📍 Added in March: This bakery-market-all-day-café has most Balkan bases covered, down to the supersized Nikola Tesla mural presiding over the patio. A scratch-made ethos with grilled meats, saucer-shaped lepinja bread, and spreads like whipped pepper and feta urnebes are deployed on groaning sampler platters. You might not have digestive real estate to pile on the Serbian Jucy Lucy, but the 25-plus minute wait for a coiled, filo pizza–stuffed burek should give your metabolism time to catch up.

📍 Added in March: Far from Argyle Street’s phở row, the broth at this strip-mall joint is among the beefiest, headiest, most fragrant in town. The house has a way with poultry too, so don’t pass over the lip-sticky fish sauce–glazed wings, tossed with raw onion and jalapeños. Most importantly, achieve textural and temperature equilibrium with gỏi gà, a cool, crunchy, peanut-capped alp of shredded cabbage, fried shallot, mint, and pulled yardbird dressed in gingery-sweet-spicy nước mắm gừng.

📍 Added in March: HQ for the revived Asia of Argyle district, this nonprofit café embraces the street’s Vietnamese legacy and boosts next-gen hustlers with a plethora of cultural events. Novel stimulants—say, cream cheese iced cha—lubricate pop-ups hosting rarities like Malaysian mamak mee goreng; Hanoi-style rice noodle bún thang; and the biweekly Silk Road pastry residency Umami from Scratch, swinging wildly from black garlic shiopan to purple sweet potato canelé to pandan coffee brioche.

📍 Added in March: The liquids brewed at the mothership of the South Side “Community of the Future” mirror the joyful, experimental, literally radical hospitality of its sprawling restaurant/media empire. It’s also a frequent host of ambitious food events (Dumpling Battle! Paczki Fest!) and an incubator for fresh pop-ups, where you might encounter anything from Boston bar pizza to queso birria egg rolls to the crusty inverted cheese tacos of the Tacos Sublime residency.

📍 Added in March: As with hot dogs, Colombia has its own way with pizza. For some, the raisin-topped Tropical might get lost in translation at this expat haven. But the conventional thin crust and deep dish are gateways to a universe of South American pastries, pastas, arepas, empanadas, and starchy, meaty platos. Try the milk and egg soup changua at breakfast, the beef rib guisado at lunch, and for dinner, sure, salchipapas: mini hot dogs with fries and ketchup-mayo “pink sauce.”

The self-described “control freak” behind this brand-new ramen-ya spent a decade methodically studying his craft—and regularly selling out periodic pop-ups within seconds. The resulting tentacular housemade noodles and perfectly balanced broths are still the object of intense devotion, but in his long-awaited brick-and-mortar, it’s a little bit easier to score a bowl. With just two soup-based and two dry varieties, obsession and passion are evident in the bowl.

Little Palestine, aka Bridgeview, is the heart of the largest Palestinian community in America, and this former-fast-food-joint-turned-opulent-oasis is its pleasure center. Wood-grilled meats and seafood are the celebrated gems here, but treasures are all over the sprawling menu of mezes, salads, and sandwiches, such as makdous (oil-cured, walnut-stuffed baby eggplants) or arayes (crispy, griddled beef-lamb or Syrian cheese–stuffed pita).

“Arabic pizza” does no justice to the multiplicity of forms the namesake Levantine flatbread takes once rolled, tossed, and baked to order in the brick oven here. Top with za’atar and eggs for breakfast; sure, pepperoni and sauce for lunch; or fold over pastrami and akkawi cheese for dinner and you’ve barely begun tackling the options. Sandwiches stacked on seven-inch split rounds of sesame ka’aek, believed to be the precursor to the bagel, present another impossible challenge.

Parachute power couple Beverly Kim and Johnny Clark’s Ukrainian relief project employs a kitchen crew of refugees cooking modernized classics like duck-and-smoked-pear borscht, huckleberry-bacon-pecan varenyky, and sea buckthorn-and-feta potato pancakes. The menu’s beating heart is zakusky, a tiered, rolling cart of small bites like trout roe tarts, pickled mushrooms and tomatoes; Hokkaido herring with tropea onions; and lamb-stuffed, fried Crimean-style olives.

Among the 30-some recently opened Kyrgyz restaurants in these parts, get your bearings here, with all the hallmarks of a meaty, carb-loaded cuisine rooted in ancient nomadic lifeways: beefy, hand-pulled noodles; bulging, pumpkin-stuffed dumplings; savory, tandoor-tanned pastries; and sizzling shashlik skewers. Packing for a long ride on the steppes? The neighboring market stocks loads of imported products and locally produced dairy- and grain-based ferments.

Hard to believe that the city’s best al pastor tacos are found behind the counter of a small Chinese joint. But amid smoking woks, a massive, inverted, orange pork pyramid spins, edges licked crispy by flame, while a taquero carves an ideal ratio of tender-to-charred meat into a palmed tortilla with the dexterity of a sabreur. A flick of a wrist, and a pineapple chunk flies from the crown, nestling in the handheld cradle. Al pastor fried rice completes this unlikely symbiosis.

Badou Diakhate’s West African cooking style is improvisational, adjusting bright spikes of sweet, sour, and spicy to guests’ whims. Take, for instance, a whole lime-lashed fish buried in caramelized onions and chile sauce; or chicken and yam chunks stewing in peanut butter mafe; or the chef’s signature tomatoey jambalaya, with okra, shrimp, and a husky whisper of smoked turkey.

They know how to dress dumplings here: Mantu and allium-stuffed ashakai, both lip-sticky and jiggly as XLB, come bedecked in tricolor flags of tomato-dal, garlic yogurt, and dustings of dried mint and chili. The color show can’t compete when a warm, cardamom breeze announces kabuli palaw, a mountain of raisin-carrot-almond-tossed brown basmati, burying a lamb shank that falls apart under threat of a fork. It’s all suited to the vivid textiles adorning the outdoor patio.

Islands on opposite sides of the planet align at this mom (Cuban) and pop (Filipino) daytime satellite to the fine-dining prix-fixe Bayan Ko. Garlic rice perfumes the proceedings, anchoring tocino or longanisa breakfast plates; alongside yolks dripping into pork belly shishito hash; or absorbing drippings from sticky, soy-lacquered chicken inasal. Meanwhile, stacks of Barney-purple ube pancakes and three-scoop banana splits stop the show. Dinner service coming soon.

This avowed “fancy cocktail bar” looks more like a basement lair reimagined by a committee of suburban grandads. The cocktails themselves, both modern and classic, are built from an endless library of compelling spirits. The kitchen absorbs them with a menu ranging from a half pound “cuppa” popcorn shrimp to matzo ball soup to honey-harissa roast chicken to a scarfable cheeseburger with hand-cut fries (best digested with Angostura bitters by the shot).

When Venezuelan ballplayers and beauty queens fly in, they flock to this always bustling room for an array of classics—pabellón to patacóns—orbiting 20 kinds of arepas. Served under a wall of autographs, the pudgy, griddled corn cakes are split and stuffed with fillings like roast pork (the After Party); black beans and cheese (the Domino); or chicken avocado salad, aka the Reina Pepiada, or “Voluptuous Queen,” named for the Venezuelan winner of the 1955 Miss World pageant.

