These Are Chicago's Best Restaurants, According To Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain was a true New Yorker. He was born there, sharpened his skills as a chef there, and continued living in the city long after he had the celebrity status to live anywhere he pleased. But he still had an affinity for fellow big-city Chicago, which he detailed during his visits to the Windy City in "No Reservations" in 2008, "The Layover" in 2011, and "Parts Unknown" in 2015. "Everything I love about a city — tall towers, hard corners, and sharp elbows, and, of course, food," Bourdain said of Chicago on "No Reservations." "I love this city. In my opinion, it's the only other real metropolis in America. This city has neither the interest nor need to catch up with anybody." 

It shouldn't be surprising that Bourdain had a love affair with Chicago since he could relate to the city. "It's big, outgoing, tough, opinionated, and everybody has got a story," he said of Chicago on "Parts Unknown." He even penned an essay about how much he adored the city before the episode aired. This reverence influenced visits to a slew of restaurants detailed on his Chicago shows, ranging from a rough-and-tumble bar to a fine dining eatery headed by a "Top Chef" winner. By reviewing Bourdain's aforementioned shows, we rounded up the crème de la crème, based on which Chicago eateries enamored him. You can experience the delicious fares of the Windy City by visiting this time of the year. 

To Bourdain, Chicago-style deep-dish pizza was sacrilege in a skillet. "Chicago is famous for many things, but not all of them are worth celebrating," Bourdain said on "No Reservations." "I've always felt that the so-called deep-dish pizza was a crime against food. It wasn't a pizza at all; I believed — some kind of Midwestern mutation of a pizza." But thanks to friend, chef, and restaurant critic Louisa Chu, he didn't maintain those opinions after visiting Burt's Place, a deep-dish pizza joint in the Morton Grove neighborhood. The Chicago restaurant has the only Chicago deep-dish pizza Bourdain enjoyed. 

With wood-paneled walls, diner-style booths, and a smorgasbord of photos and knickknacks, Burt's Place is where Chicago-style deep-dish pizza speaks for itself. Owner Burt Katz was 71 when he appeared on the show with his wife, Sharon. He spent over 40 years "taking the best qualities of Italian pizza and marrying them with Chicago-style deep-dish pizza," said Bourdain. What resulted was "a casserole inside a pizza" surrounded by a caramelized crust filled with spinach, mushrooms, and bell peppers sourced fresh every day. It's so good that Burt's Place was once featured on the cover of gourmet food magazine "Saveur." Even Bourdain was a convert. "I got to admit. I like this stuff a lot. I think my problem was just calling it pizza," he said. After Katz died in 2016, Burt's Place remains a deep-dish pizza powerhouse, thanks to new owners who keep the eatery's long-standing reputation alive.

Fat Johnnie's Famous Red Hots is so delicious that it got Peter Engler, a Chicago street food historian who accompanied Bourdain on "No Reservations," started on his obsession. Located on the south side of Chicago, the walkup-window restaurant serves hot dogs with twists only Chicago can. WGN News named it home of the best hot dogs in Chicago. Its creations include the Mighty Dog with tamale, chili, and cheese, which Bourdain enjoyed — at least at the moment — during his Chicago tour. "I'm going to hate myself in the morning. I hate myself already. But that was really good," he said. Tamales sound like a strange addition to a Chicago dog, but they're actually staples of the city, although no one is 100% sure how they arrived there. 

Engler opted for the Mother-in-Law, a tamale topped with chili on a hot dog bun. "Disturbing in design yet strangely compelling," Bourdain said. "Mothers-in-law aren't easy to handle, and this one is no exception. It's supposed to give you indigestion in the way only a mother-in-law can." But just don't top it with the popular condiment that will prompt Chicagoans to mock you. Engler and Bourdain topped their stomach-ache-inducing meals with gulps of The Suicide, a mix of all of Fat Johnnie's Famous Red Hots' sodas. "It reminds me of a root beer gone wrong," said Engler.

Chicago's south side suffers a poor reputation, riddled with crime and violence. However, when industries thrived in the area, like meatpacking warehouses and steel mills, Calumet Fisheries set up shop in 1948. It still serves fish wood-smoked onsite in a smokehouse off the rear of the brick, red-roofed building. "The smoke shack looks like a cross between an outhouse and the incinerator of a small-town animal shelter," said Chu. Located on the banks of the Calumet River, it still has no tables, as back in the day, sailors would just pull up in their boats to pick up lunch.

But a place so good needs no tables, fancy to-do, or credit card machine to become one of the last few surviving Illinois smokehouses. People drive to Calumet Fisheries to eat the trout, salmon, shrimp, and other smoked fish served in heaping portions right in their cars. To make it, the smokehouse brines the fish overnight before smoking it with oak logs for hours, tending to the fire the entire time. "It's survived the exodus of industry in this area due to the excellence of the smoked fish," Bourdain said on "No Reservations." "The trout is really extraordinary. This is really great stuff. It tastes like fish, and smoke, and fish oil." Bourdain isn't the only one to think so. Calumet Fisheries has earned an America's Classics Award from the James Beard Foundation and has been visited by Kamala Harris.

