The 10 Top Chicago Restaurants

& these are expensive restaurants, but are the best
dining in Chicago

When it comes to great restaurants, Chicago has it all and some of the top Chicago restaurants in the country. In all, there are over 5,500 in Chicago and this number is growing all the time.

A restaurant town in the truest sense of the term, Chicago extends far beyond our delicious Chicago pizza, beef sandwiches, hot dogs, and midwestern steaks.

Thanks to small vendors and legends like the original Gino’s East, Gene and Georgetti, and Pizzeria Uno, those respective cuisine types have long been represented all over town.

Today, visitors can sample great food prepared by some of the world’s most talented chefs at places like the West Loop’s Blackbird and Tru in Steeterville.

Of all the restaurants that you will find when you are traveling around Chicago, the top 10 restaurants are the best of the best.

These Chicago restaurants are once-in-a-lifetime dining experiences, just be prepared to get out that gold card and suit jacket if you want to sample some of their amazing and unique cuisines.

Everest

  • Everest is one of the country’s premier dining rooms and is located on the 40th floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange. Chef/proprietor J. Joho’s world-renowned cuisine and award-winning wine list have earned Everest right to be noticed internationally.Chef J. Joho’s seven course tasting menu can feature things like medallion of venison or warm Maine lobster. The service and prices are very high, so be prepared to spend some money here.Address: 440 S. LaSalle St.
    Phone #:
     312-663-8920
    Cuisine:
     French

Les Nomades

  • This continues to be a favorite Chicago restaurant for fine traditional dining. The setting, service, presentation, and food are all world class.Everything I ever had there was delicious. The menu changes frequently, so make sure that you check their website for what they are serving the day that you go.Les Nomades is located near some of Chicago’s most distinctive hotels, finest shopping and world-class performance venues, so after you finish your meal you can experience some of the best things Chicago has to offer.The dining room is so sophisticated and has the atmosphere of a private club. To celebrate special occasions, Les Nomades still can’t be beat.Address: 222 E. Ontario St. (between Fairbanks Ct & Mc Clurg Ct)
    Phone #:
     312-649-9010
    Cuisine:
     French

Tru

  • Tru was voted one of the most popular places to dine in Chicago by Zagat Survey. The Chef Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand perform their amazing culinary skills in a “theatre style” kitchen. Tru is, indeed, a “true” experience.When I last went everything was truly amazing, it took them less than two minutes to sit us at a beautiful table, and within three minutes we had not one but two waiters taking our drinks order, and serving us.We selected our napkin color (strange, but cool), and had a great three hour dining experience.We opted for the tasting menu and each dish was flawless. The ribeye with the grilled foie gras stood out as the most memorable for myself. The place does require a jacket; however it doesn’t come across as overly stuffy or pretentious.Address: 676 N. Saint Clair St.
    Phone #:
     312-202-0001
    Cuisine:
     French

Sixteen

  • Sixteen is located on the 16th floor of the Trump International Hotel & Tower and features elegant, modern-American cuisine. While you eat, it is all complemented by sweeping lake, river, and city views.Chef Brunacci offers a tasting menu that changes daily which is one reason why this place is so unique. Sixteen is one of the most elegant and best looking restaurants in the Chicago area.Address: 16th floor of the Trump International Hotel & Tower, 401 N. Wabash
    Phone #:
     312-588-8151
    Cuisine:
     Contemporary American

Stetson’s Chop House and Bar

  • A beautiful Chicago-style restaurant featuring steaks, seafood, and chops, which the Chicago Tribune has rated as “One of the Top Ten Steak Houses in the city.”The dining atmosphere was great with highly polished hardwood floors, rich wood paneling and embossed tin ceiling panels with a turn-of-the-century style.While you eat you can also enjoy the live entertainment and choose from a variety of fine wines.Address: Hyatt Regency Chicago – Lobby level 151 E. Wacker Drive
    Phone #:
     312-239-4491

Avenues

  • Stunning fine wines, cuisine, and great service are what Avenues is all about. Chef Curtis Duffy is one of the most creative chefs in Chicago that makes spectacular New American cuisine and brings a wealth of experience with him from Alinea Where he was Chef de Cuisine for Grant Achat’s great restaurant.His amazing dishes, fine wine list, and great service create a truly wonderful dining experience. Previously awarded AAA 5 diamonds and rated 4 stars by Chicago Magazine and Chicago Sun Times, Avenues features thoughtful, progressive cuisine prepared in an exhibition kitchen and is defiantly worth dining at.Address: 108 E. Superior
    Phone #:
     312-573-6754
    Cuisine:
     Contemporary American

L2O

  • A modern seafood place to dine located in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. Divided into a number of distinct spaces, L2O offers guests a sense of variety of dining options.The dining room features a four-course prix fixe menu, a twelve course seasonal tasting menu, and a ten course luxury tasting menu.A lounge presents cocktails and a separate menu while the Tatami Room, an elevated secluded dining area with seats and tables sunken into the floor, will evoke a Japanese dining experience.Chef Gras fierce attention to detail is felt throughout, as even bread is made in-house as are staples like better or yogurt.Address: 2300 N. Lincoln Park West
    Phone #:
     773-868-0002
    Cuisine:
     Seafood/Contemporary

Alinea

  • The experience begins at the doorstep when one enters into a post-post-modern, bare set-up, evocative of a museum of modern art. Tables are over-sized and widely separated. All of this is to focus our attention on the food and nothing else.The dinner, composed of at least twenty dishes for the Tour menu, is concocted with dozens of components and in an order and a fashion revealing the art of Chef Grant Achatz.Chef Grant Achatz constantly invents new preparations, changing combinations that he dubs with a single word, such as “Yuba” for shrimp, miso, mint consommé or “Bison” for a meat plate with red cabbage and eggplant scented with rosemary. In this whirlwind of creativity, the dessert simply named “Chocolate” must be a mainstay given its uniqueness.Chef Grant Achatz unrolls a plastic-coated cloth on your table and pours the ingredients of his chocolate dessert over the cloth, then gathers and kneads coconut, menthol and hyssop with the hot cocoa.It is the most sophisticated simple “pastry” you can think of; the most spectacular as well. You may like it or you may not, but do come to witness what could be a milestone and a landmark in gastronomy.Address: 1723 N. Halsted St.
    Phone #:
     312-867-0110
    Cuisine:
     Contemporary American

Charlie Trotter’s

  • Innovative cooking & impeccable service and one of the best restaurants in the world in my opinion. Chef Trotter is the author of 11 cookbooks, subject of two management books, and is the host of the award winning PBS cooking series, The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter.Address: 816 W. Armitage Ave.
    Phone #:
     773-248-6228
    Cuisine:
     American Contemporary

Naha

  • Naha is a partnership between culinary inclined cousins Carrie and Michael Nahabedian. Michael handles the business side of the operations, leaving Chef Carrie to create dishes that reflect her Armenian roots as well as the time she spent cooking at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills.The menus changes seasonally, but expect classic preparations and Mediterranean flavors carried aloft to dizzying heights.The atmosphere is very comforting as well – which features walnut floors and Mediterranean-inspired deep blues and a 35-seat lounge area is dominated by a concrete and leather bar.At lunch, however, go for the burger, which is not common for such high prices dining areas, but named one of the city’s best by the Chicago Tribune.Address: 500 N. Clark St.
    Phone #:
     312-321-6242
    Cuisine:
     American Contemporary