The 10 Best Restaurants in Chicago Right Now

Image via Complex Original

Neighborhood: Noble Square
Address: 1664 N. Ada St.
Website: adastreetchicago.com 

Michael Kornick and David Morton are the brains behind ambrosial next door neighbors Fish Bar and DMK, but re-purposing an old warehouse to produce polenta fries and duck confit is their best idea yet. While its "hidden location" and vinyl LP soundtrack are enough to draw an eye roll from those of us who don't rifle the clearance rack at Urban Outfitters, Ada Street's much ballyhooed patio and industrial motif are stylish enough to hide anything contrived. When it opened, the restaurant's hype centered on the trio of Kornick, Morton and "spiritual advisor"/bartender Tim Lacey. Today, Chef Zoe Schor's the standalone star, serving up a celebrated menu of lamb ribs, octopus, and buttermilk panna cotta.

Neighborhood: West Loop
Address: 800 W. Randolph St.
Website: auchevalchicago.com 

We wouldn't usually recommend waiting 90 minutes on a Friday at 6 p.m. for a burger. That Wendy's Double Stack is pretty delicious and they can have that shit in your hand 30 seconds after you walk in the door. But Au Cheval, the latest from Brendan Sodikoff (Gilt Bar, Doughnut Vault, Maude's Liquor Bar), completely flips the script on how we think of delayed gratification. We find the griddled bratwurst, duck-heart gravy, and roasted marrow bones particularly worthwhile, but the restaurant's perfectly toasted bread is buttered by the double cheeseburger.

Neighborhood: Fulton Market
Address: 837 W. Fulton Market
Website: thepublicanrestaurant.com 

Paul Kahan and meat go together like Michael Jordan and paternity suits, it's an inescapable relationship. Chicago's fare virtuoso shares the James Beard Foundation's top award for Outstanding Chef with New York's David Chang. And his Fulton Market restaurant, Publican, is one of Kahan's many porcine standouts. Besides its full menu for those dining-in, Publican offers a butcher shop with rare cuts, corn and grass-fed selections. You'd be wise to nosh on smoked chorizo, braised beef and blood sausage, but save room for the oysters, which are widely considered some of the best in the city.

Neighborhood: Fulton Market
Address: 953 W. Fulton Market
Website: nextrestaurant.com 

Chefs, like crab fisherman and lunatics that wrestle alligators, have achieved an exalted status over the last five years. We blame deep cable. In Chicago's ever growing celebu-chef scene, Grant Achatz is THE prevailing name and for good reason. His flagship restaurant Alinea (more on this one later) was named North America's No. 1 restaurant by S. Pelligrino's "World's 50 Best Restaurants," and his cocktail lounge concept, The Aviary, won a 2013 James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Bar Program. 

Next is unique in that the menu is constantly changing, unveiling a completely overhauled menu theme every few months. Achatz champions the dinner as theater concept—at least locally—so you'll see plenty of angled iPhone pictures by turnt diners during your meal. Fortunately, the food tastes as good as it looks.

Neighborhood: University Village
Address: 2419 W. 14th St.
Website: elideas.com 

There are over 6,000 restaurants in Chicago and, conceptually, none is more unique than El Ideas. Located on a dead-end street of overgrown weeds and dirt roads to nowhere, its cranny looks more like a place you'd dump a body than spend $200 on dinner. But the charm of El Ideas is that it just works. Jackets are not required, it's BYOB, but somehow this University Village underpinning delivers the kind of sophisticated dining experience that poseurs in River North peddle, rather unconvincingly, to tourists. There's one dinner service a night and the restaurant only seats 24 people. But if you're lucky enough to land a reservation, expect a tasting menu of culinary brillance from Chef Phillip Foss. 

Neighborhood: Lincoln Square
Address: 2656 W. Lawrence Ave.
Website: goosefoot.net 

Goosefoot provides the foam-topped, French-inspired, prix fixe tasting menu cache that white people who use the phrase "ingredient driven" love, but at a lower price point than, say, Alinea or Next. And it's BYO, so if your credit limit isn't as sophisticated as your pallet, at least you save a few bucks on the wine pairing. Chef Chris Nugent led one of Chicago's most forward thinking kitchens at Les Nomades and the nine fixed course offering at Goosefoot echoes that energy. 

Neighborhood: West Loop
Address: 619 W. Randolph St.
Website: blackbirdrestaurant.com 

For more than 15 years, Blackbird's dining room has been standing room only. With ballyhooed "hot spots" opening on a weekly basis, Paul Kahan's West Loop restaurant stand as the neighborhood's kiss-the-ring original. The dining space was conceptualized by James Beard Foundation Award-winning designer Thomas Schlesser and Kahan is the reigning JBF Outstanding Chef. When you combine that pairing with the aged duck breast, wood-grilled sturgeon, and short rib you'll find on the menu, then you have all the ingridients for one of Chicago's best retaurants. 

Neighborhood: Wicker Park
Address: 1466 N. Ashland Ave.
Website: schwarestaurant.com 

Strip a restaurant of its hype, ego and the scene, and you're left with—hopefully—bites of food that taste way better than anything you're capable of making in your busted ass apartment kitchen. You'll find Schwa in what appears to be a condemned building, with eight tables and team of Jameson-buzzed chefs that, often times, outnumber patrons. The dining room thumps Nas, the phone goes unanswered by a staff seemingly indifferent about keeping the doors open, and the restaurant still delivers the city's most memorable dinner experience. If you have a preconceived notion about fine dining as a pompous way to blow $300 on a meal, you've never been served a dozen imaginative courses by Chef Michael Carlson. 

Neighborhood: West Loop
Address: 653 W. Randolph St.
Website: grace-restaurant.com 

After stints in the kitchens of Charlie Trotter's, Trio, Alinea and The Peninsula Hotel's in-house Avenues, Chef Curtis Duffy opened his solo act, Grace. Chicago's West Loop is to dining as Michigan Avenue is to shopping and Duffy's restaurant—which opened in late 2012—is Randolph Street's most anticipated eatery, well, ever. As Grant Achatz's protege, Duffy's preference for nature over chemistry is surprising, but welcomed. Your dinner tab at Grace will amount to the lease payment on a Mercedes E350 Coupe, but you won't feel like you're paying a ransom fee from the chef's ego—which is as impressive as the restaurant's Miyazaki beef.

Neighborhood: Lincoln Park
Address: 1724 N. Halsted St.
Website: alinearestaurant.com 

Like gang wars and Oprah platitudes, food's long been a part of the city's fabric. But it wasn't until Grant Achatz opened the doors to Alinea in 2005 that the Chicago's culinary artistry started to take its modern form. The food at Alinea is gracefully minimalist, imaginatively deconstructed, and served in a smoldering test tube. Naturally. The avant-garde presentation of each course is enough to draw an Instagram banger from the most jaded of #FoodPorn cool kids. And the restaurant's ticket reservation system is blitzed with a panicked fervor Chicagoans usually save for accosting Bears lineman after a false start penalty. 

Self-doubt is something "The Second City" will always struggle to manage, but—right now—Alinea is its Michael Jordan or skyline. It's a restaurant that, for better or worse, is fawned over and defended with absolute obedience. When it comes to shaking an Italian beef and pizza stigma, it's the city's knockout punch.