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There was a time when a tasting menu was reserved for the hoitiest of hoity-toity restaurant experiences— when tables were covered in pressed white linen and the rooms were so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Not anymore. Chefs over the last decade have evolved beyond the old model, and today’s tasting menus push the limits with wildly creative ingredients and preparations. Rooms have modern flair, high energy, and soundtracks ranging from classic rock to hip-hop. Chicago has plenty of quality prix-fixe menus; here are eight worth your time and money.
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Feld
West Town
Feld is one of Chicago’s newly minted Michelin-starred restaurants whose chef and owner, Jake Potashnick, also took home a Beard award for Best Chef: Great Lakes in 2026. Clearly, something very good is going on inside the intimate West Town space. Feld prides itself on sourcing very locally and hyper-seasonally through its network of farmers, ranchers, and fishermen. Their daily changing menu capitalizes on the freshness of in-season produce, and builds from there, based on what the kitchen procures each day. Set around a communal dining area that looks onto the working chefs, diners get a front-row seat into the action, helping it live up to what Potashnick calls a “relationship-to-table” philosophy. Highly sought after reservations open about two months out for the $225 dinner, so pay attention to Feld’s social media announcements.
Smyth
West Loop
Chicago’s only three Michelin-starred restaurant — and also number one on North America’s 50 Best Restaurants list — Smyth is a special place. The welcoming and comfortable room, with warm woods and natural light, begs you to sit back and enjoy yourself. A record player spins an ever-changing mix of classic and indie rock. With a robust coordinated call-and-response, the kitchen team brings to life chef the vision of John Shields, who is a master of creativity around produce and seafood (raspberry-painted lobster tail, anyone?). Pushed by what Shields calls “relentless curiosity,” the team consistently innovates with the freshest ingredients, and experiments with an in-house lab to sprout grains, infuse vinegars, and make their own cacao nibs, among other things. Some recent dishes from the $420 Smyth and $550 chef’s menu include sea urchin cannoli, sweet corn kombujime with Kaluga caviar, and geoduck aguachile. Adding the pairing from wine director Louis Fabbrini’s global wine program is always a smart choice.
Photo by Clay Williams for Resy
Oriole
West Loop
The celebrated two-Michelin starred Oriole, now in its 10th year under the tutelage of chef/owner Noah Sandoval, combines haute cuisine with a sense of pop culture and frivolity (where else do you enter a restaurant through a former industrial freight elevator?). While the food here is serious, it’s presented in a playful, laid-back way, from a meticulous open kitchen that sits beneath a technicolor music-themed collage on the ceiling. The experience starts with drinks and bites in the lounge, then into the kitchen to meet the staff, and then into the dining room ($325) or kitchen table ($375) for an ever-evolving menu. Pro tip: Make it even more immersive by booking the modern, fully furnished loft upstairs (equipped with drums and a guitar if you want to rock out), which comes with a reservation at the kitchen table.
Next
West Loop
Whether taking guests on a journey to the Roman Empire or to outer space, the team at Next, under the guidance of globally celebrated chef/owner Grant Achatz, keeps things interesting with its ever-changing concepts. The themes change three times a year, inclusive of everything from menus to decor to soundtrack. In 2026, menus focus on Japan (minimalist design, listening bars), Wall Street 1987 (“greed is good!”), and fashion (where haute couture becomes haute cuisine). At Next, it’s all about innovating, morphing, and pushing boundaries around how creative you can get with food and service.
Galit
Lincoln Park
What we love about Galit, in addition to the top-notch service and warm, welcoming atmosphere, is that it offers a unique tasting menu experience at a relatively affordable price. Here, Michelin-starred and Beard Award winning chef/partner Zach Engel offers a $115 four-course, choose your own adventure family-style menu. Everyone starts with an array of salatim (small bites like pickles, baba ganoush, and labneh), and then choose from various dishes that might include creamy hummus with tender brisket and fluffy wood-fired pita, roast carrots with Bulgarian feta, Yemenite kreplach filled with corn and chanterelle mushrooms, and smoked turkey shawarma. The wine list highlights smaller, independent winemakers, with a focus on producers from the Middle East and Mediterranean.
Photo courtesy of Bonyeon
Bonyeon
West Loop
If you love beef yet want to forego another steakhouse, simply book a spot at Bonyeon. The city’s only Korean beef omakase, Bonyeon is led by chef Alex Ching (Oriole), who works alongside celebrated sushi chef Sangtae Park. Ching centers the grills directly in front of the 12 nightly guests and integrates Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, and Hawaiian flavors while preparing beef in a variety of ways (raw, grilled, braised). You’re not getting a 24-ounce dry-aged ribeye here. Instead, expect upwards of 14 courses (at $165 a person): tenderloin with bone marrow miso; marinated galbi with pineapple kimchi sprinkled with A5 furikake; oxtail- and morel-filled dumplings, and even some seafood for good measure. You can add a standard or reserve wine pairing or opt to pair Korean sool. Sake and wines by the bottle are also available.
HaiSous Vietnamese Kitchen
Pilsen
The list of delicious a la carte options at this Pilsen Vietnamese favorite — crispy chicken wings in caramelized fish sauce, whole prawns in Thai chili butter, papaya salad with housemade beef jerky — is deliciously extensive. You wouldn’t be wrong to go a la carte, but if you really want to get inside the mind of chef Thai Dang, opt for his grand tasting menu. Set at a very reasonable $68, the seasonally changing, three-course (that could be upwards of nine dishes), family-style meal plays off a theme. The current menu highlights seafood, while past iterations have celebrated cooking from both northern and southern Vietnam, or focused on a city, port, or the influence of French colonialism. Even the beverage pairing is reasonable at just $42 a person.
Duck Sel
River North
Whether you select the $250 15-course option or the newer $175 10-course “Quackatori” counter experience, both meals take place beneath a pergola on a River North rooftop overlooking the city’s gleaming skyline (exact location to be revealed 48 hours in advance). For the 15-course, chef Donald Young, who became one of the youngest chefs ever to receive a Michelin star during his time at Temporis, crafts a menu of American fare prepared with French techniques and Midwestern ingredients. The seasonally changing menu could have dishes like crab rangoon with A5 Miyazaki wagyu, langoustine ssam “roll,” and duck and waffles with maple and blueberries. At Quackatori, the yakitori-style meal seats guests around a charcoal grill for dishes like duck egg chawanmushi, duck foie gras on milk bread, and a duck hot dog with neon fennel and mango habanero. During colder months, Young moves the 15-course meal indoors to an apartment decked out in a range of duck toys, posters, rubber ducks, and more things ducky.
