Best Michelin-Starred Restaurants in Chicago
This list holds the guide's 19 Michelin-starred restaurants in Chicago, carrying 25 Michelin stars in total. West Loop has the largest share, and Lincoln Park is next. Starred rooms also sit in East Ukrainian Village, Ukrainian Village, River North, Uptown, West Town, Wicker Park, Pilsen and South Loop.
Smyth in West Loop holds three Michelin stars. Oriole and Ever in West Loop, Alinea in Lincoln Park, and Kasama in East Ukrainian Village hold two. The remaining restaurants on the list hold one star. Cooking runs from modern American and molecular gastronomy to Filipino, Middle Eastern, Indian, Mexican and omakase formats.
How this list is chosen: Restaurants holding Michelin stars, listed alphabetically. Updated October 8, 2026.
Alinea
2 Michelin stars · Deep wine list
Alinea remains Chicago's defining modernist dining room: theatrical, technical and more concerned with changing the grammar of American fine dining than with repeating luxury-restaurant conventions.
Boka
1 Michelin star · Deep wine list
Boka has held a Michelin star since 2010 and remains one of Lincoln Park's most consistent fine-dining addresses. Chef Lee Wolen's à la carte menu and hyper-seasonal tasting menu both draw on sharply sourced ingredients and technically precise cooking, set inside a dining room that manages to feel both elegant and genuinely welcoming.
Cariño
1 Michelin star
Opened in December 2023 in Chicago's Uptown neighbourhood, Cariño earned a Michelin star in its first year by treating Mexican cuisine as the basis for serious tasting-menu cooking. Chef Norman Fenton runs a 12-course counter experience where nixtamalization and spherification sit alongside al pastor seasoning and huitlacoche ravioli, producing food that reads as both technically ambitious and elementally Mexican.
EL Ideas
1 Michelin star
EL Ideas operates from a converted warehouse on Chicago's Lower West Side, where Chef Phillip Foss runs a single-seating, BYOB dinner that functions more like an open-kitchen experiment than a conventional restaurant. A Michelin star since 2024 and consistent placement on Opinionated About Dining's North America list signal serious cooking beneath the deliberately casual format. Guests are encouraged to wander, watch, and engage directly with the kitchen.
Elske
1 Michelin star
On Chicago's Randolph Street dining corridor, Elske operates in a category occupied by few American restaurants: serious tasting menu territory with an a la carte alternative and a genuine Nordic influence. Ranked #157 in North America by Opinionated About Dining in 2024 and holding, it draws a committed audience to the West Loop for seasonally grounded cooking and an unusually calm dining room.
Esmé
1 Michelin star
On Lincoln Park's Clark Street, Esmé holds a Michelin star and back-to-back Opinionated About Dining top-200 finishes in North America for its multicourse Nordic-American tasting menu. Chef Jenner Tomaska and co-owner Katrina Bravo run the program inside a gallery-like space where each course arrives on ceramics made by local artists, and the cooking leans toward unexpected savory-sweet combinations at a serious price point.
Ever
2 Michelin stars · Deep wine list
Two Michelin stars, a La Liste score of 96 points in 2026, and an AAA 5 Diamond rating place Ever among Chicago's most decorated fine dining rooms.
Feld
1 Michelin star
A Michelin Plate-recognized tasting counter in Chicago's Ukrainian Village, Feld builds its 20-to-30-course menu around ingredients sourced within a four-hour radius, with dishes that cycle daily according to what's in season. The kitchen operates in the center of the room, in full view of the dining room, and a backyard fire pit extends the experience when weather allows. Recognized by both the Michelin Guide and Bon Appétit as one of America's best new restaurants.
Galit
1 Michelin star · Wine Spectator Award of Excellence · Deep wine list
Galit holds a Michelin star and an Opinionated About Dining ranking of #71 in North America (2025) for its modern Middle Eastern prix-fixe on Lincoln Avenue. Chef Zach Engel works regional produce through an aromatic, produce-forward lens, with a beverage program built around wines from Armenia, Lebanon, Palestine, and Israel. Open Tuesday through Saturday from 5 PM, with a price point at the upper tier of Chicago's neighbourhood dining scene.
Indienne
1 Michelin star · Wine Spectator Award of Excellence
Indienne brings a tasting-menu-only approach to progressive Indian cuisine in Chicago's River North, earning a Michelin star in 2024 and an Opinionated About Dining ranking of #469 in North America (2025). Chef Sujan Sarkar draws on French technique alongside the breadth of the Indian subcontinent, with parallel vegan, vegetarian, and non-vegetarian menus served in a room that mixes warehouse bones with white tablecloths and rose-pink booths.