Visit Old Town Ale House for a cold one, and you'll get more than a beer. Owner Bruce Cameron Elliott is a writer, blogger, artist, as well as a bar manager. He specializes in one sort of artwork at the beloved Chicago dive bar. The walls of the old-school bar that dates back to 1958 are lined with Elliot's portraits of regulars and politicians in NSFW depictions. The latter features "political figures who have raised Bruce's ire depicted in, let's say, an un-family-friendly light," said Bourdain on "Parts Unknown." That includes Vladimir Putin in a tutu and Donald Trump in a straitjacket. Elliot paints the portraits in the basement next to the beer cooler.

Bourdain loved Old Town Ale House so much that it inspired his entire visit to Chicago on "Parts Unknown"; he also visited it on "The Layover." But the best part of Old Town Ale House is that average people fill its barstools, not the celebrities painted on its walls. "There is no shortage of characters here," Bourdain said. "Bar people don't live as long as vegan joggers," Elliott responded. "However, they have more fun." That is until they get onto Old Town Ale House's notorious and extensive no-shot list, from which only one person has ever been removed. However, few people have been barred from the "old man bar," as Bourdain described it. "To get barred here, you would have to punch someone, probably more than once," Elliott shrugged.

Bourdain visited Longman & Eagle on "Parts Unknown" with comedian Paul Jurewicz, whose job is to make everything a laughing matter. However, Longman & Eagle, which opened in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago in 2010, is decidedly not. "Where the flannels and neckbeards are abundant, the food is excellent," Bourdain said of the trendy eatery. Here, he dined on farm-to-table eats like beef tartare, roasted bone marrow, Tete de Cochon with blue cheese and celery relish, beef tripe confit, and slow-roasted cauliflower with caramelized onions and lentils.

These dishes are reflections of Longman & Eagle's philosophy to offer modern renditions of fare traditionally served at Chicago inns, which means it has more than just food. The business also offers six unique hotel rooms with $125 nightly rates that include cassette tape players and tapes in all rooms. Those rooms come in especially handy for those eager to take advantage of Longman & Eagle's eye-popping drink list, which includes tons of draft and bottled beer, thoughtfully-made wines, artisan cocktails, rare liquors, and a whiskey list so long it has its own book.

Chicago knows sandwiches. But on "Parts Unknown," Bourdain met a sandwich so bold, so monstrous, and so delicious that even he was blown away. Steve Albini, a now-deceased underground rock producer and former member of the band "Big Black," took Bourdain to Ricobene's. It is a throwback pizzeria and casual Italian eatery that has been serving Chicago comfort cuisine since 1946 in the Bridgeport neighborhood. Ricobene's was opened by owner Sam Ricobene's grandparents; today, he keeps the parlor's legacy alive, even late at night, when it remains open for those looking for a bite after hours. You might need one after drinking the Chicago liquor that only tourists with acquired taste should try.

Its most famous menu item is the breaded steak sandwich, which includes breaded sirloin steak, red sauce, mozzarella cheese, and hot giardiniera on a hero roll. "We're gonna need a boatload of napkins," Bourdain said. "There's no delicate way to eat this." But once he does, he realizes all those napkins were worth it. "This is a thing of beauty. And tasty," he continued. He's not the only one who thought so. The sandwich has been called one of the best in Bridgeport by South Side Weekly, the best on the planet by a USA Today journalist, and the best in the country by Barstool Sports.

Behind a green awning and a neon "open" sign hides a homestyle Italian joint that packs a punch in the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago. Bruce Cameron Elliott, owner of Old Town Ale House and longtime customer "Buzzkill" brought Bourdain to Topo Gigio on "Parts Unknown." The trio discussed Chicago's baseball culture and dined on Italian eats made from family recipes. They ordered scallops in pesto cream sauce, squid ink pasta with shrimp, and veal saltimbocca, which they enjoyed amid the restaurant's bustling atmosphere. Customers can also dine in a covered, heated garden or on a patio when the weather warms.

Topo Gigio has been serving Tuscan fare since 1988, with food so good that the Italian restaurant has been voted the best in the city. It was founded by Calabria native Frank Reda, who grew up watching "The Ed Sullivan Show" — there was a mouse puppet on the show named "Topo Gigio." A figurine of the mouse puppet continues to overlook the dining room.

Publican Quality Meats list of offerings reads like a charcuterie lover's delight, and judging by Bourdain's singsong way of saying the meats and cheeses on "The Layover," he was a charcuterie fan. Bourdain visited the shop in the meatpacking district of Chicago, sampling items such as spicy coppa, head cheese, blood sausage, pork and liver pate, pickled tongue, testa, and other delicacies that any carnivore would drool at. The shop creates sausages and dry ages its meat in-house, which it sources from nearby small farms committed to sustainability. It also offers salads and sandwiches (with the vegetables grown on Midwestern farms) and baked goods from its bakery in the café. 

