Chefs take bite-size pieces of juicy fried chicken and heap it on top of their regular mac with a spicy buffalo sauce added to the mix. Read more.
Miss Lee makes her home-style mac and cheese with classic, cloudlike macaroni, plus three cheeses (mozzarella with mild and sharp cheddars), then bakes it so bits brown gently here and there. Read more.
Forget breadcrumbs. This mac and cheese is topped with brown butter solids — basically, melted butter that has crisped into toasty, nutty flecks. Read more.
Chef Mariela Bolanos has created one of the most interesting versions of mac and cheese in Chicago. Tiny pieces of crisped-up Brussels sprouts and sweet corn deliver flavor and texture in every bite. Read more.
The mac and cheese at Smoque gets back to basics with simple elbow macaroni and plenty of cheddar, baked in a deep foil tin to keep the noodles hot until the last bite. Read more.
Made with butterkase, cheddar and Swiss, the mac and cheese at Uncommon Ground is so creamy it's spoonable. A garnish of crumbled potato chips delivers crunch and a subtle spud flavor. Read more.
This steakhouse’s mac and cheese is a thing of beauty. The pasta is bathed in a blend of Gruyere, comte, mascarpone and raclette cheeses, with a little bechamel sauce for good measure. Read more.
Consider how Chef Jonathon Harootunian's entree-size mac and cheese is constructed: Grass-fed brisket, smoked for 14 hours; a boatload of cavatappi noodles and plenty of mornay cream. Read more.
Bub City gives beef its much-deserved time in the spotlight with its zesty chipotle-brisket mac and cheese. Rich, creamy sauce is blended with a chipotle puree to give this mac an extra kick. Read more.
This mac and cheese won Chicago's Mac & Cheese Fest for a reason: It is out-of-this-world good. Read more.
The five-cheese mac at Frontier arrives in a scorching-hot cast-iron casserole pan plopped on a weathered wood cutting board, the browned crust bubbled up over the sides of the dish. Read more.
Truffle, slab bacon and a creamy cheddar-fontina sauce could be overkill elsewhere, but RPM Steak manages to make a decadent mac and cheese delicate at the same time. Read more.
Kuma's Corner bills its build-your-own mac and cheese as an appetizer, but it's big enough to feed you and a few of your headbanger friends. Read more.
At Bar Pastoral, the daily-changing, dinner-only mac and cheese usually uses the taleggio-like washed-rind Paesanella and the Parmesan-esque Podda. Read more.
The regular mac boasts Irish cheddar and bacon. But I liked the lobster better, for its generous, plump pieces of the crustacean along with juicy thick mushrooms and plentiful creamy sauce. Read more.
For a boost of flavor, each bite of mac and cheese was laced with the unmistakable, but never overpowering, funk of truffle oil. Read more.
You might not recognize the neighborhood or regulars at Valois anymore, but the Hyde Park institution's mac and cheese remains the same, as does its price: $5 for a hearty, creamy, smooth classic. Read more.
The order here is the chorizo chili mac and cheese, which is a steal. The molten cheese sauce coats each corkscrew noodle perfectly, with grape-sized hunks of chorizo lodged in every bite. Read more.
The bowl of creamy, perfect-texture cavatappi is the kind of no-frills goodness we appreciate, but the chardog makes it. Cut up into chunks as mom used to do, it adds sweet, meaty, smoky contrast. Read more.
The mac comes with two add-ins, which you choose from an ascending list grouped by price. I loved the jalapeno-heavy housemade giardiniera, but the real must-have: carnitas. Read more.
Made with a jumble of corkscrew noodles tossed in a creamy sauce, the mac and cheese is punctuated with crunchy bites of honey-cured bacon and finished with a shower of toasted breadcrumbs. Read more.
When is a side dish not a side dish? When it’s the GT mac and cheese, listed among the hot dishes at this River North seafood specialist. Read more.
One North Kitchen in the Loop breaks the mold with its buffalo chicken mac and cheese. Spicy and acidic, with shreds of tender chicken mixed in, this is almost like a dip with pasta thrown in. Read more.
The breadcrumbs strewn atop the homey four-cheese mac at Pearl’s Southern Comfort in Edgewater underscore how important even the tiniest garnish can be. Read more.
Indulgent doesn't begin to describe the otherworldly cheesiness of the mac and cheese. The kitchen melts American, cheddar and Gruyere down to a potent and molten liquid that dominates each bite. Read more.
Howells & Hood makes a statement with a baked dish built from penne, Carr Valley cheddar cheese sauce, spiced chunks of housemade andouille sausage and pork belly, all topped with a parslied gratin. Read more.
Lincoln Park bakery Floriole is best known for its French desserts, but a surprisingly spicy mac and cheese, served for lunch only (starting at 11 a.m.), is a sleeper hit on the menu. Read more.
Served in a searing-hot cast-iron skillet, the breadcrumb-speckled penne mac and cheese looks ordinary, but it’s anything but. Read more.
Eat your “edible feelings,” the name restaurateur Brendan Sodikoff has given to the mac and cheese at his new River North market. Read more.
Housemade pastas are a strength at this bar and restaurant, including a duck mac and cheese that smothers orrecchiette with duck confit, foie gras cream, lots of cheese and a dash of cherry juice. Read more.
Boiler Room's mac and cheese pizza sounds like a starchy mess, but the Logan Square joint shows real care with the cheesy beast. Read more.
The Mac and Teese is a dairy-free side dish that looks startlingly like the real thing. To my surprise, it also mimics the ultra creamy consistency and salty, tangy taste of boxed mac and cheese. Read more.
Like most everything else at MacArthur’s Restaurant, the macaroni and cheese comes cafeteria-style and looks deliciously larger-than-life. Read more.
It's Halloween, and Buffalo wings decided to dress up as mac and cheese. That's the best way to describe this spicy, creamy, blue cheese-y pasta at Rockit. Read more.
