Try the BLT made with extra-thick bacon and rosemary-and-thyme–encrusted roast beef. Be prepared to either fight your way to the front of the line or just head home with a bag of signature granola. Read more.
The waits on weekends are an indicator of this Bucktown spot's continual buzz, and a few bites of chef Chris Pandel's food are all it takes to join the ranks of fans. Read more.
Sundays-only brunch here encourages gluttony, but it’s worth every delicious calorie Read more.
The Sunday brunch at Nightwood—featuring fried-chicken-and-waffles and ricotta griddlecakes—is well on its way to cult status. Read more.
Try the Triple S from our 100 Best list: This maki, made of sweet potatoes, salmon and the mysteriously-named “spicy dynamite sauce” is everything that is wrong with sushi. And it tastes so right.
Try the mashbrown from our 100 Best list: The search for the perfect hash browns ends at Bite, where a patty of skin-on potato mash is always fried to a golden crisp.
Try the gianduja gelato from our 100 Best list: Every flavor, every time, Jessie Oloroso kills it. But when her shop is out of this knee-bucklingly rich chocolate-hazelnut flavor, it nearly kills us.
Try the calamari from our 100 Best list: Put this calamari stuffed with chicken and pork forcemeat and flavored with Korean chilies and peanuts squarely in that camp.
Try the Salted-caramel marshmallows from our 100 Best list: Katherine Duncan takes her masterful caramel and folds it into her light marshmallows sweetened with wildflower honey.
Try the carrot-whole-wheat pancakes from our 100 Best list: This cafe's changed the breakfast game with its tender, sweet and maybe (but probably not) healthy pancakes.
Try the Pommes Anna from our 100 Best list: This unassuming potato side dish—crispy and golden on top, tender and gratinlike underneath—makes you remember why you love seasoned chef Jason Paskewitz.
Try the quiche from our 100 Best list: Closer in texture to a soufflé—and that’s a marvelous thing.
Try the chocolate bouchon from our 100 Best list: Stephanie Izard successfully incorporates foie gras as a decadent marshmallow “fluff” alongside a moist chocolate cake.
Try the duck fat yaki soba noodles from our 100 Best list: A bowl of everything you could ask for: thick, satisfying noodles in mustard sauce, fatty morsels of duck and crunchy slivers of cabbage.
Try the Competition St. Louis slab from our 100 Best list: These ribs take two additional hours of labor because they’re pulled out of the smoker periodically to baste. These bones are killing it.
Try the frozen cucumber mousse from our 100 Best list: Executive pastry chef Bryce Caron turns a humble cucumber into this creamsicle-like dessert, which is unexpectedly rich & surprisingly refreshing
Try the fava-bean crostini from our 100 Best list: You realize why everyone wants to imitate Avec. And just how inimitable Avec is.
Try the Posole verde from our 100 Best list: The hearty green hominy stew rules our winters, with its hunks of pork, grassy broth and mess of add-ins alongside.
Try the roast carrot and avocado salad from our 100 Best list:Crunchy with seeds, redolent with spices and enhanced with crème fraîche, this is proof there is such a thing as salad evolution.
Try the El Pirata from our 100 Best list: The spiked shakes at this L.A. import are so thick, so boozy and so frickin’ delicious that even the burger-bored should get in here for these alone.
Try the Chestnut doughnut from our 100 Best list: It doesn’t get any better, any fresher, any more flavorful, any airier than this.
Try the chef’s selection steak from our 100 Best list: Go for the chef’s selection, they’re beautifully marbled, expertly grilled over Japanese binchotan charcoal, and the best value in the house.
Try the estrellados y tampiqueña from our 100 Best list: We order steak and eggs, and we challenge you to find a better, more fairly priced version than this aggressively seasoned $12 skirt steak.
Try the uni avocado toast from our 100 Best list: Chef Ryan LaRoche’s unlikely combination of briny sea urchin, smooth avocado, Mangalica ham and bright capers exhibits a keen understanding of flavor.
Try the Bridge House Burger from our 100 Best list: This burger is rebellious in its restraint, classic in its conception and on-point in its execution. None of that keeps it from being enormous.
Try the Naem khao thawt from our 100 Best list: Northern specialties like this crispy rice salad with ham, are a textbook example of Thai food’s ability to hit sweet, sour, salty & spicy all at once.
Try the Horizon fruit ale Half Acre just brewed for Next’s Thailand menu from our 100 Best list!
Try the Oatmeal-chocolate bread from our 100 Best list: There was nothing molecular or fancy about these thick slices of homey, chocolate-studded cake. There was, though, something special about them.
Try the coffee from our 100 Best list: When we tell you the best thing we ate or drank at this deli was mug after mug of alarmingly rich, complex coffee, you’ll know this is one hell of a cup.
Try the Ham on Rye from our 100 Best list: Three Floyds’ smoky Bukowski tribute.
The crispy pies hold a lot of weight, so after you choose your pizza style—red, white or New Haven plain—start picking toppings. (If you’re really going New Haven–style, try one with clams and bacon.)
The best-selling slice is the mac and cheese, made with a crème-fraîche base, macaroni and housemade cheese sauce. Specialties include the BBFAT (black-bean spread with feta, avocado and tomato).
A custom oak-stoked oven kicks out perfectly charred Neapolitan beauties in less than two minutes. Toppings run the gamut from fennel-flecked sausage to bitter rapini to prosciutto ribbons.
The meatball sandwich is soft (both the meatballs and the roll), the New York–style slices are big and foldable, and a thick Sicilian slice is substantial enough to be a meal in itself.
Except for a brief period when relocating to Union Avenue, Jim’s Original is the longest continuously operating hot dog stand to have once served the hungry patrons of Maxwell Street Market. Read more.
Doug has veggie dogs for vegetarians, bagel dogs for kids and specialities for the highbrow hot doggers. But his famous duck-fat fries are only for customers who come out on Fridays and Saturdays.
Breakfast at Rick Bayless’s most casual spot yet is quiet perfection: a cup of masterfully concocted hot chocolate, a flaky egg empanada, one hell of a sugar-and-cocoa-coated churro.
