemary-roasted ham. Later, try the albacore tuna melt with local butterkase cheese and green olive aioli. Eat up, but save room for one of those cupcakes.
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III Forks Prime Steakhouse
The Chicago location of this national chain anchors “Village Market,” a 105,000-square-foot complex in Lakeshore East whose grand scale and futuristic aesthetic are reminiscent of NYC’s Battery Park City. The restaurant seats hundreds of people, a good portion of them in a large, busy bar area. If you’re wondering whether III Forks makes a decent Manhattan, the answer is yes. And though it fumbles in other departments—wet crab cake, sub-par Caesar salad—the restaurant can indeed cook every identifiable bit of a 16-ounce USDA Prime New York strip to a perfect medium-rare. If that’s all you care about, Village Market welcomes you.
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Bohemian House
Restaurant review by Amy Cavanaugh All throughout my dinner at Bohemian House, I wondered why the restaurant had opened in River North and not, say, a hot dining ‘hood like Logan Square or Randolph Street. It’s not just that the space feels homey, with mismatched flowered china, couches for lounging, and a back bar made up of blue tables stacked on top of each other and mounted on the wall. The décor is a stark contrast to the slick restaurants all over the neighborhood, but it’s more because the food, from chef Jimmy Papadopoulos (formerly of Schaumburg steak house Sam & Harry’s), feels intensely personal, like he invited you into his house and made you dinner. This is serious, thought-provoking food, but Papadopoulos makes it approachable. For starters, it’s a treat to dine at a new restaurant that isn’t a big Italian place or a fried chicken joint. I love these things, obviously, but the world is a big place—there are so many more cuisines to celebrate and flavors and ingredients to try. Here, the menu melds Czech, Austrian and German influences into a cuisine that’s rich and deeply flavored with pickles and vinegars to cut through heavier dishes. Start with a drink. There’s a list of straightforward cocktails, like basil lemonade spiked with Pimm’s and an old-fashioned made with house vanilla-fig bourbon. Drink these while you’re perusing the menu, because while they’re pleasant, this is Central European food, and when you eat that area's food, you want to be drinking
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Maple & Ash
I didn’t expect to find myself in the middle of a clubby lounge in a steakhouse at midnight, but Maple & Ash inverts expectations. You enter the Gold Coast restaurant through a crowded bar, then take the elevator upstairs to a lively lounge before being whisked into the calm, elegant dining room. I also didn’t expect the chef's choice option to be called "I Don't Give a Fuck” or the “Baller” seafood tower, but I did expect classic steaks and sides from chef Danny Grant and exceptional wines from sommelier Belinda Chang. The dichotomy places Maple & Ash in line with other new steakhouses, like RPM Steak, Swift & Sons, STK and Boeufhaus, which update classic dishes while offering a cooler ambience than old-school spots. The meal begins with a round of freebies—a mini gin cocktail, citrus-cured olives, nubs of Hook’s cheddar and radishes with butter—to snack on while you peruse the menu. Seafood is a good choice to start. Pile refreshing salmon tartare atop pieces of fried phyllo dough and order coal-roasted seafood, available in a tower or individual pieces. Fat, sweet crab legs are rich and spicy from garlic butter and chili oil, and the half lobster with the surf and turf has the same presentation. It’s perfect, though the accompanying filet is mushy rather than tender. The bone-in rib-eye is a better choice, with a juicy center, mineral flavor and charred edge. Nearly every table in the dining room ends with sundae service, a $19 tower of ice cream toppings—hot fudge, salt
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Shaw’s Crab House
There’s nothing wrong with splurging on lobster or king crab and wanting to enjoy it in this institution’s formal dining room. We just prefer the freedom of getting down and dirty in the adjacent bar, where we can slurp fresh oysters , crack open crab claws and dunk our lobster tail in copious amounts of butter—all without earning a sideways glance from a stiff in a suit. The quality remains just as high (it’s all coming from the same kitchen), and there’s no pressure to splurge on wine. (All the better because we like to wash down our seafood with beer anyhow.)