Charisma runs in the blood of the Zaragoza family, from whose ancestral hometown of La Barca, Jalisco, comes birria tatemada, slow-“toasted” goat meat, served with tangy consommé, pressed-to-order tortillas, and roasted red salsa. Ask for a surtido, and the cleaver-wielding birrierio will assemble a sampler of each cut of lovingly tended caprid flesh. While the mothership rebuilds from a fire, this outpost abides, with one addition: a killer lacy-edged beef taco de cabeza.

Stateside, there’s nothing else in the Western Hemisphere like this dedicated all-beef Japanese-Korean omakase from a sushi pioneer. Sangtae Park and his chefs grill dry-aged American Wagyu, Japanese Kobe, and prime-grade Black Angus morsels before your eyes, supplemented by artfully plated dishes employing off bits and obscure cuts. It’s 12 courses honoring the ancient Korean aesthetic of the bovine, nose-to-tail maxim: 일두백미, or “one head with 100 tastes.”

After running my first marathon, I hobbled into John Manion’s firelit, womblike churrascaria, legs burning with lactic acid, for the appropriate complex protein-carb cure. I really just wanted a steak, specifically the Bife Maximo, a flame-kissed, 48-ounce T-bone, marbled Pietà-perfect, its juices mingling with chimichurri and garlic oil on a bed of crispy yuca fries. With a Chilean Malbec from the all-South American list, muscle recovery was never so rewarding.

Outside, it’s a classic Chicago dog stand, and the classics are classically executed therein. But peer into the collage of sausage options, Italian beefs, and pizza puffs plastered above the counter, and a hidden theme emerges: dino-sized, sticky-sweet or spicy glazed chicken wings; a bowl loaded with rice and beefy bulgogi; and a sloppy-good Korean Philly cheesesteak, swollen with soy-imbued beef, mushrooms, peppers, and a runaway lava flow of molten cheese.

Alejandra Rivera’s bright, airy bakery and café is built on a foundation of saudade, a melancholic longing for the years she spent in an idyllic seaside Portuguese town. It’s expressed here in pitch-perfect expressions of that country’s dazzling pastry tradition, from iconic, flaky egg custard tartlets to almond and coconut cakes to shrimp-béchamel stuffed rissóis to, if you’re lucky, pudim abade de priscos, a lush, jiggly port and pork-fat–infused flan that rules them all.

Though less focused on the food of the Levant, Galit’s baby sister whispers it all day long. The constant is pastry chef Mary Eder-McClure’s work: Simit anchors the Turkish breakfast, Yemeni flatbread swaddles lunch’s shawarma, and her challah croutons texturize dinner’s roast chicken. The ever-evolving pastry case displays her full powers: burnished shakshuka buns, ham and cheese Cubano croissants, and cardamom kouign-amann are in the regular rotation, but vanish early.

Maybe your eyes will glaze over thinking of this vanilla-toned all-day café at the base of a bank skyscraper. But focus on the Friday–Saturday “Italiano Weekends”—especially if you’re marathon training, when $20 buys unlimited salad, pasta, and pizza. It isn’t just a carb dump. The pasta, from lush, lardon-mined carbonara to casarecce Bolognese, is proper, as is the crackly, thin crust pizza, topped with onion jam or soppressata. The $8 martini at lunch is no slouch either.

Pigs have invaded Pilsen, but at least at Carnitas Don Pedro they meet a happy end. Their parts—butts to buche—churn in giant copper vats of their own fat, yielding slick mountains of juicy pork. The man with the long knife portions, weighs, and wraps to your specs before sending you away with a generous lagniappe. Tortillas and salsa complete a feast, though the creamy brain tacos and tangy cactus salad pair well in supporting roles.

This strip mall spot has been Hyde Park’s hummus-and-falafel oasis for more than three decades, but in recent years, second-gen proprietor Amer Abdullah has both fully embraced its Palestinian origins and introduced provocations like harissa-glazed wings and halal lamb-and-beef quesabirria tacos. With monthly comedy showcases benefiting food relief in Gaza, it’s also challenging the surrounding University of Chicago’s humorless reputation.

Locals avoid Navy Pier’s carnival nightmare, but if you’re baited into the heavily chained, lakefront tourist trap, there are a few good tastes to prevent starvation. Among them, this underrated stand serves one of the best Italian beef sandwiches in the city. Piled into a crusty roll sturdier than most, the melting, tissue-thin beef stays put whether you order, dry, wet, or dipped. Meatballs, pasta, and more sandwiches make this oasis in Hell better than it needs to be.

Over the past decade, this Asian-spiced neighborhood steakhouse dropped the ribeyes and pretense for a full pan-AA press, with carrots roasted with Thai basil curry and miso mayo; skinny fries poutinized with cheddar and kimchi; rice fried with dry-aged duck and fermented chili butter; and roasted mussels in kimchi broth. The beefiest thing left is one of the best double cheeseburgers in town, but inspired dumplings and noodles compete for digestive real estate.

The incursion of disparate cuisines into classic French pâtisserie persists at this bakery, where Korean flavors dominate and the definitions of traditional laminated pastries are fluid. The chewy, spicy tteokbokki and the mildly sweet coconut sesame croissants are as fresh and flaky as their namesake, even if they present as Danishes. Meanwhile, the miso cornbread cookie and the bulgogi mushroom focaccia are truer to form. Is it splitting hairs if they’re all delicious?

Just around the corner from his lauded Southern fine dining spot Virtue, Erick Williams’ TV-bedecked sports bar offers by-the-book expressions of the iconic Creole State sandwich. Crispy Leidenheimer baguettes imported from NOLA swaddle fully dressed sausage, shrimp, ’gator, fried green tomato, and a particularly excellent catfish. But the power order is the surf-and-turf Peacemaker, with fried oysters and roast beef and gravy.

From behind the bar, a charcoal-fed inferno leaps toward the ceiling in this otherwise dim hideout with a long menu of Korean drinking food. The only way to tamp down the charred, chili-fed blaze of the signature Fire Chicken is with a blanket of bubbling melted cheese and repeated soju bombs. The grill plants its smoky kiss on all bits of beef and chicken and various aquatic invertebrates, while the kitchen pushes out everything from chicken gizzards to chewy, sweet-spicy tteokbokki.

If the example set by the city’s oldest hot dog stand was followed by them all, they’d all be working toward their own century. Snappy, minimally dressed, natural-casing Vienna Beef tube steaks with thick, fresh-cut fries have prevailed here for more than 85 years—Black-owned for the last 52. Its current steward, Gina Fountain, is a treasure herself, steadily serving the neighborhood love with a side of gentle ribbing.

The aroma of charcoal-fired rotisserie chicken marinated in more than a dozen spices hits your nostrils when the door to this neighborhood institution swings open. D’Candela’s reliable execution of the Peruvian canon fills the room with expats during long Sunday lunches. Chicken-and-walnut-sauce empanadas sell out first, but there’s plenty of backup: black mint–flecked seafood fried rice; ceviche steeped in rocoto chile leche de tigre; and bright-green, cilantro-spiked chicken soup on weekends.

The lines have barely diminished at this instantly viral Filipino pastry shop. Its success, residing at the crossroads of the Pinoy culinary juggernaut and the post-pandemic pastry boom, is embodied in its turon Danish, a reverie of the staple deep-fried banana spring roll: a classically crackly, buttery laminate painted with sticky caramelized banana jam and a squiggle of vanilla flan.

This 75-year-old NOLA-inspired shrimp shack has all the Creole/Cajun bases covered (po’ boys, étouffée, red beans and rice), but also fries, grills, and steams an ocean’s diversity of aquatic species with laser-like precision and grandfatherly affability. Despite its slim footprint, Don’s finds room for other regions to represent, like Lowcountry hush puppies, Down East lobster rolls, and Alaskan king crabs.

Phillip Foss blew up on the tail end of the city’s mid-aughts modernist meteor, and among his fine-dining contemporaries (Achatz, Duffy, the late Homaro Cantu), he’s remained the most undersung, approachable, and irreverent. Located hard by the train tracks in a barren industrial neighborhood, EL is a party over eight courses, with often laugh-out-loud moments like the “plate licker” Bloody Mary granita or a one-bite grilled-cheese-and-tomato explosion. This party’s been BYOB since 2011.

This carryout spot specializes in Sinaloa-style arrachera and pollo asado al carbon, roadside staples in the northwestern Mexican state. Steeped angry orange from ancho (plus oregano, citrus, cinnamon, and clove), whole spatchcocked birds are blistered with char, alighting like fiery phoenixes, then hacked and boxed up with pickled red onions, beans, grilled jalapeño, warm tortillas, and salsas, ready for ingestion atop your favorite trunk.

A subset of a surge of central Asian restaurants are serving the food of the Uighurs, the oppressed Muslim minority of China’s Xinxiang region. This newest spot features all the hits: bouncy, hand-pulled laghman noodles; chubby, oniony beef manti; burnished savory pastries; piles of plov enriched with lamb broth; and discs of ghosh nan, meat-stuffed “Uyghur pizza.” All good fuel for a journey across the steppes, but none’s better than a kebab platter with a pot of fruit tea.

Wilson Bauer’s cooked in some of the most influential kitchens in town, but his pandemic-born 16-seat pasta shop might be the most dynamic. He opens with two to three fresh pasta shapes, sauced with ingredients grown by local stewards of the land, each as passionate and obsessive as he is. Autumn might offer ribbony reginette with squash, finger lime, and pine nuts—but you can always go for pomodoro. Each day’s an adventure, with cameos by luxe ingredients like foie gras.

The pandemic birthed this mobile, Midwestern-weird, comfort food kitchen, now settled in a long-term cocktail bar residency. Co-founder Alexis Thomas-Rice’s veg-forward yin still balances Eve Studnicka’s meatier yang, with a monthly flip of the namesake cheesy spud casserole (elote, cacio e pepe, jalapeño popper); snappy corndogs in honey cornbread batter; and a virtuous romaine-tomato-cuke salad mountain debauched by crumbled blue cheese and crispy diced Spam.

Fresh hot pita swell like clouds in the open kitchen’s oak burning oven, their yeasty perfume intoxicating diners on Zach Engel’s choose-your-own four-course tour of modern Israeli cuisine. Those pita are vehicles for dishes like brisket with orange-glazed carrots as lush as the creamy hummus bed underneath and tangy sumac-and-hyssop–seasoned labneh. Fine pastry work threads throughout the menu, and mostly Middle Eastern wines tie it all together.

Dishes from the Afro-Indigenous Garifuna people of Belize are the soul of this family-run community hub. Stews like peppery cabbage tikini or coconut-based falumou, each bobbling with chunks of kingfish, are served with the cuisine’s mother starch, hudut baruru (pounded green and ripe plantain). While conch soup thick with okra, cassava, and carrots will hit the pleasure centers of any dedicated gumbo head, you can also get a fix for Caribbean favorites like jerk chicken and stewed oxtails.

The legend began, allegedly, when Gene Mormino lost his Little Italy dog shop in a game of Texas hold ’em and relocated to this now iconic spot across from the Desplaines River. There’s no garden dragging here, and certainly no ketchup—just snappy Depression dogs, minimally dressed with mustard, relish, onion, and sport peppers. There are no seats, so you’ll need to quickly unbundle your tube steak al trunko before your marvelous, thick, fresh-cut fries succumb to weenie steam.

On warm, sunny weekends, the rooftop over this two-story, Euro-style carnivoriam blossoms into a bucolic, grapevine-bedecked beer garden, serving schnitzel, pierogi, and wood-grilled sausages amid a spirit of rollicking gemütlichkeit. When you close your eyes and bite into a thick, mustard-slathered leberkäse sandwich, you can hear the faint, pulsing oompah that haunts the leafy, historically German neighborhood.

Everything’s priced as if it’s a charity rather than a sustaining family business at the mothership of this budget-friendly, counter-service mini-chain that has sustained hungry students for decades. This small empire is built upon fast, well-made Indo-Pak classics like masala-cured hunter beef, yogurt-tender lamb korma, and palak paneer, along with a few modern updates and cross pollinations for discriminating cool kids, such as chili chicken biryani and spicy masala gyros.

Just blocks from the Obama family home, this sibling-run spot is a satellite of their original restaurant in Senegal on the island of Gorée, the historic center of the African slave trade. African, French, and Portuguese influences call out from paella-like thieboudienne; mustardy, onion-braised chicken yassa; and maffe, lamb and root veggies in peanut-tomato curry. A bracing glass of ginger-pineapple gingembre is essential to navigate the swirling flavors of history.

The late Finnie Haire’s shrimp shack, born in a caboose, is now an institution for its never-frozen, butterflied, lightly breaded, snappy Louisiana decapods. The unique surf ‘n’ turf fried-seafood-and-spaghetti dinner option has been entrenched in Chicago since the Great Migration, while the seismic crunch of the shrimp, filled to the top of a white paper Bomb Bag, is barely restrained by your choice of cocktail or hot sauce.

Harold Pierce left a legacy of chicken shacks name-checked by generations of South Side hip-hop artists. But he didn’t leave consistency. The template of yardbird with hot or mild sauce mounted on fries and white bread is the same. But not every location would do Pierce proud. High turnover and long waits work for you at this Chatham outpost, where breasts, thighs, legs, and wings are fried hard to order, rising from fresh oil uniformly and explosively crunchy and juicy.

Aka “Hawkers’ Delight,” this tiny, suburban strip mall storefront simulates the variety of a Penang night market and the specialized skills of the vendors within. Tony Tan leads a team of grannies and aunties kicking out a staggering array of Malaysian classics, like beef rendang and nasi lemak, along with less common but always available “specials” like the mackerel-powered assam laksa noodle soup with torch ginger lilies, or prawn fritters and noodles in sweet potato gravy.

Ethan Lim’s eight-stool sandwich shop became the toughest table in town when he launched an 11-course fine dining Family Meal tribute to his parents. The current menu leans into Chinese-Khmer connections but still features his legendary whole Cambodian fried chicken with all the fixings. Bookings go fast. While you idle on the waitlist, you can pre-order the CFC sandwich to go—the first spark of Lim’s stardom.

Racine, Wisconsin, one could argue, is just a suburb of Chicago, and this midcentury modern supper club, shining like a jewel on Lake Michigan, is a mere hour-and-change’s drive north. Gorgonzola garlic bread and steaks are the play, plus fish fry Fridays, or prime rib and jazz on weekends. After dinner, post up at the bar, order your chauffeur a Shirley Temple, and gaze upon the water over a boozy Banana Banshee, Brandy Alexander, or a half dozen other ice cream cocktails.

Among the handful of enduring, true Chicago-style barbecue pitmasters, the Adams family summons magic from their glass-walled aquarium smoker. An oak-, cherry-, and hickory-kissed rib-tip-and-hot-link combo is the move here, sauce on the side, piled atop a bed of grease-sponging crinkle-cut spuds and white bread. Eat it al trunko, gazing over the lake at nearby Burnham Park, licking your digits and reflecting on this blessed moment in your life.

Justyna Haluch’s food truck focuses on Polish French bread pizza, an iconic fast food that helped ease hangovers through decades of Communist rule. The zapiekanka are supersize, with sautéed mushrooms and molten cheese blanketing 18-inch “XXL” toasted baguettes, each one lashed with thin, sweet ketchup. Weird? Tell that to the beefy general contractors who pull in for midday refueling via the meat-lover’s “miesna,” with ham, crispy bacon, and snappy, charred kielbasa.

Three industry paisanos broke the spell on this cursed corner with a time-honored approach to Northern Italian cuisine. Be it a honeyed mountain of endive, gorgonzola, and walnuts; a porcini risotto showered in black truffle; lemon-Parm-pepper tagliolini that shines like the sun; or veal with artichoke sauce, an effortless confidence in sourcing, seasonality, and simplicity fills the seats in a neighborhood spot far better than it needs to be.

This Gary, Indiana, truck is part of the vast network of roadside Indian restaurants, a.k.a. dhabas, that cater specifically to an army of Punjabi long-haul truckers. Here, they collect orders of chicken biryani, smoldering bone-in goat curry, slow-burning baingan bharta, and lots of vegetarian options. The menu is long and varied for such a compact spot and includes more than nine varieties of flatbread—easily enough to provision a journey (or to merit its own trip from the city).

Inon Srisawangpan and mother-in-law Korakot Vongsatit first aroused Thai food freaks with their peerless commitment to scratch curry pastes, but all snapped to attention at the extraordinary dishes parading from their little kitchen: crispy pork salad, i.e. larb moo tod transfigured into deep-fried spicy-sour swine balls; flaky curry puffs, fat coins of sai oua sausage; and jungle salad with fried fish that somehow maintains crunch in a shower of lime-chili dressing.

Hard by I-90/94, you’ll find this Korean groceries and housewares emporium, with an outdoor dumpling stand and busy set-plate counter staffed by stoic ajummas who can bleed you out with a glance. The snacks, like lollipop wings or kimbap, are just forerunners. Between bargain bibimbap ($9) and big-budget short rib soup ($17), some two dozen meals—including restorative ox bone broth and slippery rice cake soup—prove that silence means nothing. Food is their love language.

There aren’t many pinnacles Chris Cunningham can’t mount between two slices of bread, but he chooses to focus on Midwestern classics, like Iowa’s pork tenderloin, a Maid-Rite loose meat homage, and the Coney dog. His greatest achievement is the vegetarian beans-and-greens melt: charred rapini, white legumes, caramelized onions, molten provolone, and Calabrian chili aioli on grilled Tuscan bread, together harmonizing like a polyphonic sextet.

Pie prodigy (and Bake Squad competitor) Maya-Camille Broussard settled into a restored midcentury modern dental office to ply her ingenious crustwork, whole and by the slice. For every revolutionary blue-cheese-praline-pear pie or deep-dish chilaquiles quiche, there’s an exemplary sweet potato or bourbon pecan, rounded out with uncrustables like shokupan cinnamon rolls and made-to-order savories such as smoked gouda grilled cheese with red wine onion jam.

Situated at the gateway to Little India, Khalifa M. Amjad Khan’s esteemed Pakistani grill is difficult to pass by. It’s equally beloved for grilled kebabs and tandoor-charred chicken boti and naan; fried wonders like masala-crusted broasted chicken; rich veggie dishes like ghee-drenched dal fry; and rice mountains of mutton biryani and frontier chicken.

Julia Momosé has been a quiet but authoritative influence on the cocktail scene for years. This tranquil “dining bar” is the embodiment of her commitment to the craft, seasonality, and hospitality of the Japanese way of drinking. Various tastings, flights, and pairings display grace and granularity, but a half-dozen oysters with a Momosé martini (two gins, yuzu bitters, absinthe) ably demonstrates the operating principle of kodawari, or the pursuit of perfection.

By day, this suburban storefront feeds an international crowd with sushi, bento boxes, noodles, and donburi. After sundown, it’s all business: a strip-mall izakaya swelling with suited-up salarymen washing down homey drinking food with ice cold Asahi from the tap. Grilled smelts, deep-fried natto, and tissue-thin beef tongue typify the deep cuts. Japanese ballplayers have been known to come through, presumably pregaming their shiokara—salted squid guts—with beta-blockers.

Regional taco varieties abound in this town, but the ones at this corner store are among the most sacred. In the skilled hands of taquero Cesar Castillo, the specialty here is Mexico City–style tacos de fritangas, where the fillings are “fried” in their own bubbling fat in the moat of a domed griddle called a chorizera. Brisket, longaniza, tongue, and, particularly, the clean, almost bacony-tasting tripa take on a simultaneously lush and crispy confit-like texture.

This counter-service corner bodega, staffed by vets of legendary Boricuan kitchens, primarily traffics in life-affirming Puerto Rican comida criolla. From the shady sidewalk patio, you can watch the neighborhood come and go, over heaping plates of arroz con gandules piled with roast pork or chicken, stewed cod, or bistec; a full array of crispy deep-fried frituras; and a rotation of uncommon daily specials, like Sancocho Sábado and Mondongo Domingo.

Hidden in plain sight, this discreetly situated taqueria is a steak lover’s sanctuary from the panic that’s visited Brighton Park. Post up at the counter and watch craftsmen at the plancha char and chop each arrachera (flap steak) to order. With squirts of lime and splashes of avocado salsa, the meat is consistently juicy, whether deployed in tacos, tortas, burritos, or fajitas, but particularly so at breakfast alongside the curative chilaquiles.

The party never ends at this transporting, BYOB mariscos joint. You’re not on a car-swept intersection by the tracks, but on the beach in Nayarit under a palm-thatched umbrella, attending to bottomless seafood cócteles and heaping plates of ceviche. Among its oceanic bounty, don’t skip cheesy, buttery shrimp quesadillas with house-made tortillas; or the rompecolchón (mattress breaker), a mix of sea creatures on a mountain of rice, said to unlock one’s carnal potential.