Furthermore, it has a market where people can pick up artisan grocery items such as spice rubs and soups. Best of all — especially for Bourdain, who loved a good drink — Publican Quality Meats serves liquor, so diners can indulge in a glass alongside their charcuterie. It's owned by James Beard award-winning chefs Paul Kahan and Donnie Madia, who are Chicago culinary powerhouses, having opened six acclaimed dining establishments through their tenure. In the kitchen is head butcher and chef de cuisine Rob Levitt, who owned the nationally acclaimed butcher shop The Butcher & Larder.

We all know Bourdain loved an "old man bar." Therefore, it is unsurprising that he was a big fan of Simon's Tavern, a local dive with a kick that sets it apart from Chicago's long list of local watering holes. In the traditionally Swedish neighborhood of Andersonville, it's decorated in what Bourdain called "mid-period viking décor." It's adorned with wood, Viking statues, woodland murals, and drinking horns hanging from the ceiling. "The look of this place coming in, I was like, 'Oh yeah, I'm gonna like it here,'" Bourdain said on "The Layover." "It's like getting a big boozy hug from Pippi Longstocking." Simon's Tavern is a purveyor of Schlitz, another iconic Milwaukee beer in Chicago.

But those looking for a sip of Sweden here should try the bar's everchanging glogg, a mulled wine that Simon's Tavern switches up depending on the season with ingredients such as apples or lingonberries. The glogg and other nods to Swedish heritage make it one of the few remaining Swedish destinations in the neighborhood. Simon's Tavern has been a staple officially since 1934 at the end of Prohibition, although prior to that, it was an illicit speakeasy founded by Simon Lundberg. With its long history, Simon's Tavern offers $0.05 tours, and you just might see a ghost on your jaunt since the bar is supposedly haunted. Lundberg's son operated the bar until Chicago native and fellow Swede Scott Martin took it over in 1994.

It wouldn't be a visit to Chicago without an Italian beef sandwich, which, now nationally famous from "The Bear," features slow-cooked round steak topped with giardiniera on a roll dipped in au jus. Or, as Bourdain called it, "magical greasy beef juice." Every neighborhood has its go-to stand for Italian beef, but in Elmwood Park, that's Johnnie's Beef, which Bourdain visited on "The Layover." The stand has been the neighborhood's — and city's — go-to for Italian beef since it opened its doors in 1961. Its long line is always worth it, especially if you're looking for a late-night bite since it's open until midnight every night of the week. 

Johnnie's Italian beef sandwich served on Gonnella bread is so good that it was named the best Italian beef in the city by TimeOut. "Superbly moist, some might say drenched and delicious," Bourdain said. "It's a big soggy load of awesomeness." It was so awesome that Bourdain couldn't contain his delight as he bit into it, much to the Travel Channel's dismay, as it censored some of his quotes. "Oh, Jesus. Look at this. Holy crap. Holy ...," Bourdain said. He finished it off with a paper cup of the stand's famous homemade lemonade. Heading here soon? Here's the Chicago lingo for ordering the iconic Italian beef sandwich. 

Chicago is known for greasy fare on bread, but it has modern fine dining, too. Bourdain sees that firsthand when he visits The Girl & The Goat on "The Layover." The restaurant is owned by Chicago native and "Top Chef" season four winner Stephanie Izard, who grew up cooking international cuisine and continues to create fusion dishes at her acclaimed eatery. "People do want meat and potatoes but turns out, Chicagoans are just big foodies and they also want to try new things and get past that old stereotype," she said.

At the West Loop eatery, Bourdain tried too many dishes to list, and he clamors over everyone. One of his favorites was the open roasted pig face with fried egg and potato sticks, which is one of the most popular dishes at the restaurant since it was first served on the eatery's opening day. He also loved the goat belly with lobster and bourbon butter, escargot ravioli with tamarind, bacon and crunchy onions, and roasted cauliflower with pickled peppers and mint. "Even I like some roughage now and then," Bourdain said. The Girl & The Goat is so good that it ushered in a slew of other excellent restaurants on what's now known as Restaurant Row after it opened in 2010. It even expanded and now also has a Los Angeles location. If you spend too much money on this high-end dinner, here are free activities to enjoy in Chicago. 

In an essay Bourdain penned called "The Chorus," published on Medium, he wrote, "I like Chicago. So, any excuse to come back, for me, is a good one." He found plenty since he visited Chicago on all three of his shows: "No Reservations," "Parts Unknown," and "The Layover." However, Bourdain didn't use his visits to dine at the same spots or explore the typical parts of the city's ethos. He ate at more than two dozen sites throughout his Chicago journeys, relying on influential Chicago residents like Chu, Elliott, and Albini to show him the true side of the towering metropolis.

To determine which bars and restaurants Bourdain visited that were distinguishable, we went to the source — Bourdain. Throughout his three shows, we listened to him tell us which Chicago institutions were storied, most beloved, and most delicious. We chronicled the eloquent yet chuckle-inducing praise that only a man as iconic, well-traveled, intelligent, and talented as Bourdain could deliver. This helped us determine which Chicago eateries stand out from the rest. Whether you're craving sloppy Italian beef, a cutting-edge invention, or a fine dining meal, you will find a culinary house to satisfy your hunger.