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GuideUpdated July 16, 2026

14 Best colorful Restaurants in Chicago

The best 14 restaurants for colorful in Chicago — curated by TastyPals editors.

The best colorful restaurants in Chicago are Ayayay - Mexican Eatery, Costera Cocina Tulum - Chicago, QuesaBirria Jalisco Pilsen, and more. Start with Ayayay - Mexican Eatery if you want the strongest overall first pick.

By James Whitfield•14 ranked picks•Published July 16, 2026•Updated July 16, 2026
Methodology•Editorial team
Ayayay - Mexican EateryCostera Cocina Tulum - ChicagoQuesaBirria Jalisco Pilsen
14 Best colorful Restaurants in Chicago
Google

Top picks at a glance

#1Ayayay - Mexican EateryMexican • Chicago • value#2Costera Cocina Tulum - ChicagoMexican • Chicago • value#3QuesaBirria Jalisco PilsenMexican • Pilsen • value

Who this guide is for

This guide covers the highest-rated restaurants for colorful in Chicago, sorted by Google rating and editorial judgment. Picks span Chicago and Pilsen.

Quick picks

Ayayay - Mexican Eatery
Mexican • Chicago
Ayayay - Mexican Eatery is a mexican restaurant in Chicago that is worth opening when you want a clearer read on the menu and the room.
Costera Cocina Tulum - Chicago
Mexican • Chicago
Costera Cocina Tulum - Chicago is a sensible mexican call in Chicago when you want something that usually lands well.
QuesaBirria Jalisco Pilsen
Mexican • Pilsen
QuesaBirria Jalisco Pilsen is a sensible mexican call in Pilsen in Chicago when you want something that usually lands well.
Browse all Chicago restaurantsBack to Chicago hub
Editorial details
Published: July 16, 2026
Last updated: July 16, 2026

On this page

  1. 1. Ayayay - Mexican EateryView →
  2. 2. Costera Cocina Tulum - ChicagoView →
  3. 3. QuesaBirria Jalisco PilsenView →
  4. 4. La LunaView →
  5. 5. Pleasant House PubView →
  6. 6. Momento CantinaView →
  7. 7. MercaditoView →
  8. 8. TzucoView →
  9. 9. Broken English Taco PubView →
  10. 10. XOCOView →
  11. 11. La MejikanaView →
  12. 12. Del ToroView →
  13. 13. Cantón RegioView →
  14. 14. Simone'sView →

How the restaurants compare

Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Ayayay - Mexican Eatery
Google
Ayayay - Mexican Eatery
Chicago • Mexican
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
Tacos
Mood
Casual
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Costera Cocina Tulum - Chicago
Google
Costera Cocina Tulum - Chicago
Chicago • Mexican
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
Tacos
Mood
Casual
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for QuesaBirria Jalisco Pilsen
Google
QuesaBirria Jalisco Pilsen
Pilsen • Mexican
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
Pilsen
Mood
Pilsen
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for La Luna
Google
La Luna
Pilsen • Mexican
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
Pilsen
Mood
Pilsen

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.

