The best places to eat and drink in Chicago

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Here are all of the Tribune Food and Dining team’s guides to different food and restaurants throughout Chicago.

Jump to each feature:

The 25 best new restaurants in Chicago

In their first two years as our food critics, Louisa Chu and Nick Kindelsperger have charted the ascent of a number of new restaurants, from brick-and-mortarless virtual concepts making a splash (Funeral Potatoes) to some already boasting Michelin stars (Esmé, Claudia, Kasama). As we considered how best to tackle this Best Restaurants project, we realized this cohort of restaurants launched in the pandemic had quickly entered the ranks of the city’s best — so why not celebrate them on their own?

While our critics will keep whittling away at the list of best restaurants, both old and new, here are the 25 best new restaurants, with a fairly generous “new” defined as opening in 2020 or later.

Critics’ Choice Food Awards: From pizza to pho, our picks for the best in Chicago dining for 2023

For our 2023 Critics’ Choice Food Awards, what stood out the most wasn’t necessarily the foods or drinks themselves (although, don’t get us wrong, those are decidedly award-worthy all on their own) but the spirit of the people who make that magic happen, day in and day out. In a grueling industry still finding its way through the pandemic, their stories stay with us, long after the last bite of the night.

Our eight winners this year span far and wide — from fantastic pho in a suburban strip in Bloomingdale, to fine dining redefining the Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. But they all have something in common: A drive to put some good into the world, whether it be through a humble slice of pizza or by raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to help people in Ukraine, Ethiopia or their own backyard.

Find the full list of winners here.

• Food Awards map: All the winners from 2011 to now
• Critics’ Choice Food Awards: Chicago’s best new restaurant, barbecue and more winners for 2022

Readers’ Choice Food Awards 2023: Your picks for Best New Restaurant, Chicago-Style Barbecue and more

In this year’s Readers’ Choice Food Awards, nearly 600 readers submitted nominations over a weeklong period in March. From there, we selected five finalists in each category (10 for Best New Restaurant), and nearly 9,000 votes poured in during the final half of the month. Readers showed their support from Chicago neighborhoods such as Washington Heights and Logan Square, to suburban Evanston and St. Charles and beyond.

Here are our 12 winners of the Readers’ Choice Food Awards.

• Readers’ Choice Food Awards 2022: Andros Taverna wins Best Restaurant, plus winners of Best Tacos, Burgers and more

Tribune’s Holiday Cookie Contest

There’s something undeniably special about cookies and our time-honored tradition of sharing them, particularly during the holidays. Here are the three winners of our 2023 contest, plus their award-winning recipes.

• Tribune’s Holiday Cookie Contest 2022: Get the winning recipes
• Meet the winners of the Tribune’s 2021 Holiday Cookie Contest
• Five years of Chicago Tribune cookie contest recipes - all in one place
• Get the cookbook: Holiday Cookies: Prize-Winning Family Recipes from the Chicago Tribune

Chicago’s 2023 Michelin star restaurants

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Chef/owner John Shields, right, celebrates Smyth being awarded a third Michelin star with his staff on Nov. 8, 2023. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

The 2023 Michelin Guide Ceremony on Nov. 7, 2023, gave Smyth a third Michelin star, Daisies received a green star for sustainability, and newcomers to the list, Indienne and Atelier, each received a Michelin star. Atelier’s chef Christian Hunter was one of the recipients of the Michelin Young Chef Award.

Chicago restaurants that maintained their one-star rating are Boka, EL Ideas, Elske, Esmé, Galit, Kasama, Mako, Next, Omakase Yume, Porto, Schwa, Sepia, Temporis and Topolobampo. Chicago restaurants with two stars still are Ever, Moody Tongue and Oriole. Josh Perlman of Giant earned one of Michelin’s Outstanding Service awards this year, while Monica Casillas-Rios of Elske won for exceptional cocktails and Alex Ring of Sepia won the Sommelier Award.

James Beard Awards

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Kasama's Genie Kwon and Tim Flores pose for a portrait after winning Best Chef in the Great Lakes region during the James Beard Awards at the Lyric Opera House on June 5, 2023. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

The James Beard Foundation Awards returned to Chicago in June after a two-year hiatus, celebrating the best and brightest of the culinary world on a national scale.

• James Beard 2023 watch: Obelix, Virtue among nominees, plus a solid Midwest showing ahead of June ceremony

Iconic Chicago foods and drinks

Here’s a list of our most-loved essential experiences in Chicago food and drink.

See how many you’ve checked off, and start making a list of the rest.

