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GuideUpdated July 16, 2026

3 Best Places for Smash Burger in Chicago

Where to find the best smash burger in Chicago — each restaurant rated 4.0★ or higher. Top-rated at 9.4★. Spanning contemporary and global kitchens. Curated by TastyPals.

The best places for smash burger in Chicago are All Together Now, Cultivate by Forbidden Root, Arbella Cocktail Bar. Start with All Together Now if you want the strongest overall first pick.

By James Whitfield•3 ranked picks•Published July 16, 2026•Updated July 16, 2026
Methodology•Editorial team
All Together NowCultivate by Forbidden RootArbella Cocktail Bar
3 Best Places for Smash Burger in Chicago
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Top picks at a glance

#1All Together NowContemporary • Ukrainian Village • value#2Cultivate by Forbidden RootGlobal • Ravenswood • value#3Arbella Cocktail BarBar • Chicago • moderate

Who this guide is for

This guide covers the highest-rated spots for smash burger in Chicago. Whether you're a local hunting your next regular or visiting and want to eat well, these picks are sorted by quality and review depth.

Quick picks

All Together Now
Contemporary • Ukrainian Village
All Together Now lands in Ukrainian Village as a deliberate counterargument to the idea that a neighborhood all-day café has to be boring.
Cultivate by Forbidden Root
Global • Ravenswood
Cultivate by Forbidden Root earns its reputation not by accident of location but by design: it's the restaurant arm of Chicago's first botanic brewery, planted in Ravenswood's Malt Row corridor in…
Arbella Cocktail Bar
Bar • Chicago
Let me tell you what Arbella actually is, because the word "cocktail bar" undersells it in one direction and oversells it in another.
Browse all Chicago restaurantsBack to Chicago hub
Editorial details
Published: July 16, 2026
Last updated: July 16, 2026

On this page

  1. 1. All Together NowView →
  2. 2. Cultivate by Forbidden RootView →
  3. 3. Arbella Cocktail BarView →

How the restaurants compare

Editorial restaurant image stand-in for All Together Now
Google
All Together Now
Ukrainian Village • Contemporary
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
Ukrainian Village
Mood
Ukrainian Village
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Cultivate by Forbidden Root
Google
Cultivate by Forbidden Root
Ravenswood • Global
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
dinner
Mood
Ravenswood
Arbella Cocktail Bar
Chicago • Bar
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
moderate
Best for
Cocktails and food
Mood
Casual

How we chose

We looked for restaurants that feel like a strong fit for the guide topic, not just the most obvious names in the city. The shortlist favors rooms with clear mood, dependable pacing, and enough distinction to help someone decide faster. Read our full methodology →

Room tone

Lighting, pace, and general energy all need to support the reason someone clicked this guide.

Food fit

We favored restaurants that feel best suited for the moment, not just restaurants with broad reputation.

Useful range

The final list tries to give readers enough variation in neighborhood, price, and style to compare real options.