14 ranked picks

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Pleasant House Pub — Pleasant House Pub asks a fair question of the British pie: does it deserve a place at the table, or only the consolation prize of nostalgia? Art and Chelsea Jackson — Art trained at Les Nomades and San Francisco's Fifth Floor — answer with the Royal Pies, and they earn the room. The Steak and Ale arrives as proper beef stew under a crust, with minty peas, gravy and mashed potatoes that aren't an afterthought. The Chicken Balti folds curry and tomato beneath a crown of mash, a flaky-crusted argument for the format. There's a Mushroom and Kale pie in white wine and parmesan cream, and a Scotch egg — medium-boiled, wrapped in sausage, fried, served with grainy mustard — worth ordering before you commit to a pie. The Pilsen room is deliberately modern: marble tabletops, hand-crafted pottery, no chintz. Entrees run $12–15, and the 2025 Michelin Bib Gourmand confirms what the cooking already states. This isn't a special-occasion splurge; it's the rarer thing — modest ambition, fully met. View restaurant →
Momento Cantina — Momento Cantina is not auditioning for the tasting-menu circuit, and that's precisely the point. At a dollar-sign-one price level in Chicago, it has apparently built a following by committing to Mexican cooking that prioritizes substance over ceremony — the kind of room, by all accounts, where drinks get ordered before anyone sits down and plates move around the table without anyone asking permission. That clarity of purpose is harder to maintain than it looks, and Momento seems to have figured it out. The menu is where the reputation lives. The Carnitas Gorditas in Salsa are consistently cited as a reason to show up — slow-braised pork in a format where the salsa reportedly functions as a structural element, not an afterthought. The Pulpo Macha is the dish that comes up most often when regulars make a case for the kitchen: octopus in a salsa macha built around toasted chile heat, the kind of preparation that tends to convert skeptics. The Mar y Tierra Molcajete is the table centerpiece — served in volcanic stone that keeps everything at temperature — and by most accounts it's the move for groups. The Cochinita Pibil, achiote-slow-roasted pork done in the Yucatecan tradition, is what makes the price point feel almost unfair according to diners who return for it specifically. And the Signature Abuelita Cake closes things out on a note that reads as genuinely nostalgic rather than calculated — reportedly the kind of dessert that reminds you why dessert exists. Practical reality: weeknights are reportedly better for conversation, weekends lean toward a full scene. The kitchen appears to reward the table that orders broadly and shares without a strategy session. Come hungry, come with people, and let the Cochinita Pibil make the case for itself. View restaurant →
Broken English Taco Pub — Broken English Taco Pub is not trying to be an authentic taqueria, and based on everything I can find, that's entirely deliberate. This is a taco bar built around pub logic — loud, unapologetic, priced for repeat visits, where the beer in your hand and the taco in the other are treated as equally important. Chicago has no shortage of spots that approach Mexican food with white-tablecloth reverence. Broken English is doing something categorically different, and for a Friday night with a group and no real plan, arguably more practical. It occupies the overlap between bar culture and taco culture and leans into that without apology. The Build Your Own Taco Pub — the BYOTP — is the engine the whole menu rotates around, and by most accounts the right approach is treating it like a serious bar menu: deliberate choices rather than a frantic free-for-all. The Chips & Guacamole are consistently described as a credible opener, reportedly seasoned well enough that people don't resent the upsell. On the sweeter end, the Churros have a reputation as a reliable closer — the kind of dessert diners keep ordering even after they've already eaten past the point of good judgment. Then there are the piñatas: the Boozy Piñata is what it sounds like, and it's reportedly the kind of shared spectacle a table of four needs by 10pm on a Saturday. The Piñata Con Dulces runs sweeter and more chaotic, and diners seem to find it more fun for it. The move here is straightforward: come with a group, skip the solo-dinner headspace, and go straight for the BYOTP plus a Boozy Piñata to split. At price-level one, you can order without running the math in your head. Book ahead on weekends — the room is known to fill quickly. View restaurant →
