Chicago, well spent.

On Thursday, Dec. 3, 2026, chef John Asbaty and restaurateur Alain Uy welcome Grant Achatz to Ox Bar & Hearth at 1578 N Clybourn Ave in Lincoln Park for an eight-course anniversary dinner, the final Chef Series of the restaurant’s first year. Tickets were announced as coming soon.

On Sunday, Nov. 15, 2026, at 7 p.m., guest chef Gianni Secchi takes over the kitchen at Susu, the West Loop steakhouse at 652 W Randolph St, for a guided six-course Italian tasting drawn from Sardinia and Emilia-Romagna. Prepaid tickets are $120, or $170 with the wine pairing, on OpenTable.

Inside an 1883 River North townhouse, Asador Bastian cooks boutique beef from the world’s finest small producers over white oak charcoal. This week it pours Artadi’s single-vineyard Rioja with winemaker Carlos López de Lacalle on Sunday, Nov. 15, 2026, then welcomes Florence’s Osteria delle Tre Panche for a white truffle dinner on Wednesday, Nov. 18.

Cristian Orozco, named Eater Chicago’s 2026 Chef of the Year on Nov. 10, builds Mazor around fresh masa and the kitchens of Guatemala and Mexico. On Sunday, Nov. 29, 2026, he hands his chef’s counter to Cristian De León of Minnesota’s El Sazón for a six-course Guatemalan tasting with Zacapa rum cocktails.

At Kindling, the live-fire restaurant at the base of Willis Tower, James Beard Award winner Jonathon Sawyer turns his 13-foot hearth into a chef’s table once a month. Nothing But the Meats runs Friday, Nov. 20, 2026, followed by a Feast of the Seven Fishes on Dec. 18 and a New Year’s Eve menu of caviar cones and Wagyu filet Oscar.

Boka, the Michelin-starred Lincoln Park restaurant that launched Boka Restaurant Group in 2003, gives Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2026, to game: an eight-course tasting menu cooked with butcher and chef Rob Levitt and Alain Ducasse alum Doug Psaltis, $225 per person with an optional $165 wine pairing.

Sapori Trattoria, the red-sauce Italian dining room at 2701 N. Halsted St., celebrates 25 years in Lincoln Park from Nov. 10 to 15, 2026, with $2.50 tiramisu, a night of throwback dishes and prices, free bubbles on the weekend and a carbonara that feeds neighbors in need.

Dear Margaret Chicago brings chef Ryan Brosseau’s French-Canadian cooking to Frontier in West Town for Tourtière Night on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026 and again on Dec. 9: a pork meat pie, a green salad, cider-braised turnips and maple crème brûlée for $70. Here is the dinner, the cook behind it and the pop-up series that keeps Dear Margaret at the table.

At Esmé in Lincoln Park, chef Jenner Tomaska and Katrina Bravo have turned the dining room into a Hebru Brantley gallery and the tasting menu into his storybook, down to an edible Flyboy portrait you crack with a spoon. Here is what you will eat, what it costs and how to book.