Chicago Restaurant Week: 25 New and Revamped Restaurants to Try in 2025

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The January doldrums are real. It’s cold, it’s dark, you’re tired from the holidays. It takes a lot to leave the house – which is a problem for restaurants, since they’re relying on people walking through their doors for business. Hence Chicago Restaurant Week (which is actually 17 days), now in its 18th year. From January 24 through February 9, over 450 restaurants in the Chicago area offer fixed price multi-course menus at $30 for lunch or brunch and $45 or $60 for dinner. (Restaurants do not necessarily offer all three options.) You can find participants and their menus at the Chicago Restaurant Week website.

With hundreds of restaurants to choose from, we suggest checking your neighborhood for places to try, perusing the list for your favorite restaurants, or taking the chance to try a new place. To that last end, we’ve compiled a list of Chicago Restaurant Week restaurants that opened in 2024, or have returned after a hiatus or been dramatically revamped in the past year. (Apologies to anywhere that we missed.) Make your reservations now – they can fill up quickly!

101 Club

Located on Michigan Avenue along the Magnificent Mile in what used to be the Conrad Hotel but is now a Marriott Residence Inn, the 101 Club features simple classics as well as a rooftop seating area – though we don’t know that you want to be eating there in January!

Au Levain

This bakery was started by Angel Chavez as a side project during the pandemic. It has continued through the years and just opened a retail location in North Center, and is participating in Restaurant Week with a brunch and lunch menu that spotlights Chavez's savory cooking as well as his Basque cheesecake.

Bar Parisette

This Logan Square French bistro comes from Matthew Sussman, the owner of nearby Table, Donkey and Stick, who tapped Madalyn Durrant from Webster’s Wine Bar as chef. With the pedigree of those two restaurants, you know the wine is good at Bar Parisette – and Durrant was nominated Rising Chef of the Year in this year’s local Jean Banchet Awards for Culinary Excellence, so the food must match.

Bonyeon

While it’s not officially participating in Restaurant Week, this Korean beef tasting menu spot in the West Loop is offering an $84 five-course “omakase select” menu inspired by Restaurant Week, from January 26 to February 2, available to book via Resy. Opened last year by the couple behind Tengoku Aburiya and Omakase Yume, it spotlights beef in the same refined way Omakase Yume celebrates fish.

Brasero

John Manion has won praise for his El Che Steakhouse & Bar in the West Loop; his Brasero leans into Brazilian and other Latin cuisines while continuing the cooking with wood fires in West Town. It’s up for both Best New Restaurant and Best Design in this year’s local Jean Banchet Awards for Culinary Excellence.

Briny Swine Smokehouse and Oyster Bar

Lowcountry barbecue came to Lincoln Park last year with Briny Swine. Expect the vinegary sauces and pork idolatry of Carolina-style barbecue, plus a side of bracing oysters to refresh you.

Cebu

Cebu isn’t actually new: it brought Filipino food to Wicker Park for years before closing in 2023. Last year, it reopened in Lakeview, and it’s that new location that is taking part in Chicago Restaurant Week.

Hawksmoor

Hawksmoor opened in 2006 – in London. The popular British steakhouse has recently made its way to our shores, and opened an outpost in Chicago last year in a River North space that most recently housed Michael Jordan’s Restaurant. Expect ethically sourced beef, very old-school toppings like oysters, and Yorkshire pudding.

Konbini and Kanpai Wrigleyville

This is the second Konbini and Kanpai, but the first to have a full kitchen and dining menu. The original sake-and-other-beverage shop is located farther west in Lakeview (we profiled it), but this Wrigleyville location is more of a bar than the other retail-focused location, with plenty of sakes to sample and helpful staff to guide you.

La Grande Boucherie

Replacing Ruth’s Chris Steak House in River North, La Grande Boucherie is a French restaurant from the New York-based group that also brought Olio e Più and The Omakase Room (not to be confused with The Omakase Room at Sushi-San) to Chicago.

La Licor Panamericana

If you look at the menu at this Logan Square restaurant and bar, you’ll find national flags next to each dish and several drinks. That’s because the pan-Latin spot highlights specialties from countries across South America, from food to liquor to artifacts gathered by the owners.