Del Toro — Del Toro is a Pilsen original in the least performative sense of that phrase — opened in 2012 by brothers Everardo and Andres Garcia, who grew up on these exact blocks and built the place out of the comfort foods and cocktails they actually love, with deep roots in the family's F&R Liquors background. There's no tortured branding here, no appeal to an audience from outside the neighborhood. That clarity of purpose comes through in every decision, including a recent expansion that reportedly doubled the seating without disrupting the feeling that anyone walking in is welcome — reservation or not. The cocktail menu is where Del Toro draws its sharpest lines. The Jalisco Old Fashioned is widely regarded as the anchor order — a tequila reframe of a whiskey-drinker's classic, built around Tequila 3Garcias, a small-batch pour with Chicago roots that gives the drink a local specificity most agave-forward bars would charge considerably more to deliver. The Vampiro and Coco Loco are known as the drinks that reward anyone willing to drift from the obvious path, though the Del Toro Margarita is reported to hold its own as a straightforward, well-executed reason to stay on it. On the food side, the Del Toro Burger — Black Angus beef stuffed with Chihuahua cheese, finished with chipotle crema and served alongside cucumber and jicama skewers — is the dish the kitchen is most recognized for, a genuinely technique-forward plate that consistently surprises people expecting less from a price-point-one room. Practically speaking, the expanded space means a twelve-top is no longer an imposition, and the Coco Loco is reportedly the communal order of choice for larger groups. Early evening on a weekday is when the room runs on neighborhood regulars rather than destination traffic — which, given what Del Toro actually is, is the right moment to be there. View restaurant →
Cantón Regio — Cantón Regio isn't cooking for anyone who needs Mexican food translated or elevated into something unfamiliar. This is a Pilsen kitchen operating with the directness of a family that has nothing to prove — wood-fire-forward, protein-driven, and priced at a level that reportedly leaves full tables stunned by the bill. The room doesn't traffic in atmosphere as a concept; it's built around the business of eating well, which draws multigenerational families, couples, and regulars who've learned that the $1 price point doesn't preclude serious execution. What the kitchen is consistently credited for: understanding that leña and quality cuts are, on their own, a complete sentence. The arrachera is widely cited as the anchor order — skirt steak cooked over wood fire in a style that diners describe as carrying the particular char that gas grills spend their whole lives approximating. The Pollo a la leña applies the same philosophy to chicken, known for crisp skin and the deep savoriness that wood-roasted poultry develops over real flame. For groups, the Brochetas de camarón, pollo, arrachera y vegetarianas are reportedly the practical choice — a range of charred proteins on a single platter that accommodates a table without forcing anyone to compromise. The Tacos de asada are the purist's order, built on the same beef that anchors the menu and designed to let the cut speak without interference. The Costillas en salsa roja round out the menu's heavier register, a braise that regulars suggest rewards a return visit rather than being rushed into a first round. The room is reported to fill quickly on Friday and Saturday evenings, so arriving early is the practical move. Bring cash, bring a group, and plan to order across the grill section rather than around it. View restaurant →
Simone's — Simone's isn't positioning itself as the most traditional taqueria on 18th Street, and the concept seems to hinge on that distinction. This Pilsen bar-restaurant has built a reputation as a neighborhood anchor where Mexican-inflected drinking culture meets playful, punchy flavor combinations — neither element apologizing for the other. The crowd, by all accounts, reflects Pilsen proper: regulars who know the bartenders, date-night couples from three blocks over, the kind of room that price-level-one pricing keeps genuinely accessible. That accessibility matters in a neighborhood navigating real gentrification pressure, and Simone's apparent commitment to it reads as a deliberate choice rather than an afterthought. The place is unapologetically built around drinking and eating, in that order. The drinks menu is where Simone's reputation concentrates. The Mangonada is the signature — reportedly a full-register provocation of frozen mango, chamoy heat, and a tajín rim, doing work that a standard margarita wouldn't attempt. The Mango Unchained pushes the same tropical-spicy territory further, while El Diablo is known for a darker profile, with cassis and ginger beer pulling against something with genuine bite. Passion Project is described by regulars as the quietly confident option — the drink people who claim to avoid sweet cocktails finish first. Capri Spun rounds out the card on a lighter, more effervescent note, reportedly the kind of second-round order that signals a night has found its footing. The cocktail list as a whole seems to reward people who let the menu lead. Practical reality: weekend crowds build quickly, so arriving before 9 PM is the consistently reported move if you want space to settle in. Bar seating puts the drink-building process directly in front of you, which regulars consider part of the experience. When weather cooperates, the patio is the spot. Start with the Mangonada — it sets the register for everything that follows. 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