The Capital Grille 633 N. St. Clair St. 312-337-9400 Website Also part of a huge restaurant group (Darden, which own Red Lobser, Olive Garden, and others), CG manages to feel incredibly personal as well as appropriately masculine—gleaming wood, plush leather booths—without coming off as the least bit cookie-cutter. More like subtle and stylish, as … Read more
Gene & Georgetti 500 N. Franklin St. 312-527-3718 Website To doubters, this place is a dinosaur that has been living off its rep for years. To believers, some of whom have been customers since FDR’s third term, it’s the steak house against which all others in Chicago must be judged. The truth lies somewhere … Read more
Chicago Chop House 60 W. Ontario St. 312-787-7100 Website Odds are good you’ve never heard of Japanese Mishima beef. Odds are better that once you’ve tasted the American version at this white-tablecloth tri-level meatery, your taste buds will demand an encore. Think of Mishima as Kobe’s more exotic cousin: The meat is richer and … Read more
Michael Jordan’s Steak House InterContinental, 505 N. Michigan Ave. 312-321-8823 Website Two years ago, His Airness presented a steak house to the city that still worships him. Similar to Jordan’s beef outposts in New York and Connecticut, the multilevel Mag Mile version is awash in luxe details— from velvet booths to a glass catwalk … Read more
The Palm Swissôtel, 323 E. Wacker Dr. 312-616-1000 Website By the time this iconic throwback (founded in 1926 in New York City) opened in Chicago in 1980, its wet-aged prime steaks were legendary. And with good reason. Rich marbling, the hallmark of a great rib eye, juices up the Palm’s 24-ounce bone-in. The distinctive … Read more
Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar 25 E. Ohio St. 312-329-9463 Website Sidestep the mob in front of Pizzeria Uno and slip into what may be the quietest steak house in River North. Chances are, you will have your pick of tables—a rather inauspicious start, but hang in there. De-stress in a leather-tufted booth … Read more
Ruth’s Chris Steak House 431 N. Dearborn St. 312-321-2725 Website This chain’s New Orleans–influenced kitchen never met a dish it couldn’t jazz up. Diced red and green peppers spark its supercrabby Sizzlin Blue Crab Cakes; a kicky rémoulade sauce makes you want to dive in for the exceptionally succulent shrimp—or at least surreptitiously dip … Read more
Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse 1028 N. Rush St. 312-266-8999 Website Gibsons is not a steak house. It’s a force of nature, a cash cow, pure manna to conventioneers and tan people and athletes and aldermen. Unfortunately, being all things to so many people for 24 years means that certain elements have slipped. There’s nothing … Read more
Mastro’s Steakhouse 520 N. Dearborn St. 312-521-5100 Website Looking at the Hummers idling outside this Scottsdale, Arizona–based meat market, you may forget that you are, in fact, in the humble Midwest. Even more so when you feast your eyes on the glitzy clientele and hear the sounds of Bruno Mars blasting from the jam-packed … Read more
Erie Cafe 536 W. Erie St. 312-266-2300 Website You don’t see many places these days with mahogany leather chairs and a framed painting of a clipper ship, unless they’re being ironic. But there’s nothing ironic about this old-school spot. A spirit of excess colors everything, from the ridiculous heaps of blue cheese melting onto … Read more