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The Angry Crab
Before going to the Angry Crab, some advice: Wear clothes you don’t mind getting messy and bring lots of booze. The new BYOB Cajun-style seafood restaurant gets packed at dinnertime, so track down the server doubling as a host and get your name on the list. You’ll probably need to wait for 30 minutes to an hour, but once you’ve cracked open a beer, it’s not so bad. Especially because the wait is worth it. The menu is simple, with seafood like clams, crabs, lobsters and shrimp sold by the pound and tossed with your choice of spice—lemon pepper, garlic butter, Cajun or all three mixed together. While the lemon pepper didn’t offer much flavor, the luxurious garlic butter and spunky Cajun spice really complemented the seafood. Then choose a heat level. The second level offered slight spice, but the third made my lips burn, and that’s what I’d get again. Don’t miss the two-pound Dungeness crabs, which are packed with sweet meat. They’re a mess to eat, and you need to really work at them with crackers. The tender crawfish and plump shrimp were easier to unshell, and we dipped everything in excess garlic butter at the bottom of the plastic bag, which is how the food arrives to the table. There’s not much beyond seafood, though Cajun fries sated our hunger before we ordered, and steamed rice helped quell the spice. Some post–Angry Crab advice: Take a shower, as my hair smelled like garlic the next day. Gross, yes, but it just reminded me how much I can’t wait to return. Vitals A
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A10
Restaurant review by Amy Cavanaugh Until last month, I had only been to Hyde Park three times. The neighborhood is not exactly a bastion of great dining, and there wasn’t much to lure me to the area. That’s about to change. In November, Matthias Merges (Yusho, Billy Sunday) expanded beyond Logan Square and opened A10, helmed by Billy Sunday chef John Vermiglio. Merges, a former Charlie Trotter’s chef, will also be opening a second Yusho in the neighborhood in the next few months. And then the Longman & Eagle team is opening the Promontory (at some point…it was slated to open last spring, so I won’t get too excited yet) at 1539 East 53rd Street. If A10 is any indication, Hyde Park is soon going to be a restaurant destination. The new spot, which is named for a road that runs through France and Italy, straddles the cuisine of the two countries. “The concept is roughly based on our experiences traveling through those areas,” Merges told us. “We’ve been traveling off and on through those areas since, I would say, 1995 or so. I’ve been maybe six to eight times.” That inspiration results in a menu that’s available at both the bar, which is warm and cozy and has a casual neighborhood atmosphere, and the main dining room, where colorful tapestries hang on the white brick walls, Francoise Hardy plays and the tables are mostly filled with dates. Large windows in both rooms are perfect for watching snow fall outside. Whether you choose to sit in the bar or restaurant, you’ll want
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Scooter’s Frozen Custard
Walk into Scooter’s and disregard the hot dogs, Italian ice and anything else that doesn’t contain the words frozen and custard. Order a Boston shake, and quiver in awe as the towering milkshake topped with hot fudge and whipped cream is handed over. As you taste how dense, thick, buttery and rich the custard is, you’ll soon be on your way to a full stomach and an ice-cream headache. And it’ll be worth it.
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DMK Burger Bar
If you’re going to open a burger joint in this country, you’d better have either (a) a burger good enough to develop a cult following or (b) enough of a brand identity to catch up to a 50-year-old redheaded clown. DMK Burger Bar has neither of these. The burger is good but not great (more on that in a bit), leaving the fries and shakes to pick up the slack. And the restaurant’s character is at once nonexistent and insultingly cocky. Nonexistent goes to the dark shoebox of a room, a leave-and-you’ll-forget-it Lakeview lemming with a Jack FM–style playlist turned up to 11. Cocky goes to owners Michael Kornick and David Morton. Kornick has been talking a big game on his “chef-driven burger joint,” recently telling BurgerBusiness.com that he thinks it would be great to “have a half a dozen burger places doing two-and-a-half million dollars each and not have to be constantly evolving.” A chef who’s tired of evolving and ready to sit back and count cash is nothing new, but when steakhouse scion Morton spent five minutes of my first visit talking down to my table because we dared ask if all of the burgers were prepared well-done, it appeared that cockiness was a company policy. His diatribe included snippets such as “You ever been to Shake Shack or In-N-Out? This is the way it’s done there,” and “Shake Shack owner Danny Meyer is a close personal friend, and he’s had this burger and loves it.” So since Morton brought it up, and since Kornick is looking to replicate this place like ra
Read moreThe Cupcake Gallery (CLOSED)
Darius Williams’s cupcakes don’t taste even half as bad as they sometimes appear, and that’s a blessing, because the ones topped with grayish Hershey’s kisses and splattered with Hershey’s Syrup gave us serious pause. (Frankly, so did the disheveled look of the store.) In general, though, these cakes are moist and tender (though sometimes spongy), and whether traditional (red velvet) or dubious (orange Creamsicle), the flavors deliver exactly the taste they promise.