The tight menu at the city’s sole Laotian restaurant reflects the affinity between Lao food and that of Thailand’s northeastern Isan province. The hits—hot, herbaceous, bright, with sour fermented funk—fuse in snappy lemongrass-scented sai ua sausage; naem khao (crispy sour pork rice salad); and beef laab, textured with toasted rice powder. But khao piak sen—lime leaf and galangal–spiked chicken soup with meatballs and chewy rice noodles—is a bowl of pure Lao soul.

This carryout sushi joint was once the hidden secret of its Albany Park neighbors. Prices have since risen and the word is well out, but the fresh, expertly crafted sushi and sashimi are still shockingly affordable relative to the omakase and hand-roll wave riders that have flooded the city. Whether you’re a minimalist or a crispy dragon roll girl, just give them a couple hours to arrange your kaleidoscopic piscine platter.

Early summer sunshine streamed into this classic French bistro, now in its third decade, subtly modernized under the founding chef’s son. My brother arrived from the airport, and a weekend of competitive eating began, with a lava pool of soupe à l’oignon, parried by cool, sweet pea vichyssoise; soft-shelled crab sandwich and frites against escargot boudin blanc, crispy fingerling, and kraut. It was just a typical lunch here, but with the power to melt sibling rivalry.

Haitian food is rare in Chicago, so on my first visit to this folk art–bedecked South Side oasis, I ordered and ate as if a bigger, stronger animal might snatch it all away. There were flaky chicken patties with spicy pickled slaw, jiggly braised oxtails with butter beans, and an enormous pot pie concealing tender pulled goat in creamy mushroom sauce, all attended by various carby, starchy sides, notably the earthy black mushroom rice diri djondjon.

This all-day café is the real-life home of the towering chocolate layer cake featured in The Bear. But that’s just one of its everyday wonders, such as the chewy oatmeal cream cookie, the wall of warm sourdough boules, and a hash brown and sausage, egg, and cheese English muffin breakfast combo that is the redemption of every drive-thru version you’ve ever pushed into your mouth.

This beloved, family-run spot, feeding La Villita breakfast and lunch for three decades, is a sanctum of tranquility with a menu that doesn’t seem to have limits on variety or the love that goes into it. Beyond the handmade tortillas and fresh juices, you’ll find a pair of rare Golfo de México coastal stuffed specialties: enchiladas huastecas topped with sautéed carrot and potato, and enchiladas potosinas, chili-dipped, deep-fried half moons, served with pickled pork rinds.

From Barack Obama on down, you can trace a history of modern Illinois politics from the campaigners who’ve popped in for a plate and pressed the flesh along the line of this soul food cafeteria. Reassuring Southern classics rotate daily onto the steam tables (meat loaf, smothered pork chops, fried catfish). Pick a pair of sides from nearly 20 (mac and cheese, collards, yams), don’t sleep on the peach cobbler and banana pudding, and you’ll be fully fueled for a long day. Or a long nap.

A few modernist tricks adorn the fine-dining reinterpretations of Persian classics on this one-of-a-kind tasting menu. But they never distract from the soulful, seasonal, herbaceous origins of the cuisine. At $85, the eight-course meal breezes by, particularly with wine pairings and ingredient-appropriate cocktails (e.g., saffron gin). One menu constant: Smoked-eggplant mirza ghasemi with crunchy tahdig chips breaks all the rules before putting them back together.

This decade-old brewery diversified to survive the craft beer industry’s contractions. The new chef, Joanna Janczurewicz, introduced an elegant Eastern European sensibility in addition to graceful brewpub standards like curds, burgers, and wings. Oatmeal milk stout goulash, kasha cabbage rolls, and sausage plates stand out, but the “lazy dumplings”—ethereal gnudi-like pillows in lush cream sauce with peas, bacon, parm, and lemon panko—will haunt your oncoming food coma.

A pre-concert convenience on the ground floor of the Romanesque Thalia Hall, this is also the journey’s end for Mexican seafood in this landlocked burgh. Sustainably sourced sea creatures abound, the ceviches, tacos, and tostadas charged with electric bolts of acid and heat. Octopus Sonoran dogs, firefly squid aguachile, and other once-unknown wonders of the deep swim alongside a divine pastry program yielding blue corn macarons, mole lava cake, and apple butter ice cream.

The first U.S. outpost of this Istanbul-based, Palestinian-owned barbecue empire takes Salt Bae–style performative carnivorism to an extreme. Fedora-clad, cleaver-flipping meatmen carve charcoal-smoked chunks of halal beef and lamb, shower them in proprietary spice blends and ropes of drizzled honey, and serve them with a choice of 14 sauces, plus unlimited rice, salad, and soft drinks. The method derives from Texas barbecue, but the show is a spectacle all its own.

One of the city’s most original chefs, Diana Dávila cooks food born of memory, family, and deep regionality. She dusts guac with nutty chile ash; bathes Sonoran shrimp with leche de tigre and bedecks them with sweet potato, apple, and chayote; and tops crab-stuffed tetelas with an avocado-ringed pool of salsa macha. But her most idealized homage is a best-in-class Chicago-style steak burrito, resurrected and enchanted by dreams of her parents’ old taquerias.

A tireless, scratch-made approach to common Ethiopian dishes prevails at Michuu. But that’s along with dishes unique to the Oromo ethnic group, rare even in the Motherland, like the garlicky, minced tuber anchote; or afanyi, a searing beef-and-chili sauté said to keep sickness at bay. Service is loving and languid: Order the corn-flour injera that goes with the latter dish a day ahead, as well as chororsa, a celebratory, teff-based flatbread topped with spiced butter.

Ina Mae/Frontier chef Brian Jupiter teams with longtime chef de cuisine Azazi Morsi to create the neighborhood Southern-fried, halal taquería you didn’t know you needed. The menu sprawls dexterously from chicken and biscuits to tacos and tortas—all prepared according to Islamic dietary law. But when Morsi gets down on some lamb—particularly the crispy, lush, maple-glazed, braised shoulder carnitas dinner with rice and beans—his higher calling is clear.

Vintage neon beckons from northwest Indiana, calling you to the last outpost of the Depression-era progenitor of the lacy-edged smashburger. Back then, these were just known as “burgers”—and still are, because nothing changes at Miner-Dunn: not the fresh cut fries or the orange sherbet that comes when you order a “deluxe.” You can make the drive for the full diner-style menu, with slow-roasted beef and housemade pies, but it’s against Hoosier state law to skip a burger.

Kerala is having a moment, and this Little India storefront is the newest specialist pointed at the southwestern Indian state’s meaty northern Malabar region. Coconut and curry leaf predominate among a Silk Road of flavors. Pinch jerkylike beef with folds of flaky porotta, or soak up gingery mutton stew with spongy idli. There’s not a lot for vegetarians, but the black chickpea kadala curry, perfumed with fennel, clove, and nutmeg, is as indulgent as anything.

A classic downtown Italian steak house replicated by an Ecuadoran kitchen lifer, with meaty chops, saucy pastas, and flaming desserts at neighborhood prices. The critical first play is an icy martini and grilled calamari in chile-kissed, garlicky olive-oil-white-wine sauce, followed by a crisp wedge under a blue cheese blanket. Order grilled proteins smothered in sautéed peppers and peperoncini, and sop up their mingled essences with crunchy, gratis cottage fries.