Legal Sea Foods

A Boston institution, Legal Sea Foods opened an outpost in Chicago in a fitting place for a seafood-focused restaurant: the base of Marina City on the Chicago River.

Leña Brava

Leña Brava was opened by Rick Bayless in the West Loop years ago, but it has gone through several iterations since then. No longer associated with Bayless, it recently brought on a new chef to entirely revamp the menu. Brian Enyart spent years working for Bayless before opening the now-shuttered Dos Urban Cantina, and he’s focusing on cuisine from Mexico’s west coast state of Baja in Leña Brava’s wood-fired kitchen.

Mango Pickle

Mango Pickle brought citywide restaurant attention to Edgewater with its eclectic Indian food but shifted to more of a pop-up model and then closed entirely. Now it’s back just for Chicago Restaurant Week; get it while you can.

Mano a Mano

A pasta-focused restaurant in Logan Square from the husband-and-wife duo behind the Greek Andros Taverna and the critically loved, Spanish-inflected Asador Bastian, Mano a Mano takes them to another Mediterranean country: Italy.

Maxwells Trading

Located in a former warehouse district of West Town, Maxwells Trading is a true Chicago restaurant, drawing in part on the food partner Erling Wu-Bower grew up eating in the city and utilizing a few ingredients grown on its rooftop. He and chef Chris Jung craft dishes spanning countries but drawing particularly on various East Asian cuisines; their food has earned them a place on numerous "best of" lists both local and national. Jung is another chef nominated Rising Chef of the Year in this year’s local Jean Banchet Awards for Culinary Excellence.

Minyoli

A rare Taiwanese restaurant in Chicago, Andersonville’s Minyoli specializes in beef noodle soup, a staple of a type of cuisine once found in unique Taipei neighborhoods of immigrants, like the one in which chef Rich Wang spent his childhood. We profiled Wang and shared his recipe for homestyle dumplings.

NAFSI

Located in the historic South Shore Cultural Center, which once excluded Black and Jewish people, NAFSI is a reclamation that celebrates the Southern food Black migrants brought north with them to Chicago. We covered the restaurant upon its opening.

PERILLA steakhouse

This elegant restaurant inside the new L7 Chicago hotel in the Loop offers a Korean twist on the classic Chicago steakhouse, incorporating the flavors and side dishes of Korean barbecue thanks to the team behind PERILLA fare in the West Loop. It’s another restaurant up for Best Design in this year’s local Jean Banchet Awards for Culinary Excellence.

Petit Pomeroy

You don’t often see a restaurant move from the suburbs to the city, but that’s what Ballyhoo Hospitality – responsible for DeNucci’s, Coda di Volpe, and other popular spots – did when they introduced Winnetka’s French bistro Pomeroy to River North as Petit Pomeroy.

Petite Vie

Paul Virant, last year’s Chef of the Year at the local Jean Banchet Awards for Culinary Excellence, closed his long-standing Western Springs restaurant Vie to consternation before opening this more casual French brasserie around the corner in the same suburb last year.

ROOP Chicago

Formerly known as ROOH Chicago, this West Loop Indian restaurant recently switched over to highlighting a tasting menu, although you can still get a simpler lunch during Restaurant Week. The owners are also behind Bar Goa and the Monarch & Lion.

Sotto

The Italian Village in the Loop may be nearly a century old, but it just opened a new restaurant and bar in its basement space called Sotto, as our writer Maggie Hennessy recently explored while also revisiting her own memories in the space.

Toro by Chef Richard Sandoval

It’s a big year for new hotel restaurants, as the tourism and hospitality industry continues to adapt to changes inaugurated by the COVID pandemic. The Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park just opened the pan-Latin Toro by Chef Richard Sandoval, who has restaurants around the world. (He also opened Casa Chi in the InterContinental Chicago Magnificent Mile last year.) If you’re partaking in Dry January, Toro has plenty of non-alcoholic offerings – and we have a recipe for one of them to try at home. 

Yasemi

Yasemi opened at the end of the year in River North's Godfrey Hotel, and is a Mediterranean restaurant with a Greek chef from the owners of ROOP, Bar Goa, and the Monarch & Lion. It's their first restaurant that is not South Asian-inspired. 

This post has been updated to include Au Levain and Yasemi.