Where Chicago Eats When It Isn't Eating Pizza

The wood fire on 95th Street has been burning for the better part of a century, and the man behind the window hands you a paper sack of smoked chub so hot you have to juggle it back to the car. Chicago's deep-dish and encased-meat reputation is honestly earned, but it accounts for maybe two per cent of what is actually cooking here: a Filipino bakery holding two Michelin stars, a Keralan kitchen in Avondale, tandoor grills on Devon Avenue, carnitas sold by the pound in Pilsen. This is a week of eating built around those places instead, with the door policies, closing days and group realities stated plainly so you don't waste a meal. For wider planning, the Chicago guide covers the rest of the trip.

Start with the bakery, not the tasting menu

Kasama (Ukrainian Village) was raised to two Michelin stars in the 2026 guide and is the first Filipino restaurant anywhere in the world to hold one. That sentence has consequences: the evening tasting menu is ticketed through Resy, effectively caps at small parties, runs into several hundred dollars a head with pairings, and is the kind of booking people set an alarm for roughly twelve weeks out. If you are reading this with a trip already booked, that table is almost certainly gone.

The good news is that the same kitchen runs a bakery counter by day, no reservations, $8-20 a head, and it stands on its own. Counter service means you queue, you point, you carry your own tray. Seating is tight: comfortable for two, workable for three, awkward the moment you turn up as a group of six expecting to sit together. Go on a weekday morning rather than a weekend, go early, and be prepared to eat standing or walk your coffee and pastry a block into the residential streets. For most visitors this is the realistic way into one of the most decorated kitchens in the country, and it costs less than a taxi from the airport.

Pasta, mezze and the middle of the table

Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio (West Loop) has been open ten years and is still one of the hardest reservations in Chicago, which tells you something about how rarely a pasta room stays this good. The cacio whey pepe (corkscrew fusilloni, the whey doing the work that cream would elsewhere) is the dish people plan travel around. Pastas run roughly $25-35. Resy takes parties up to eight without special pleading; anything larger is a phone call and a conversation. Note the closures: no service Sunday or Monday. That single fact wrecks more itineraries than the difficulty of the booking does, so pin it to a Tuesday-to-Saturday slot before you build the rest of your week.

Galit (Lincoln Park) has held a Michelin star since 2022 under James Beard winner Zachary Engel, and it is the rare starred restaurant where nothing arrives on its own plate in front of one person. The set menu is family-style and priced per head, so the food scales with the table: dips and breads and skewers landing in the middle, everybody reaching. That makes it the easiest starred meal in the city to eat as a group of friends rather than as a hushed pair. Large parties and full buy-outs run through a separate events arm rather than the standard booking line, so email rather than click if you are more than a normal table.

Andros Taverna (Logan Square) is where I would send anyone who has been told to eat Greek food on the Greektown tourist strip. It was opened by Michelin-starred chef Doug Psaltis, it has been named repeatedly among the best Greek restaurants in the United States, and the menu is mezze-led, $12-20 a plate, with whole fish priced by weight. Ordering is the fun part: a spread of small dishes, then one fish for the table, filleted and shared. The room takes parties of eight and up, and there is a dog-friendly patio that turns into the best seat in the house in warm weather.

Rooms built for a crowd

Chicago is unusually good at feeding ten people at once, and three rooms do it better than the rest.

Sun Wah BBQ (Uptown) has been going since 1987 and remains the best-value banquet in the city. Cantonese barbecue hangs in the window, lacquered duck and crisp pork belly, and the three-course duck dinner comes in around $70 for the whole table, carved at your elbow, the carcass going back to the kitchen to return as soup and fried rice. Round tables, package menus for large parties, reservations taken. Two things will save your evening: order the duck at the moment you book, because it sells out, and check the day before you travel, because the kitchen closes Thursdays.

Lao Sze Chuan (Chinatown) is the default when the group is large, the plan has collapsed and it is already half past ten. Big round tables, a menu long enough to cover every eater at it, mains around $10-20, and a kitchen that runs until near midnight every day of the week. Order the dry chilli chicken (a mound of fried chicken buried in a drift of dried chillies you are meant to pick through, not eat) plus twice-cooked pork and a plate of dumplings, and you have fed six people for the price of two mains in the West Loop.

The Publican (Fulton Market, in the old meatpacking district) is the easiest big-table booking in Chicago, because the room was designed communal from the start: long shared benches, high ceilings, a private dining room and a proper events operation behind it. Farm-to-table pork and charcuterie is the point, with a serious raw bar in the middle of it, oysters by the piece, mains roughly $30-45. Each September and October the place turns Bavarian for an Oktoberfest run, which is either exactly what you want or a reason to book a different week.

Devon Avenue, and a coastline in Avondale

Khan B.B.Q. (Devon Avenue, West Ridge) is the benchmark stop on the city's South Asian strip and makes no attempt to be anything more than a canteen. Counter service, plain tables, no reservations, most plates under $20. What you are here for is the tandoor: chicken and lamb off the fire, charred at the edges, with bread and raw onion. The room is bare and the service brisk; that is the deal, and complaining about it misses the point. They cater larger orders, which is the sane move if you are feeding a big group.