Mexican-Indian food isn’t a contrived fusion. It’s a real cross-cultural pollination dating back more than a century. Bucktown is home to this modern manifestation, with green curry scallop tacos, coconut mole blanco maitakes, and yogurt-agave dressed charred cauliflower salad with peanut salsa macha opening for the showstopping lamb barbacoa biryani encased in a roti pot pie. Cocktails, like the chai-spiked daiquiri or agave old-fashioned, are just as seamlessly executed.

This ramshackle diner wouldn’t be pushing its first century if not for combined decades of grill skills, choreographing breakfast and lunch standards like a daily ballet before a counter with not a bad seat in the house. Corned beef, whether stacked on rye or piled in tandem with mashed spuds, is the rock this house was built on.

This daytime corner café is small, but it’s a paragon of what every residential neighborhood needs. What isn’t lovingly scratch made is curated from local producers and purveyors: pastries, coffee, and single-origin Chinese teas. Handheld options like a Cali breakfast burrito or a smoked-turkey sandwich cement it as a destination. Watch for Friday night pop-ups featuring barista Jack Blue’s current cravings, like Tijuana dogs, lamb barbacoa, or sloppy joes.

After a long, lonely absence, Miriam Montes de Oca, the queen of Dominican fried chicken, has picked up her crown. The previous tenant’s taquería classics are now joined by her scratch island cooking, such as chicken or beef guisado, and on the weekends, goat, oxtail, and tripe stews. Her pica pollo is crucial: citrus-bathed, shatter-battered, hard-fried poultry nuggets, served with crisp tostones, and lashed with housemade habanero hot sauce.

The Antonopoulos family makes wonders from a small fast-food menu at this decades-old sandwich shop. Beginning with the thick, golden, fresh-cut fries, Italian beef, and snappy Vienna Beef hot dogs, everything that comes across the counter is treated like they’ve made it for their own. But the marquee items are the steak and pork kabob sandwiches: marinated slabs of beef or chunks of tenderloin, charbroiled and swaddled on pillowy French rolls with onion, tomato, and a wedge of lemon.

Long before the city’s pandemic-straddling (and inflationary) bagel boom, folks lined up at all hours in front of this rumpty strip-mall deli hard by the highway. Prices are still friendly enough that turnover is still high enough that chances are your picks are still oven-warm. Among 17 options, the zenith is a mish-mosh (everything) schmeared with chive cream cheese and bedded with buttery nova, made to order, or made in the comfort of your own Dr. Denton’s.

Little Saigon is full of spots offering hundreds of varied dishes, but this family-run joint executes them well with astonishing consistency. There’s phở, of course, but also lesser-known soups like bún mắm and bún bò huế; fish sauce–marinated chicken wings; stir-fried beef with sour mustard; turmeric-infused Mì Quảng noodles; and the texturally manifold duck salad with its accompanying rice porridge enriched with stock coaxed from the bird’s bones.

The symphonic climax of the triple pork bánh mì #4—with sausage, pâté, and belly—makes me sad for the 19 otherwise exemplary sandwiches here: each an ideal balance of textures, temps, salt, fat, funk, sweet, and heat on a warm, crackly rice flour baguette with mayo, cilantro, jalapeños, cukes, and pickled daikon and carrot. Each tends to eclipse the full output of this tiny, mighty shop, with phở-to-go, smoothies, and a chiller full of myriad snacks and sweet puddings.

The name of this modest trailer translates to “It’s all good.” The craftsman within proves it, grilling carne asada to order over live natural charcoal next to a spinning al pastor trompo, tiered live coals ensuring an ideal ratio of juicy pineapple-marinated pork to charred nubs. Don’t let desires of the flesh distract from the mushroom taco swaddled with a frico of griddled cheese, or the guac mountain served in the stone molcajete it’s smashed in.

Unknown outside the Thai community (for now), this pop-up operates like a Bangkok street specialist compared to the dabbler it replaced. Saturdays, a Thai-only menu drops on Facebook featuring one noodle dish: say, tom yam with “bouncy” pork; rich boat noodles; or guay jup, rolled rice noodles in five-spice broth with pork belly. With the help of friendly servers, you can customize by noodle type, protein, or condiments to build a bowl all your own.

Coffee and the two dominant Chicago pizza styles prevail here. It’s the thin-crust tavern-style you want to focus on, particularly the crackly crust longanisa-giardiniera, which twists the classic local combo with crumbled Filipino sausage and pickled vegetables; it feels right at home in this most Mexican of neighborhoods.

Chicago’s not much of a donut town, dominated by assembly line franchises and forgettable Insta-pendent chains. But there’s a reason the oldest operating shop in the city has been frying classic dunkers in the front window for a half century: the daily on-site oversight by 84-year-old owner Burritt Bulloch. Glazed, buttermilk, caramel-frosted, and the namesake old-fashioned are paragons of their forms. Don’t be frightened by the chunky, chewy, discus-sized glazed apple fritter.

This Little Palestine caterer serves Middle Eastern granny food you’re unlikely to encounter outside a home kitchen. There are a few tables but no set menu, so call well ahead, or trust: You might score the inverted pilaf casserole maqluba; or mansaf, jiggly braised lamb over rice and flatbread, drenched in yogurt sauce. It can get gutsy, but “innards”? That’s just masareen: roast or steamed sausages, stuffed with rice and ground lamb, which you’ll be helpless for.

Is the pan-Latin comida served from this repurposed, canary-yellow shipping container so good on its own merits, or do los sabores get an extra psychic boost from Omar Cadena’s cannonball hospitality? Either way, granny portions of ropa vieja; garlicky, citrus-spiked lechon; super-stuffed empanadas; and crispy catfish with Ecuadoran salsa criolla, served amid bumping salsa and local market vendors, create a perpetual fiesta on one of the most inviting patios in the city.

Roland Floro Calupe’s years of private cheffing across the Hawaiian islands led to this Filipino spin on ono kine grindz in the Ogilvie Transportation Center’s French Market. Modeled on the okazuya rice-and-side-dish delis found all over the archipelago, here you’ll build your own kalua pork, chicken adobo, or furikake sticky rib plate lunches with mac salad and Japanese and Filipino pickles. Late for a train? Provision your journey with Spam musubi and chubby lumpia.

This house was built on marvelous, buttery, flaky, savory English-style royal pies—steak and ale, chicken balti, and mushroom-kale—crowned with mash and gravy if you’re nasty. But British-pub archetypes here are executed all day long with aplomb, from Scotch eggs to rarebit to currywurst to sticky toffee pudding to Friday night fish-and-chips.

Here’s the left jab of a sweet one-two punch (see Shawn Michelle’s down the block). These dense, brick-sized bundt loaves are named for naturally occurring surface fissures that allow potent glazes to seep into the crumb and pool at the base of the plastic clamshells, for maximum dredging. Queue up before the doors open, because everything—from the OG pecan praline and red velvet to specials like pineapple upside-down and peach cobbler—sells out by early afternoon.

