Chicago’s best sushi (Kyoten, No. 3) and best ramen (Akahoshi, No. 20) are both made by Americans with no Japanese heritage. Yet if you’ve ever lived in Japan, you know that every aspect of the culture is coded and nuanced in a way that makes it uniquely Japanese, and none more so than the food. There are only a few restaurants in the Chicago area where Japanese expats go for the kind of cooking that feels familiar. The best is this storefront, with its blocky wooden furniture and cadre of servers who shout “Irasshaimase!” to greet guests. Chef-owner Maro Tamura, who headed the kitchen at Daruma for 18 years, knows what people want. For lunch, it’s teishoku — set meals featuring crispy tonkatsu cutlets, assorted sashimi, and grilled fish. At night, it’s an izakaya — a real izakaya with seasonal specials, salads made with shimmery dried whitebait and shredded daikon, fat fried oysters, mugs of icy Japanese lager, and all those little signals telling you that in this place you’re home. 

Price: $$
Address: 22 E. Golf Rd.
Website: torizen.us