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Fat Rice
Let’s knock this out right away: You’re getting the arroz gordo. It’s a spectacle to behold, a paella-like thicket in which sausage, pork, clams and prawns are piled on a bed of rice—a dish worthy of sharing its name (which translates to fat rice) with the restaurant itself. Tackle the prawns first: Crack their shells and disengage their plump insides. Now the clams. There might be a stray sandy one in there, but the rest have integrity. Next, a tea egg (boiled, then cracked and steeped in tea and soy sauce, such that the liquid seeps in, marbling the exterior): It’s fragrant and saturated with seasoning. And now the unsightly hunks of pork, a disappointing mass of tough and chewy meat. Just when the arroz gordo becomes almost senseless, there’s an olive: an acidic reprieve. And then there’s the soul of the dish, crisped black at the pot’s edges, packed with nuggets of Chinese sausage and pickled raisins that burst with sweet, tangy juices. I’m talking about the rice. There’s something about big, conglomerate dishes like this—the fat rice, the low-country boil at Carriage House, the moqueca at La Sirena Clandestina—that makes them immensely pleasurable to eat. They’re the opposite of faddish: They’re dishes with long histories, things you don’t have to think about to enjoy. This sense of history and of place is what makes Fat Rice’s approach so successful: Owners Abraham Conlon and Adrienne Lo (formerly the duo behind the supper club X-Marx) are cooking the food of Macau,
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Tanta
“Is there a rule that at a certain hour every River North restaurant has to change their soundtrack?” my dining companion asked me as club-like beats started playing in the background at Tanta right at 9pm. At first glance, the new Peruvian restaurant feels like just another River North restaurant—a huge colorful mural on the wall lends a festive vibe, there’s a long bar where guys in suits are drinking vodka on the rocks and the restrooms are located downstairs. But once you move away from the bar and start eating and ordering off the cocktail menu, things at Tanta feel different. It’s more serious, more delicious, and the crowd skews older, with most tables filled with several generations. Tanta is the third American restaurant from Peruvian celebrity chef Gastón Acurio and his first in Chicago. Acurio has more than 30 restaurants around the world, including La Mar in San Francisco (a New York location of La Mar closed last month). He also has Lima’s Astrid y Gaston, which is on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants List. It’s also his third Tanta—there are already outposts in Lima and Barcelona. It may be because of this that Tanta is strong right out of the gate—service is prompt and knowledgeable and despite a few minor quibbles, chef Jesus Delgado’s kitchen is turning out dishes that are nuanced and thoughtful. Peruvian cuisine draws on influences from cultures that emigrated to the country, especially Japan and China, and Tanta’s menu reflects flavors and techniques from
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The Bristol
By the time I made my first visit to the Bristol, I’d gone online and read its menu, reread its menu and then read it again. To say it had a pull on me would not be accurate; it was more that it seemed to know me, as if the simple language of it was making an appeal to my specific weaknesses for fat, cheese, pickles and bread. I don’t think I was the only one who felt this way. When I watched the dining room fill up and saw people lining the walls, impatiently sucking down ginger-spiked cava sangria as they waited for my seat to be vacant, I got the feeling a lot of people have been waiting to get their hands on this food. It should be noted that at least some of the people I saw waiting were shunning seats at one of the two communal tables and holding out for a table of their own. Me, I scanned the room and saw that the individual tables were arranged in such proximity to each other that the communal tables actually seemed roomier. And as I soon learned, there’s an added benefit to a communal table: It’s easier to scope out dishes before committing to ordering them. I couldn’t help but notice that, one night, after my companion and I swooned over the combination of crisp, acidic fruit and creamy Manchego in the heirloom apple salad, the couple across the communal table from us ordered it, too. Same thing with the fried sardines, which they must have overheard us rhapsodize about, and for the crispy chicken thigh (pictured), which that night came with warm strands of shredde
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La Sirena Clandestina