This boisterous spot just north of the city packs in generations of Chicago Greeks, serving up an ebullient vibe rarely encountered in Greektown. It’s the thoroughly from-scratch approach to food that brings them back. Sea bass airlifted from the islands are broiled, then surgically boned tableside amid a ballet of servers landing an array of mezze: circlets of crispy-fried zucchini, chunks of char-grilled octopus, and dollops of cool skordalia spiked with enough garlic to drop a vampire.

Is any food more fraught with heartbreak than a soup dumpling? Not here, where the payoff isn’t fragile, leakage-prone xiao long bao, but handmade guan tang jiao zi: smaller, silkier, juicier, yet somehow sturdier pillows of precious cargo. At one bite apiece, one can eat exponentially more of them too. Among 48 handmade varieties—notably, lamb and dill, truffle and Wagyu, clam and pork, or sea cucumber—they rarely spring gushers before they burst in the mouth.

This modest Jordanian-style falafel shop nails everything it does, but the four-ounce Oklahoma onion burger, with caramelized alliums, American cheese, and za’atar mayo can carry the weight all on its own. (Add a smashed falafel patty, if you’re nasty.) Complete a perfect picture with one of three extraordinary milkshakes: pistachio (with candied nuts), basbousa (with syrup-soaked semolina cake), or salted caramel baklava.

“Da Riv” has been supplying the far west side “other” Little Italy with an abbondanza of durable pasta, tomato, and olive-based imports, as well as its own cured salumi, fresh sausage, giardiniera, and housemade mozz, for more than a half century. Many of these treasures unite in the hot and cold subs, particularly the off-menu Diavolo (formerly “Will Special”), stacked with as many in-house treasures as can fit on a crusty roll from the self-serve bread bin.

Born in Bucharest but reestablished in 1957 (via the Dominican Republic), this butcher shop traffics in rare, unusual, and, frequently, smoked delicacies, like garlic hot dogs (the sleeper sausage of the city), kishka, kosher “bacon,” whole pastrami, and a curtain of beef salamis in a spectrum of dried aging. A new investor group has launched a national shipping program and hinted at a relocation, but for now, this aromatic anachronism is frozen in time.

This simple storefront sometimes runs a Friday camel special. But when hump is scarce, tender, bone-in baby goat with a mound of spaghetti is a bundle of joy, served with a pile of salad and a tub of nuclear-powered hot sauce. Colonization sparked pasta’s evolution into suqaar: chicken or beef sauce powered by xawaash, a blend of cinnamon, cumin, coriander, black pepper, cardamom, cloves, and turmeric. One can reject painful history by subbing rice.

Jhoana Ruiz and Danny Espinoza’s casa de masa is built around his abuelita’s “fluffy-buttery” tamal recipe. The former diner showcases their fine-dining chops, with seasonal tamales like Yucatán cochinita pibil with black mole, or a brown butter-torched marshmallow-peppermint churro crumble with hot chocolate. The set menu is full of heroic pleasures like the CDMX breakfast of champions torta tamal, or a banana capirotada, a.k.a. French toast à la Mexicana.

This pastry shop from the minds behind Indo-Mex Mirra presents a similarly seamless union of Filipino and Indian flavors in the hands of pastry chef Reema Patel. Luminous chai-leche-flan doughnuts share the case with purple ube cheesecake crinkle cookies, while sweet-potato-and-mushroom breakfast dosas fly off the griddle, and baristas build cashew milk-date or dirty chai lattes before a rapt, ever-growing line.

The brick-and-mortar manifestation of hot sauce sovereign Mike Bancroft and pastry queen Anne Kostroski is so much more than brunch and lunch. It’s the proving ground for their myriad projects—from social-justice initiatives to dank ferments—frequently expressed during pizza Fridays and themed supper club pop-up dinners like Citrus Supper, Breakfast for Dinner, and Stuffed Stuff with Stuff!

If you think you don’t like gin, this chummy library of liquid botanicals will change your mind. The menu changes every three months with a fresh mix of cocktails designed for every palate. Polished hangover inhibitors are currently flexing an East Asian profile (fire chicken scallion pancake, nuoc cham steak salad, miso caramel beignets), but are always anchored by perfect frites, and a warm Tollhouse cookie giveaway at midnight.

Here’s the right hook of a sweet one-two punch (see Pookie down the block). This venerable Bronzeville parlor has been churning its own ice cream for 30 years, with room for both classics and innovations, like lunchroom butter cookie and bourbon-and-butter pecan. Two outstanding and distinct variants are powered by the iconic Black Muslim bean pie, an original hometown custard-based pastry also sold on the premises.

You don’t usually levitate after housing a plate of pierogi, but the dough swaddling the cloudlike dumplings at this homey spot is so delicate that that’s how you’ll feel. Prioritize the buckwheat-cheese-mint variety from the southeastern city of Lublin, also the ancestral home of the fried pork chop, which comes settled in mushroom gravy pooled atop a crispy potato pancake. The Polski Talerz is a sampler of the kitchen’s cooking, but there’s no floating after that.

Chicago’s stake in the Lao food movement grows through pop-ups, but at a decade-plus, this suburban storefront is a landmark. Kaew Saengsom grew up along the Thai-Laos border, and her food reflects the Isan region’s synthesis of both cuisines. Chile-slicked chicken soup (kow tome); punchy young-jackfruit salad; herbaceous, turmeric-saturated stir-fried beef tamin; tamarind-lemongrass-tapioca-crusted wings; and curried egg rolls all transcend the common Thai standbys.

A cozy, welcoming companion to its busy sister bakery, Stumara is your spot for a supra, the lengthy multi-course feast that is the apex of Georgian hospitality. A long list of imported wine befitting the birthplace of viticulture pairs with fat, pleated dumplings; earthy sausages in white bean purée; silky beef cheeks in walnut sauce; and all the iconic breads, especially the adjaruli khachipuri with its Olympic cheese pull.

The line stretches down the block an hour before the door opens to this wee, weekend pastry shop, and moves glacially due to the breathtaking array within the case. Sleep in and it sells out, so there’s nothing to do but grab coffee next door and enjoy the company, with visions of giardiniera focaccia, eggnog Basque cheesecake, mortadella croissants, and kielbasa galettes dancing in your head. A changing seasonal rotation guarantees new wonders each week.

The first U.S. outpost of this Kazakh chain specializes in its namesake: an imported golden millet featured all over the menu, particularly in a trio of warm, comforting breakfast porridges, but also in sweets and caffeinated drinks. Ancient central Asian preservation techniques play a key role in uncommon sweets like the caramelized and fermented cottage cheese known as irimshik. A handful of Western-style dishes round things out in this bright, uncluttered café.

David Nikolaos Schneider is an evangelist of Greek food you’d only eat if you lived on the islands with your yiayia. His on-the-ground study of unique regional styles and forgotten ingredients manifests into roast wild boar and chestnuts with Cretan pasta; Politiki-style flatbread with housemade pastourma; and stretchy orchid root ice cream. Wild herbs have made their way onto the menu from his family’s Andros vineyards, which will soon feature his own custom wine blends.