Kasama
2 Michelin stars
Kasama occupies a rare position in American dining: a Filipino restaurant holding a Michelin star and a James Beard Award, operating as a daytime bakery and café before transforming into a 13-course tasting menu destination by night. Located in Chicago's East Ukrainian Village, it draws on the culinary pedigrees of Genie Kwon and Timothy Flores to reframe Filipino cuisine within the language of contemporary fine dining.
Mako
1 Michelin star
Among Chicago's small-format omakase counters, Mako occupies a deliberately understated position on West Lake Street: 22 seats, a single plaque at the entrance, and a menu that earns its place on the Opinionated About Dining North America list. Chef BK Park's program runs Wednesday through Sunday, with cooked courses alongside the sushi sequence setting it apart from leaner omakase formats in the city.
Moody Tongue
1 Michelin star
Moody Tongue sits above its working brewery on South Wabash, where a one-Michelin-star kitchen and an in-house brewing program operate as equal partners rather than novelty sidekicks. Chef Jared Wentworth's contemporary menu draws from a wide range of global references, with beer pairings that are integral to the meal's structure. Ranked 32nd in Opinionated About Dining's 2025 Casual North America list, it occupies a small, well-defined niche in Chicago's serious dining tier.
Next Restaurant
1 Michelin star
Next Restaurant on Fulton Market operates on a format that few American fine dining rooms attempt: a rotating thematic menu that changes every four months, pulling from culinary traditions as distant as ancient Rome and early 20th-century Paris. Holding a Michelin star since 2024 and ranked 76th in North America by Opinionated About Dining in 2025, it occupies a specific tier within Chicago's serious dining scene.
Oriole
2 Michelin stars
Two Michelin stars, a 2025 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Great Lakes, and a La Liste score of 93 points place Oriole at the serious end of Chicago's tasting-menu tier. Chef Noah Sandoval's progressive American format draws on French and Japanese technique, served in a converted West Loop warehouse where guests arrive by freight elevator and dine beneath a ceiling collage above an open kitchen.
Schwa
1 Michelin star
Schwa occupies a particular niche in Chicago's fine dining scene that almost no other room does: Michelin-starred cooking delivered without servers, over a soundtrack of rap music, by chefs who plate and present their own work. Ranked #131 on Opinionated About Dining's North America list in 2025, it sits in the upper tier of the city's progressive American restaurants while refusing every convention that tier typically demands.
Sepia
1 Michelin star · Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence · Deep wine list
Set inside a converted 19th-century print shop on Jefferson Street, Sepia occupies Chicago's upper tier of contemporary American fine dining. Chef Andrew Zimmerman draws on Southeast Asian, Korean, and Mediterranean influences to push the format well beyond direct Continental territory.
Smyth
3 Michelin stars
Smyth belongs to Chicago's highest-stakes tasting-menu tier, where progressive American cooking is judged by sourcing discipline as much as technical range. John Shields and Karen Urie Shields bring a farm-driven lineage shaped by Charlie Trotter's and rural Virginia, now backed by Michelin three-star recognition, La Liste scoring, Star Wine List recognition, and a 2026 OAD North America ranking.
Topolobampo
1 Michelin star · Deep wine list
Topolobampo holds a Michelin star and a top-500 Opinionated About Dining ranking for its seasonally shifting Mexican menu in Chicago's River North. The kitchen draws on regional Mexican traditions, rotating through cuisines like Pueblan cooking with dishes built around masa, agave spirits, and slow preparations. Open Wednesday through Saturday for dinner, it occupies the upper tier of Chicago's fine-dining set.
Planning Michelin-starred restaurants in Chicago
- How many Michelin-starred restaurants are on this list?
- This list holds 19 Michelin-starred restaurants, with 25 Michelin stars in total. Both figures match the citywide totals in our guide. The restaurants are in the West Loop, Lincoln Park, East Ukrainian Village, Ukrainian Village, River North, Uptown, West Town, Wicker Park, Pilsen and South Loop.
- Which neighborhood has the most starred restaurants on this list?
- The West Loop has six of the 19 Michelin-starred restaurants on this list: Smyth, Oriole, Ever, Next Restaurant, Mako and Sepia. Lincoln Park follows, with Alinea, Boka, Galit and Esmé. That West Loop group is the largest neighborhood group on the list.
- Which restaurants on this list have an exceptional wine program?
- Six restaurants on this list have an exceptional wine program: Alinea, Boka and Galit in Lincoln Park, Ever and Sepia in the West Loop, and Topolobampo in River North. Galit's list is built around wines from Armenia, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel. Sepia's list runs to 840 selections.