Guide: A Chicago food critic’s perfect day in Chinatown

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Lanterns are strung south of the Chinatown Gate in the 2200 block of South Wentworth Avenue on Jan. 12, 2023, in Chicago. Originally built in 1975, the gate was adopted from an ancient architectural gateway symbolizing Chinatowns worldwide. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

You’ll find our guide to Chicago’s Chinatown deeply rooted in food memories. It’s an insider’s itinerary on what to eat, drink and do around the neighborhood.

So happy Year of the Rabbit, and let’s eat.

Best barbecue

The fact is simple: Chicago has a dearly underrated barbecue scene. While we’re still not on most shortlists of the top national barbecue destinations, there’s no question the local barbecue options have gotten more varied and tempting.

Our barbecue foundation remains the Black-owned operations on the South Side, where many pitmasters use aquarium-style smokers, so called for their rectangular shape and glass sides. Here, the rib tip and hot link combo reigns supreme. Chicago has its own unique style of barbecue, and this is it.

Here are the nine best barbecue joints in the city, plus a list of five great suburban options.

• Column: Chicago’s barbecue revolution is here — if only the city would remove the red tape
• The fascinating history of Chicago barbecue, told in Tribune coverage from 1850s to present day

The best bagels

A wave of city chefs have revolutionized Chicago’s bagel scene. Some are East Coast expats determined to re-create the bagels they grew up eating. Others are dough obsessives, who have spent years researching how to craft perfect bagels every single time.

The best burgers

We’d rather have the occasional astonishing burger than numerous mediocre ones. That’s what this list is all about.

Here are the 25 best burgers in Chicago.

The best pizza

Instead of slinging the same standard pie, Chicagoland restaurants are embracing the freedom that pizza provides, from specializing in different regional styles to experimenting with completely different cuisines.

Here are seven great spots where you should place your next takeout order, whether it be deep-dish or tavern-cut.

• New York-style pizza in Chicago

The best Italian beef

For those unfamiliar with Chicago’s Italian beef sandwich, it initially can sound like an enigma. It’s sort of a roast beef sandwich, albeit one where beef broth plays an integral role. This makes it similar in spirit to a French dip, but it’s both more extravagant and less polite. No one would ever confuse the two.

Here are the city’s 20 best.

• How to order an Italian beef: Dry, wet or dipped?
• The ultimate guide to Chicago’s Italian beef
• Cheeseteak’s not-so-secret Chicago cousin: cheese on Italian beef

Best tacos

The more tacos we eat in Chicago, the less confident we feel about declaring the best. How can anyone honestly know the answer, with so many taquerias in so many neighborhoods and suburbs?

That hasn’t stopped us from trying — here are 31 of the city’s greatest.

• 1 food critic, 40 burritos: Finding the best in Chicago

Best corned beef sandwiches

Can you imagine St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago, a city that dyes its river emerald green, without corned beef sandwiches?

The cross cultural connections can clearly be seen, from Irish American pubs, to new school delis, to Black-owned businesses. This year, three new sandwiches join the ranks of the best corned beef in Chicago.

The best breweries for out-of-town visitors

When visiting from out of town, time is fleeting. Choices must be made. While it’s difficult to point someone toward just one of the Chicago area’s 220 or so breweries, there are a few answers, depending on the beer drinker in question.

Here are picks for the “one Chicago brewery to hit” when there’s only time for one.

The best canned cocktails

Of the dozens of ready-to-drink cocktails on shelves, here are the ones to savor — and those to avoid.

• 7 Malört cocktails that prove Chicago’s notoriously bitter liqueur can actually taste good
• It’s alcohol-free wines, tequila and beer — oh, my — as Chicago’s NA scene takes flight
• The 12 best new nonalcoholic drinks

Wrigleyville bars: Your 2023 guide to all 45 spots around Wrigley Field

Here’s our list of every alcohol-slinging spot in Wrigleyville, from top taco joints brushing up against the Friendly Confines to the perfect sports bars to a couple of swanky new cocktail bars.

Locations are sorted by distance from the Wrigley marquee.

• New food options for Chicago White Sox games in 2023

Patio and rooftop guide

Whether it’s your first summer in Chicago or your 40th, little feels quite as satisfying as that first breezy patio hang. But with such a wealth of options, how does one find the perfect patio?

We’ve got you covered.

food@chicagotribune.com

Big screen or home stream, takeout or dine-in, Tribune writers are here to steer you toward your next great experience. Sign up for your free weekly Eat. Watch. Do. newsletter here.