Duck Sel is anything but conventional. It’s a pop-up that hosts about two dinners a month inside an apartment in Edgewater — chef Don Young doesn’t want to give away the location. The exceptionally tight-knit staff outkicks their coverage. No way should a tasting menu produced in a small non-commercial space taste this good. Young’s laid-back demeanor hides a killer intensity. He wants to produce fun and pretty dishes using premium ingredients. He may provide a syringe so diners can inject sauces or have other playful props. These are not gimmicks; they make sense in the context of what he’s trying to accomplish. But jump on reservations. There’s limited space.

Women-fronted tasting menu restaurants are a relative rarity in Chicago, but in Edgewater, Herb chef and owner Patty Neumson has spent a decade carving out a distinctive niche with her upscale Thai restaurant. In place of a lengthy list of dishes, Neumson offers seasonal tasting menu lineups that translate the depth and delicacy of familiar Thai flavor profiles into gorgeous, colorful curries, stews, and dishes loaded with a bounty of fresh herbs and produce. Options include a tasting menu for two and a “chef’s special” tasting menu.

Atelier gave chef Christian Hunter, who in 2023 earned a James Beard nomination in Connecticut, a chance to move to Chicago to take over the Lincoln Square space that once held Michelin-starred Elizabeth. Designers could only do so much inside the small space to give Atelier its own identity, but Hunter (now a co-owner) and founder Tim Lacey have forged a bold new direction. Hunter’s menu is light and strikes the right notes of nostalgia (the semolina cheese curds are marvelous). Lacey brings a unique intensity to the drink list and the best non-alcoholic pairing in the city. 

Chicago’s only Persian tasting menu restaurant is a warm and friendly and has a vegetarian option. The smoky eggplant dish is a highlight, as is the lamb chop, which evokes the feeling of sinking your teeth into a lamb kebob at neighborhood staple Reza’s. There are enough surprises on this affordable tasting menu to keep coming back.

A quaint retreat with singular views of Lincoln Park’s North Pond Nature Sanctuary, this restaurant is prized among diners seeking to mark a special occasion in a subtly elegant style. Its building, created in 1912 as a warming shelter for ice skaters, has undergone a significant redesign guided by the Arts and Crafts tradition. North Pond draws on this same organic, ornamental approach with seasonal tasting menus featuring courses like bacon-wrapped rabbit loin (roasted artichoke, pine nut brittle) and coffee-rubbed wagyu striploin with beef cheek beignet and apple butter jus. The restaurant sits in the middle of Lincoln Park — the actual park, not the neighborhood. There’s no other restaurant like it.

Chicago’s omakase scene has grown significantly since 2018, when chef Otto Phan decamped to Chicago from Austin, Texas to open Kyoten, his eight-seat sushi haunt in Logan Square. That shift is due in large part to Phan himself, who brings his live-wire energy to his pursuit of the highest craftsmanship possible. That opportunity, however, comes at a price, as this is one of the city’s spendier tasting menus.

Arguably the crown jewel in James Beard Award-winning Boka Restaurant Group’s pantheon of Chicago restaurants, Boka has reigned over Lincoln Park for nearly 10 years and secured a Michelin star under the steady guidance of lauded chef Lee Wolen, a veteran of Eleven Madison Park. Noted for his thoughtful treatment of produce and proteins (think black truffle roasted chicken and grilled lion’s mane mushrooms with lapsang souchong), Wolen offers an eight-course tasting menu.

Alinea, one of two Chicago restaurants with a full three stars from Michelin, is one of the most important restaurants in America, with a tasting menu that blends technique and art. This is the prototype entry that posh diners point to when saying meals are more than sustenance. Chef Grant Achatz attempts to challenge customers with unorthodox presentations, exotic ingredients, and interactive dishes unlike anything Americans have tried. When the dishes land, they leave an impression. When the dishes don’t, they also leave an impression. The menu, one of the most expensive in the country, usually delivers and is the one most cited as a bucketlist restaurant.

Coach House is the tasting menu sibling to Lilac Tiger located behind it in Wicker Park. Whereas Lilac Tiger — originally Wazwan — is a bar with a casual menu, Coach House takes a maximalist approach to Indian food with delicate presentations and bold flavors. Chef Zubair Mohajir is South Indian, but there’s no mention of Kerala or Goa. Mohajir’s roots are Muslim, so there’s a different approach and exploration of ingredients that many Americans don’t associate with Indian food. The tasting menu may feature a top-flight momo or bread service that blends India flatbreads with a Midwestern relish platter. Mohajir is a James Beard-nominated chef and takes chances. A newer menu blends Mexican and Persian/Indian cuisine.

Chef Brian Jupiter and Pioneer Tavern Group have found success with Frontier, a neighborhood restaurant and bar that indulges Jupiter’s Louisiana roots. For folks wanting to splurge, the option comes from full-animal service where customers call days in advance and arrange for suckling pigs, goats, lamb, or racks of tomahawk steaks for group dining. Call the restaurant for availability, but a meal to feed 8 to 12, which comes with sides, will cost around $800. It’s a great value for a unique experience.

Kasama is the world’s first Michlein-starred Filipino restaurant and has set off a Fil-Am food boom in Chicago. While the long lines in the morning are for the cafe, the dinner service is a wonderful tasting menu that challenges perceptions. The lumpia course is a masterclass in textures. The adobo squab might be the most delicious squab ever prepared. The items are thoughtful and are a departure. Many folks may feel elevated Filipino food just means using expensive ingredients and Lola’s recipes. That’s not the case with Kasama, which tests boundaries with exceptional service. Its owners never intended to open a tasting menu restaurant, but the pandemic forced their hand. Chicago is lucky to have it.