3 ranked picks

All Together Now — All Together Now lands in Ukrainian Village as a deliberate counterargument to the idea that a neighborhood all-day café has to be boring. The concept threads breakfast and brunch staples through a more considered contemporary kitchen sensibility — this isn't diner food dressed up in artisan packaging, nor is it brunch theater where the cocktails cost more than the food. At price level one, it operates in honest, accessible territory, which makes its ambitions more interesting, not less. The clientele skews local and repeat: the kind of neighborhood place where people develop a regular order and stick to it, which tells you something about the consistency of what comes out of the kitchen. The menu is where ATN earns its reputation. The Daily Cheese Board signals that the kitchen takes its sourcing seriously — composed boards require real curation, and regulars treat it as a reliable opener. The Fried Goat Cheese Curds are a strong through-line here, the kind of dish that migrates from View restaurant →
Cultivate by Forbidden Root — Cultivate by Forbidden Root earns its reputation not by accident of location but by design: it's the restaurant arm of Chicago's first botanic brewery, planted in Ravenswood's Malt Row corridor in the space that previously housed Band of Bohemia. That lineage matters. This isn't a brewery that bolted on a kitchen as an afterthought — it's a place where Executive Chef Carlos Cruz built a menu around wood-fired cooking with genuine personal stakes. Cruz trained under James Beard Award-winning chef Christopher Gross and Boka Restaurant Group's Giuseppe Tentori, but the throughline on his menu is more personal than pedigreed: a fondness for live-fire technique rooted in his father's backyard grill outside Houston. The result is global in range and grounded in sourcing — Nichols Farm, Seedling Farm, Phlour Bakery, and Andreotti supply the kitchen — at price points that make this one of the more honest value propositions on the North Side. The menu centers on a handful of dishes that reward the kitchen's approach. The Braised & Grilled Boneless Short Rib — served with eggplant purée, roasted red pepper coulis, mushroom, and garlic naan — is the clearest expression of what Cruz is doing: technique-forward cooking that draws on multiple culinary traditions without performing fusion for its own sake. The Smash Burger, built with giardiniera mayo, white American cheese, B&B pickles, and a buttery bun, leans into Chicago identity through that giardiniera and is known as a reliable anchor for anyone who arrives thirsty from the taproom. The Iceberg Salad — green goddess, marinated tomatoes, pickled pearl onions, egg yolk, house-smoked bacon — signals a kitchen that takes composed salads seriously, not as a placeholder. The move regulars know: after dinner, find the side taproom tucked behind the restaurant and brewery. It opened in winter 2022 and operates as a genuinely intimate beer-focused room stocked with board games and a focused selection of Forbidden Root's botanic brews alongside a tight spirits and wine list. It's the kind of space that doesn't advertise itself loudly, which is exactly the point. Book the restaurant for dinner, then migrate to the taproom — and order the short rib before you do. View restaurant →
Arbella Cocktail Bar — Let me tell you what Arbella actually is, because the word "cocktail bar" undersells it in one direction and oversells it in another. This is a room that figured out the thing most cocktail bars get wrong: the food isn't an afterthought bribed into existence by liquor license requirements. It's a genuine kitchen running alongside a genuine bar program, which means you can show up here at 10 p.m. genuinely hungry and leave genuinely satisfied — not just less drunk. The crowd knows it. You'll see people who came for drinks end up splitting a full spread, and people who came for food end up staying for two more rounds. That feedback loop is harder to engineer than it looks, and Arbella has it. The menu plays a smart range of registers. The Coconut Shrimps are the kind of thing that sounds like filler but arrives with enough crunch and sweetness-to-heat contrast to make you order a second round before the first is gone. The Thai Fried Chicken Sliders bring real technique — that brine-forward, lacquered-crust fry that holds up under sauce without going soft. The Smash Burger is exactly what it should be: aggressively seared, lacy-edged, no architectural pretension. And then there's the Cafecito Tiramisu, which is the move you didn't know you needed — espresso bitterness dialed up, mascarpone still doing its cool, cloud-like thing, with enough of a Latin coffee riff to make it feel like it belongs here specifically. Practical intel: the Spinach Cauliflower Fondue and Steak Frites are strong anchors if you're building a table spread rather than snacking solo. The KFC Chx Basket is bar food done right — order it early, it goes fast. Price-point is genuinely reasonable for what lands on the table. Go on a weeknight if you want breathing room; weekends fill up. Sit at or near the bar if you can — that's where the room makes the most sense. Start with the Thai Fried Chicken Sliders and end with the Cafecito Tiramisu; that's the through-line. View restaurant →

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Save these spots to your Chicago list

Save these spots to your Chicago list in the TastyPals app, then explore similar restaurants when you want a tighter shortlist for the night.

Personalized city picksCleaner shortlistsBuilt for iPhone and Android
TastyPalsTonight
Your taste. Our picks.
Smarter follow-through after the guide: better restaurant context, quicker narrowing, less second-guessing.
For tonight
Date night spots with warm rooms and polished service
Next step
Keep exploring in the app when you want a tighter shortlist