This modern deli analogue to nearby Vinnie’s Sub Shop is the house that nduja built, the retail expression of an artisanal salumi dynasty that began with spicy Calabrian “meat butter,” and now features dozens of cured beef and pork products. It’s easy to be overcome by this lacto-fermented stockpile, sold by weight from the dazzling display; the ’nduja arancini and the Dante sandwich, stacked with a half-dozen cured meats, make a good launch pad.

Naoki and Yoshimi Nakashima renamed this quiet, classic Japanese refuge, maintaining the solid standards that sustained it for decades, and revived the sushi program with alluring specials and a few moderate nods to prevailing trends. Deep bowls of curry udon and chicken-and-egg donburi, or crackly grilled mackerel and panko-jacketed tonkatsu, conjure a comforting home you never knew, while a bento box and jiggly coffee jelly charge your reentry into the frenzied outer world.

Born in the pre-COVID pop-up scene, the city’s only restaurant dedicated to the cuisine of Kerala began with sweet, savory, spicy masala biscuits and grew into a nationally known destination. Traditional and modern riffs on coastal south Indian cooking manifest in black chickpea kadala curry; fried yucca balls; the renowned, spice-crusted Peralan pork chop with coconut collards; and appam, the made-to-order coconut rice crêpes with which to ferry it all to your mouth.

A city that’s mastered the world’s pizza styles may well wonder: What more can be done? “Hold my IPA,” said the bakers at Middle Brow, who already perfected the Chicago-style thin crust party cut, branching out to this Avondale taproom to show Detroit how it’s done. Blanketed in fluffy Parm, a rotating cast of 10 rectangles with frico-squared crusts range from basic pepperoni to chicken paprikash, mirroring the sweeping array of suds on tap.

This stalwart all-day tavern has always been a neighborhood refuge, but it emerged from the pandemic as an incubator for novel, fledgling pop-ups. You can usually catch those on Sundays, while anchor tenants like Nice Guy Food Co., with from-scratch English muffin breakfast sandwiches, and Bad Johnny’s, with Roman style-pizzas, hold it down the rest of the week. The freelance chef schedule opens significantly in the summer months when BJ’s ventures out on the festival circuit.

Road trips to Michiana campgrounds and lake houses merit provisioning pit stops at this small-town temple to local, naturally raised, whole-animal butchery. Former ironworker Ricky Hanft is a walking encyclopedia of world sausages, but his all-beef hot dogs should be a primary target. Think you need a specific piece of beef, chicken, or pork? Don’t call ahead—there’s no number. If nothing in the cases meets your needs, he’ll cut you something better.

In good times, families flock to this long-established Brighton Park institution, with its shady patio that should be a lot busier than it was recently. The menu stretches across breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but the standout is the fortifying Guadalajaran-style carne en su jugo, aka “meat in its own juices,” a powerful, beefy soup thick with beans, bacon, green onion, crisp radish, fatty avocado, cilantro, and crushed chile de árbol.

Prices are coded to pivotal dates in history at this defiant, dark-humored modern museum to Slava Ukraini. Twenty-six infused spirits (currant, horseradish, buckthorn) deploy into cocktails like the Russian Oil Refinery. A rainbow varenyky sampler presents beef-beet and pork-plum combos, the chicken kyiv with a glassy crunch rests on the plate with a modernist puréed pea-carrot-parsnip checkerboard, and boozy chocolate-sour cherry cake drinks the infusions under the table.

This neon-bathed storefront specializes in uncompromising execution of the fiery, funky food of northeastern Thailand. The showstoppers: whole fried red snapper bathed in spicy sweet-and-sour sauce; shrimp and squid in a lush egg curry; and a papaya salad mountain pounded with fermented anchovies. There are a half dozen bright, acidic meaty salads—seven if you count the dangerously poppable laab moo tod, deep-fried meatballs with a shattering-crisp armor enveloping a pillowy core.

Amid the city’s abiding Pinoy renaissance, this spot has remained a criterion, evolving from a standard American greasy spoon to include yearned-for Filipino breakfasts: two eggs your way over a mound of garlic rice, and your choice of skirt steak, tocino, longaniza, fried bangus, Spam, or pork chops. Consider the gratis sides of lugaw (gingery chicken porridge) and champorado (chocolate rice pudding), and you’ll need to abdicate any responsibilities you’ve committed to after.

Among the sub options on Italian Deli Row, this counter service shop is the tiniest and least known, but probably the best, and certainly the friendliest. Any extra minutes spent waiting for your made-to-order Vinnie’s Special (ham, salami, provolone, herbed oil) or the Italian (capicola, salami, mortadella, provolone, vinegar) are offset by the charm of owner Darlene Swiatek, whose welcome is a taste of affability you’ll be digesting long after the sandwich is gone.

It can’t be said enough: Chicagoans don’t regularly eat deep-dish. Real Chicago pizza is known as “tavern-style”: cracker-thin, square-cut pies historically meant to feed working-class bar goers. For more than a century, the Barraco family has embodied this style on the South Side—and since 1965 at this frozen-in-time spot, where drinks are cheap and delivery is not an option. Accessorize your pies with a Big Nicky, a hot sausage patty on pizza bread with oozing provolone.

The Roscoe Village stroller mafia rules over a dining dust bowl, but with a year-round patio and by-the-glass fidelity, this is its 20-year-old oasis. Happy hour is a particular refuge, with on-point oyster service, rotating flatbreads, and chef Stephen Dunne’s small plates (steak tartare, fried green tomatoes with Roquefort mousse, foie torchon with cherry jam), while mains like filet mignon au poivre and miso cauliflower steak can settle you in long after sundown.

Masa sustained Mesoamerica for centuries, and here masa sustains Archer Heights through a recent parade of indignities. It’s present in all its expressions—from champurrado to tamales to tacos—but especially worthy in the bean-stuffed tlacoyos. Handmade with yellow or vivid blue corn, the ovoid pockets are vehicles for filet mignon, carnitas, chicken, cabeza, squash blossom, or chicharrón in salsa verde, each with a pyramid of lettuce, onion, tomato, cotija, and crema.

Situated on a desolate carswept artery across from the state DMV, this mom-and-pop Greek diner feels like a mirage of bygone hospitality. That’s until the first forkful of housemade corned beef hash, griddled crispy and saturated with oozing yolk. The love that goes into everything from ham off the bone, to real turkey on the club, to from-scratch soup du jour, hot sauce, and jelly shows why everyone inside seems to know each other. After a few visits, they’ll know you too.

Always overflowing, this Sichuan spot is worth its inevitable wait. Its bright minimalism contrasts with the skull-numbing ma la buzz that thrums through dish after dish. Individually, ma po tofu, fish fillet green peppercorn soup, or hand-pulled braised brisket noodles will flood your synapses with dopamine. Attack them all at once around the lazy Susan, and you confront a limbic hijacking only temporarily interrupted by desperate gulps from your mango passion bubble soda.

This glittering bazaar for Middle Eastern confections floods the synapses with color, aroma, and flavor. Trays of burnished phyllo-framed treats—nut-studded, honey-saturated, or biscoff-embedded—all support kunafa: slabs of melted white cheese, topped with toasted shredded pastry, and saturated with floral syrup. Several variants reside under glass (pistachio, Nutella), but come sundown, charcoal-grilled kunafa in the parking lot offers a taste of the Arab street.