The 19th year of Chicago Restaurant Week kicks off this week, and more than 500 restaurants are taking part, including 75 that are making their debut in this annual food fest.
Participating restaurants across the city and suburbs are offering prix fixe menus priced at $30 for lunch and $45 or $60 for dinner. Do note that beverages, tax and gratuity are typically an additional cost.
While reservations have already gone fast for many of the award-winning eateries featured this year, there’s still plenty to explore. Here are five Restaurant Week menus we’re excited about.
Chicago Restaurant Week runs Jan. 23 through Feb 8. The full list of participating restaurants and their menus is available at choosechicago.com/chicago-restaurant-week.
— Kayla Samoy, food editor
Lior’s Cafe
The South Side’s only Haitian fine dining restaurant has both a $30 lunch and $60 dinner menu for its first Chicago Restaurant Week.
For lunch, your appetizer options are flaky chicken, beef or spinach patties, crispy malanga fritters or sweet-and-tangy fried shrimp bombs. Main dishes of oxtail chili, mango habanero wings or a vegetable legume stew all come with bannann peze and pikliz, or fried plantains and pickled relish, a classic Haitian cuisine pairing. You can also choose among seven side dishes, such as Kreyol greens or Haitian mac and cheese.
The four-course dinner menu is even more elaborate, with either salad or chicken and shrimp gumbo for the first course, and a second course of either slow-cooked stew chicken; griot, citrusy marinated pork that’s Haiti’s national dish; or fried red snapper, all served with either rice or fried plantains and pickled relish. A starter option also has the patties and fritters from the lunch menu.
For dessert, chef Daniel Aurel is teaming up with local favorite Shawn Michelle’s for ice cream, and he’s doing his own pound cake. — Lauryn Azu
10500 S. Halsted St., 773-239-5467, liorscafe.com
The Little Lark
This neo-Neapolitan-style pizzeria from Meadowlark Hospitality opened in late August in Avondale’s Guild Row. Its playful three-course Restaurant Week dinner, priced at $45, features collaborations with restaurants from around the neighborhood. The menu embraces what I love most about this annual food event: celebrating great local businesses.
To start, select either a Loaf Lounge/Lardon snack board with a parsnip country loaf, Lardon sage landjaeger salumi, nettle cheese, pickled fennel and apple mostarda; TriBecca’s Sandwich Shop’s stuffed shells with italian sausage, rotel, bechamel and cream cheese; or Kuma’s Corner zucchini antipasti that features marinated zucchini, Persian cucumbers, goat cheese, lemon, chile oil and fried breadcrumbs.
For the main course, dig into the Honey Butter Fried Chicken pizza (fried chicken tenders, herb mornay, lemon pepper, hot honey jus and, of course, honey butter) or the Soul & Smoke meat lover’s pizza (andouille chicken sausage, brisket, ham, spicy pomodoro, scamorza and mozzarella).
End the night with Dark Matter coffee tiramisu featuring barrel-aged espresso and Borghetti liqueur. — K.S.
3132 N. Rockwell St., 773-654-3191, littlelarkchicago.com
Maxwells Trading
Three-time James Beard-nominated chef and owner Erling Wu-Bower once described his Asian influenced and intimately American restaurant as a conversation with executive chef Chris Jung. Maxwells Trading, off the Kinzie Industrial Corridor in the West Loop, has become so much more as an inclusive creative collective, earning our Critic’s Choice Award for Best New Restaurant last year.
Their Restaurant Week menu this year is a winner too, with a $60 three-course dinner that’s a deal and includes some of their signature dishes, which are the same as their regular menu, so no smaller tasting menu sizing here.
For your first course, you can choose the staff-favorite suzuki tartare or perhaps an apple and beet salad, the chicory Caesar, a whipped ricotta or the Japanese eggplant. For your second and main course, you can get the fan-favorite Japanese sweet potato (crackling with a creme brulee-esque top, over a complex basil green curry), or possibly a ravioli doppio, the mapo cabbage, a half chicken a la brasa or the redfish. For your third and dessert course, I would have to order the red bean brownie, which is actually a sundae, or you could try a pear verrine or the black sesame flip.
But let’s do the numbers! If you chose the highest-priced items (the apple and beet salad, the redfish and the red bean brownie sundae), normally $80 altogether ($20, $42 and $18 respectively), you would save $20 in total. That’s more than enough to cover Wu-Bower’s favorite Vesper Martini, or my favorite tea service, made with herbs and honey from the rooftop greenhouses above.
1516 W. Carroll Ave., 312-896-4410, maxwellstrading.com
— Louisa Kung Liu Chu
Mole Village
It’s Mole Village chef-owner J Agustín Bahena’s first time doing Chicago Restaurant Week since the restaurant opened in 2019. The two-time Mole de Mayo Festival award-winner is serving an affordable, filling $30 lunch combo that includes dessert and a large drink.
Choose between chilaquiles, vegetarian black bean enchiladas or a poblano skirt steak sandwich as your main dish. The chilaquiles are simmered in spicy garlic-tequila sauce and the steak sandwich comes with a heaping side of fries at this beloved neighborhood spot. For dessert, select either flan, arroz con leche or tres leches cake. Wash it all down with agau de jamaica or horchata, or a steaming pot of café de olla. — L.A.2302 S. Blue Island Ave., 773-823-7159, molevillage.com
Topolobampo
One of the most exciting additions to Chicago Restaurant Week this year is Topolobampo, from Rick Bayless’ dazzling team. It’s a first for the James Beard-winning and Michelin-starred restaurant, which is joining sister restaurants and past participants Bar Sótano and Frontera Grill.
For Topolobampo’s $60 three-course dinner, diners have two options for each course. But if you can’t pick and are willing to spend an extra $20 per person per course, you can have both.
The choices for the first course include mejillones encamisados: Baja mussels covered in an herby polenta-style tamal, smoked salmon roe, charred tomato salsa and butter-braised radishes. Or, the tetela de hongos: triangles of crispy heirloom corn masa with a huitlacoche filling with epazote and creamy wild mushroom salsa. (Huitlacoche has a deep, earthy essence, almost like a blend of mushrooms and truffles, while epazote is a classic Mexican herb.)
The second course options include a seafood dish or a strip steak. Mole de camarón features wood-grilled Cristal Blue prawns, coastal mole made with ancho, guajillo and chilhuacle chile. The ribeye boasts a wood-grilled Creekstone New York Strip with Topolobampo’s famous mole negro made with 32 ingredients.
Options for the final course are an almond-crusted cheesecake made from house-made ricotta served with a compote using mamey, a tropical fruit from Mexico. Or a warm and gooey chocolate-mezquite cake with toasted tortilla ice cream and candied cocoa nibs.
The only caveat to this alluring menu is that reservations are getting scooped up fast. We recommend diners search for reservations for groups of three to five, as Topolobampo is booked for two-tops. The restaurant can’t accommodate walk-ins, but you can set up reservation alerts to be notified of any last-minute openings. — Zareen Syed
445 N. Clark St., 312-661-1434, topolochicago.com
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