Indienne is Chicago’s only Michelin-starred Indian restaurant, a tasting menu effort from Rooh founder chef Sujan Sarkar. Sarkar has created a breezy menu (which has a vegetarian option) that takes familiar Indian flavors and presents them uniquely. There’s a canapé course, pani puri, and more. It’s not meat-heavy, and that might turn off folks equating meat with satisfaction. That helps to keep the menu prices low. For folks who don’t need the cliched wagyu beef course, Indienne is a delight and a way to explore a different side of Indian cuisine.

Rick Bayless's flagship River North restaurant is reservation only and has helped redefine Mexican cuisine in America. Bayless is Chicago’s most famous chef and has meticulously researched Mexican food, reaching out to other chefs. He takes his role as a cultural ambassador seriously, even though his lineage isn’t Mexican. Many come into the restaurant with a chip on their shoulders, wanting to dislike Bayless, and while he’s not perfect, he’s managed to delegate kitchen responsibilities to chef de cuisine Meagan O’Connor and pastry chef Jennifer Enyart (the latter was a Bayless alum and left to open Dos Urban in Logan Square; she and her cake wizardry are back in Downtown Chicago). Even if you have your apprehensions about Bayless, it’s worth a visit if not to have a true understanding of what you supposedly dislike. You’re likely going to leave surprised.

Curtis Duffy is one of the most respected chefs in the city, the subject of the documentary For Grace, and a chef who has Michelin stars tattooed on his wrist. With Ever, Duffy and co-owner Michael Muser have created a cavernous restaurant with exceptional service and a blissful menu that allows Duffy’s imagination to come to life. This is another bucketlist restaurant, but one that restaurant industry members save up to visit. They have that much respect for Ever’s staff and want to experience the theatrics and attention to detail. Yes, it was featured in The Bear. 

Oriole isn’t as stuffy as most fine dining restaurants and there’s a focus on attentive service that’s not overbearing. Chef Noah Sandoval has helmed a Michelin-starred restaurant that is a bit more playful with the tasting menu than most of its ilk and price range that have come before; the menu is described as contemporary American. But the only limit is Sandoval’s imagination.

Perhaps Chicago’s premier sushi omakase, Mako offers a 15-course menu with some of the freshest fish to be flown to Chicago inside a sleek and small space in the West Loop. There aren’t a lot of curveballs with the omakase, and that’s OK. Let the ingredients speak for themselves.

Helmed by the dynamic one-two punch of chefs and spouses David and Anna Posey, Elske leads diners down the garden path of lighthearted Scandinavian-influenced cuisine with a helping of charming, contemporary aesthetics. Below the surface, however, lies a deeply serious commitment to easily overlooked elements like fermentation and wine pairings. There’s an a la carte selection, but for a true look inside the couple’s vision, opt for the set menu, which features courses like duck liver tart with salted ramp and confit cod with charred squash and enokis. Ana Posey is a 2024 James Beard nominee and art school graduate. Her desserts could be worth the visit alone.

Bonyeon comes from a tradition of Korean meat omakases, a type of restaurant that showcases different cuts of quality meat with different marinades. It’s uncommon in America with the most famous being Cote in New York. In Chicago, Bonyeon shares ownership with two neighboring restaurants, Michelin-starred Omakase Yume (also worth a splurge) and Tengoku Aburiya. At Bonyeon, diners will feast on beef from wagyu Japan and America from different farms. A particularly solid time is wagyu slathered with thinly sliced onions. The chef has been perfecting this item for decades. These are small courses that won’t overpower like a typical American steakhouse. Quality meat satisfies better, so there’s no need for a huge slab of meat to fill you up. The chefs cook in front of the customers.

There’s a kind of dour pretension generally associated with fine dining that’s become the subject of several cinematic takedowns as of late — think Ralph Fiennes as the executive chef from hell in the 2022 thriller The Menu. That narrative, however, falls away completely at EL ideas where chef Phil Foss and his team prove that there’s room for joy in avant-garde cuisine. Secreted away in Douglass Park, the restaurant exudes an unassuming Midwestern-ness (Foss is a Milwaukee native) with a well-lit dining room and wide-open kitchen where diners can sidle up for a mid-service chat. That sense of fun translates to the tasting menu in courses like tzatziki with sunchoke chips and piquant toasted garlic. It’s served sans utensils, which means everyone in the room is left to lick their plates with abandon. Foss is also famed for his French Fries & Frosty, a dessert inspired by his daughters’ habit of dipping fries into their Wendy’s shakes. A marvel of molecular gastronomy in a milkshake glass, it’s a hot-and-cold melange of crunchy potatoes, steaming potato leek soup, and nitro-poached vanilla ice cream.

A sleek embodiment of a polished neighborhood restaurant, S.K.Y. gained a reputation in Chicago for its distinctive Asian influences, but over time diners have discovered there’s much more to this restaurant’s story. Chef and restaurateur Stephen Gillanders (Apolonia, Valhalla) and his team deliver a deceptively effortless and moderately priced tasting menu with dishes like buttery grilled octopus Meunier and dry-aged lamb with black pepper glaze.

James Beard-nominated Duck Inn is another in a long list of wonderful neighborhood restaurants. And while it’s perfectly great to grab an Italian beef and beer, the restaurant’s capabilities are more than what a typical beef stand offers. That’s not a knock, but there’s only so much our street food vendors can accomplish in small kitchens. At Duck Inn, the power move is to order the signature rotisserie duck. Chef Kevin Hickey even has his own duck press for the endeavor which is served with duck-fat potatoes and a reduction. Get it with truffles and foie gras (sorry LA and New York) for a decadent experience. Call ahead to reserve the duck prior because quantities are limited.