Thattu (Avondale) grew out of a food-hall stall into a full restaurant and a James Beard Best New Restaurant semifinalist, and it remains the only place in Chicago doing serious Keralan coastal cooking. Coconut, curry leaf, black pepper, plates at $15-28. Two hard constraints: dinner only, Wednesday to Sunday, and reservations through OpenTable are genuinely recommended at weekends. They cater, so a mid-size group is workable with notice, but do not walk in on a Saturday with six people and hope.

Pork by weight and goat by the taco

Carnitas Uruapan (Pilsen, W 18th Street) is family-run Michoacán carnitas that both Michelin and Chicago Magazine rate, and it is sold by weight, which makes it the most flexible feed in the city. Order half a pound per person, more if you are hungry, and it comes with tortillas, salsa and pickled chillies. Around $12-18 a head. Two catches. The Pilsen shop is takeaway only, so if you want to sit down use the 55th Street or 26th Street rooms instead. And it closes mid-afternoon: this is a breakfast-or-lunch stop, never a dinner plan.

Birrieria Zaragoza (Uptown) makes birria tatemada from grass-fed young goat, steamed five hours and then roasted, served as tacos at a few dollars each or as a plate around $15 with consommé to drink alongside. It is walk-in only at present, and the room is long and thin, perfectly pleasant for four or five, close to impossible for a dozen. Address matters here: the original Archer Heights shop on S Pulaski has been shut since a fire in 2025, so Uptown is the location that actually works. Check you are navigating to the right one before you set off.

Going south for Virtue and the smokehouse

Virtue Restaurant & Bar (Hyde Park) is Erick Williams' flagship and a James Beard winner, and it is the anchor for anyone spending a day on the South Side around the university and the Obama Center. Southern American cooking done with restraint rather than volume, mains roughly $28-40. It books parties of eight and above directly through its own reservation system and has private dining, which makes it one of the few special-occasion rooms in the city that will comfortably take a group.

Calumet Fisheries (95th Street, far South Side) is a different proposition entirely and worth clearing an afternoon for. It is a James Beard America's Classic, still smoking fish over real wood fires, and it reopened in June 2024 after an electrical fire. There is no seating at all, not a bench, so people eat in their cars parked along the road, which is exactly as good as it sounds when the paper bag is warm. Reckon on $10-25 depending on how much you buy. Take a small carload, take napkins, and treat the whole thing as a half-day outing rather than a stop on the way to something else.

Lunches that solve a whole day

Manny's Cafeteria & Delicatessen (South Loop) has been family-run since 1942 and is the oldest cafeteria-style Jewish deli in the country. You slide a tray along the line, a carver builds your corned beef in front of you, and sandwiches land around $18-22. The tray line absorbs any size of group with no booking at all, which makes it the most reliable lunch in the city for an unwieldy party. It closes Mondays and shuts in the early evening, so plan it as lunch and nothing else.

Pho 888 (Argyle Street, Uptown) opens at 9am, which makes it one of the best breakfasts in Chicago. Clean star-anise broth, and a bánh mì with a properly crusty roll, on a street that has been the centre of Vietnamese Chicago for thirty years. Bowls and sandwiches are under $15, it is walk-in, the turnover is fast and nobody minds you pushing tables together.

Pleasant House Pub (Pilsen) is the antidote after four days of pork, smoke and chilli. Steak-and-ale and chicken balti Royal pies at $15-20, made with produce from the owners' own farm, and a serious English ale list. Standard pub layout with tables and a bar, walk-ins normal, one of the very few places where a group of eight can turn up without notice and be seated.

Getting around, paying and timing it

The geography is the real work here. Uptown and Argyle Street, Chinatown and Hyde Park all sit on rail lines running north and south from the centre, so Sun Wah, Birrieria Zaragoza, Pho 888 and Lao Sze Chuan are straightforward on public transport; Virtue is an easy suburban-rail hop south. Devon Avenue is a bus ride with no train close by, and Calumet Fisheries realistically needs a car or a rideshare in both directions. Load a Ventra card or tap a contactless card straight at the turnstile; single rides are a couple of dollars.

Cards are accepted almost everywhere, but carry some cash for the counter and takeaway places. It moves the queue faster and covers you if a card terminal is down. Budget roughly $15-25 a head at the counters and taquerias, $30-50 at the mid-range rooms, and $70-120 before drinks at Monteverde, Galit, Andros Taverna, Virtue or The Publican. Kasama's evening tasting menu sits in an entirely different bracket.

Build the week around the closures rather than the highlights: Monteverde is dark Sunday and Monday, Manny's Monday, Sun Wah Thursday, Thattu serves dinner only Wednesday to Sunday, and Carnitas Uruapan shuts mid-afternoon. Book Monteverde, Galit, Virtue and Thattu the moment your dates are fixed; everything else can be decided on the day. Staying central in the West Loop or the South Loop puts you within one train ride of most of this list. Compare rates with a Chicago hotel search before you lock the neighbourhoods in. Warm months open up the Andros patio and make the drive to 95th Street a pleasure; in deep winter, lean on Chinatown, Devon Avenue and the pie shop, all of which are better when it is cold anyway.