Raising the Bar

230 W Kinzie St, Chicago, IL 60610 (map)

Francophiles, get ready to start a love affair with the seasonal French and Mediterranean flavored bar bites--all designed to pair with wine--at this chic River North restaurant owned by husband-and-wife chef team Mohammed Islam and Malika Ameen. Traditionalists will toast to classics like moules frites and bacalao (salt cod gratin), while more adventurous bar nibblers will go right for the crispy veal sweetbreads with snow pea salad. Save room for Ameen's honey ice cream with airy bits of honeycomb.

2300 N Lincoln Park W, Chicago, IL 60614 (map)

At Chef Laurent Gras' elegantly ethereal Lincoln Park restaurant--a love letter to the deep blue sea--lounge lizards can opt for the raw or the cooked. The former takes the form of artfully assembled plates such as Nantucket Bay scallop ceviche, zinged by micro-diced jalapenos, parsley and bergamot-scented olive oil. The latter means the likes of olive oil-braised spicy octopus with coconut fluff and sea beans. Either way, a glass (or, if you're feeling ambitious, a half-bottle) of sake is the optimal chaser.

676 N St Clair St, Chicago, IL 60611 (map)

The main dining room at Chef Rick Tramonto's fine dining stalwart attracts serious foodies and wine-lovers with big bank accounts, but the menu of refined small plates in the contemporary art-bedecked lounge is accessible to more frugal food-lovers and those who didn't get a golden parachute. Frog legs with roasted garlic, carrots and watercress and light potato gnocchi pillows bathed in stone-ground mustard cream beckon from the well-edited options. Go ahead and give in. If you can resist ordering a glass of Taittinger, you should still come out ahead.

160 N Loomis St, Chicago, IL 60607 (map)

Ready to trade up the dive-y after-work hang but not the familiar eats? A playful bar menu and a fun vibe at one sixty's jewel-toned bar are just the ticket. There's something irresistibly tongue-in-cheek about chef Michael McDonald's Wagyu beef short rib quesadillas and hash browns topped with sauteed Sonoma foie gras. Thick, fried coins of homemade pickles--prime for dunking in roasted garlic tartar sauce--are a clever happy-hour homage to the space's former life as the Schwartz's pickle factory.