The short review of La Sirena Clandestina is as simple as these 12 words: Go. Late night. Order the Papi Chulo cocktail. And the moqueca. Consume. It can be that simple, if you let it. Both the Papi and the moqueca represent the best of this restaurant without falling into some of its pitfalls. The Papi is made with tequila, Aperol and Yellow Chartreuse, and to drink it is to progress through all three of these flavors, one by one, with every sip. (You’ll think there’s grapefruit in there, too, but no—it’s all in the nose, coming from the garnish.) The moqueca, a seafood stew sporting a briny, tomato-based broth, is a fabulous thing: a filet of sea bass flaking apart in the center of the bowl, creamy mussels hanging out around the edges, and two sweet, meaty head-on shrimp. That each of these are cooked perfectly is a testament to the experience and expertise of chef-owner John Manion, who in the past few years has taken over so many restaurant kitchens (Old Oak Tap, Goose Island, Branch 27) that TOC once called the guy a “fixer.” (He didn’t like that very much.) A place for Manion to call home has been a long time coming, and at La Sirena he’s built himself a very attractive house. The walls are painted a dark blue-gray; netted light fixtures hang above the bar. The details—the striped dish-towel napkins (will these never get old?), the specials menu made to look as if it were handwritten (à la Nightwood)—have been attended to, and the payoff is that La Sirena is a place y
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Summer House Santa Monica
Waiting for a table at a restaurant isn’t usually much fun, but at Summer House Santa Monica, the wait is the best part. On a recent Friday night, a night so cold my date and I took a cab instead of taking the train and then walking 10 minutes, we headed into the Lincoln Park restaurant, which immediately whisks you away to summery Southern California. A bakery case greets you as soon as you walk inside, and it’s filled with cookies, Rice Krispie treats, granola bars and other baked treats. To the left of the bakery case is Summer House, a bright, welcoming space, with greenery suspended from high ceilings, a countdown of how many days it is until summer on the wall, and a buzzing energy. To the right is Stella Barra, a sister pizzeria that’s dark and looks like a tacked-on sports bar. Both are Lettuce Entertain You spots operated by chef-partner Jeff Mahin, who helms Do-Rite Donuts and has two Stella Barra locations in California. When the quoted time for a table was 45 minutes, we decided to head over to Stella Barra for a drink and wait it out. While Summer House was packed, we easily grabbed a pair of comfortable bar seats and ordered a round of drinks—a Negroni sbagliato, fizzy from prosecco, and the Heart of Another, a draft cocktail made with rum, lime, pineapple and maraschino—both perfectly fine, but not terribly exciting. As the wait ticked upwards of 45 minutes, we checked on our table (they told us they were really busy and overwhelmed) and then things started
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Beatrix
When I first glimpse the menu at Beatrix, I’m confused and, frankly, a bit skeptical. Chili-chocolate salmon with corn tacos butts up against a snack of potato salad deviled eggs. Hummus (served with naan, rather than pita) is coming out of the same kitchen window as a hamachi crudo with citrus that looks like it’s straight from a sushi bar. Could a menu that just seems cobbled together from every food trend of the past five years possibly be good? Somehow, it is. The latest offering from Chicago restaurant empire Lettuce Entertain You, Beatrix builds a menu mostly of dishes from the Lettuce test kitchen that couldn’t find a home. These orphans were so delicious that Lettuce boss Rich Melman decided to create a place just for them. Despite the restaurant’s slogan, “taste over trend,” in reality each dish could come straight from a food trend roundup. Kale salad! Deviled eggs! Vaguely Mexican flavored fish! Savory bread pudding! Quinoa! Each craze has swept the restaurant world in the last few years, and they’re all together at Beatrix, like an awkward family reunion of has-beens. But as I dig into each dish, I realize that there was a reason that each trend became, well, a trend. Even better, each dish has a spin that makes it seem a little bit new. Take that kale salad, called the “Emerald City Salad” in Lettuce-speak. Instead of the tired, obligatory kale dish that’s on every menu in Chicago at the moment, this kale salad is fresh and crunchy. The leaves are mixed with c
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New England Seafood Company Fish Market
Part fish market, part restaurant, New England Seafood Company serves up the best lobster roll in town. It's simply dressed, with a tiny bit of mayo, plus butter on the side. The crab roll and chowders are also worth ordering, and you can take seafood home for later.
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Boeufhaus
The restaurant is called Boeufhaus and its tagline is “eat carnivorously,” which might mislead you into thinking that this is merely a palace of beef, where vegetarians and pescatarians will be left out. You’d be wrong, since the French and German-inflected steakhouse, led by chef Brian Ahern, gives as much thought to its non-meat dishes. The menu is blessedly focused, and you begin with a mix of snacks and starters. A firework of fresh crudités are beautifully presented in a glass dish and served on ice alongside a creamy Green Goddess dressing. Thin slices of salmon are drizzled with ginger oil, then decorated with pickled mushrooms, chilies and crispy skin. A velvety polenta comes topped with nubs of escargot, a dish I’ll dream about come cold temperatures. A foray into meat led us to the fleischschnacka, pork sausage pinwheels wrapped up in pasta. The starters are so ridiculously good that it’s a little let down when the meal starts to falter. There are steaks, of course, like the 55-day aged ribeye, pricey for the area at $60 (though not for the city), which is well-salted with a nice funk. But it, and the seared halibut, were served lukewarm, while the bread crumbs atop the cauliflower gratin were burned. Desserts change frequently, which is good, since the tiny apple tart felt like an afterthought. Still, there’s a ton to like here, including the delightful server, who knowledgeably guided us through the wine list. Boeufhaus isn’t perfect, but I’m already thinking
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Balena
Between the warmth of the room and the compelling simplicity of Chris Pandel’s food, there is something especially comfortable about Balena, a collaboration between the Bristol and the BOKA Restaurant Group. Settle in with a few amaro cocktails (our pick: the Montenegro), share a pizza (mortadella with chili oil), don’t miss the smoked mackerel or gorgeous tagliolini nero, an uni, crab and chile pasta, and wrap things up with the tiramisu (a light and sophisticated take on the staple). Finally, fall asleep on a banquette. With any luck, nobody will wake you up.
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Slurping Turtle
Takashi Yagihashi’s foray into River North is the chef’s attempt to capture the taste of his noodle-slurping childhood in Japan. Based on the highlights of the menu—hamachi tartare in delicate little taro-root tacos, tan tan men ramen weighted with herb-packed pork meatballs, fried ramen noodles you toss with a dollop of spicy mustard for a dish called Chiyan Pon, and joyful desserts like softball-sized cream puffs—Yagihashi may have had the best childhood ever.
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Au Cheval
If Au Cheval weren’t such a bizarre and, frankly, difficult restaurant at which to eat, you’d find me there every Friday night for the matzo ball soup. Pre-Cheval, the most I ever wanted from a matzo ball soup was glistening pools of schmaltz. Post-Cheval, I demand it not only glisten but also be stocked with roasted carrots and cippolini onions, sophisticated complements to an enormous matzo ball that is more accurately described as a matzo souffle. This soup is a rarity on Cheval’s menu, but not because of how it tastes. Perfectly executed, endlessly cravable food is in every corner of this place. The chopped chicken liver—another great Jewish dish Brendan Sodikoff’s “diner” is elevating—goes on thick challah with soft salted butter, a combination that is (sorry, but I’ve got to be a drama queen here) so delicious it’s devastating. And the beef stew is exemplary for both its supple texture and silky sauce. Where the soup stands out is its lightness: You can actually start a meal with it (it shares this distinction only with two salads). It’s also a dish you can eat in its entirety without feeling as if you’ve taken a shower in hot beef fat. This cannot be said for much of the rest of the menu. The omelette boasts a smooth, puffy, unblemished surface that looks like butter, but also literally tastes like butter, so much so that it’s hard to take more than one bite. A ham “sandwich” with cheese fondue is not a sandwich at all, but rather a crock of melted cheese dotted with
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Pavilion - The Langham, Chicago
Located on the second floor, its soaring ceiling andmarvelous views of the city make Pavilion an elegant space to unwind and converse with a glowing fireplace and grand piano as a backdrop. Pavilion is home to an Afternoon with Wedgwood, a traditional tea service that first debuted at The Langham, London in 1865. An afternoon with Wedgwood includes proprietary Langham teas and an array of sweet and savory bites. All are served with traditional displays and flourish. Expect local talented pianists during weekend afternoon tea.
Read moreBy neighborhood
Best restaurants in Humboldt Park
Dig into a gigantic Cuban sandwich or grab a scoop of ice cream at some of the best restaurants in Humboldt Park
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Best Andersonville restaurants
Andersonville is best known for its Swedish roots, but the neighborhood's culinary scene is incredibly diverse
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Best restaurants in the West Loop
Once strictly an industrial area, the West Loop has been transformed into Chicago's hottest dining hood
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The best Lincoln Park restaurants
There's both cheap eats for the college kids and a three-star Michelin dining destination
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Best restaurants in South Loop
Here's where to eat near the museum campus, McCormick Place and Soldier Field.
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Best restaurants in Bridgeport
As one of Chicago’s most diverse neighborhoods, Bridgeport is home to a wide-ranging variety of great restaurants.
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Best restaurants in Chinatown
It's not all Chinese food—you can also find a ramen spot making its own noodles in the basement
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Best restaurants in Evanston
Most of Evanston's best restaurants are located right off CTA stops, so you won't have to go out of your way to eat well
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What's the deal with online reviews where you can't screen by ratings or neighborhoods?
How do you look up restaurants in individual neighborhoods?