The Best Chicago Hospitality Experiences of 2024

Would you rather have average food and great service or average service and amazing food? This is the great philosophical question of running a restaurant. The preferred answer is likely to fall based on where someone works. No way a chef wants to put out mid food. There’s also no chance a GM wants his staff to be meh around guests.

It's not easy for diners to answer that question either. If you don’t care about food deeply, but you do like to dine out and you had a bad day, great hospitality will win. If you’re like me and you daydream about pizza, burgers, tacos, and pasta all day long, you’ll forgive some average service if the food is killer.

The best and most optimal situation is you never have to choose. Though I dined at over one hundred restaurants last year, many had great eats, but only a few had remarkable hospitality. Here they are: