Best Intentions isn’t a new bar. But when it reopened late in 2023, it was a welcome sign for folks who like a great pub burger and fancy drinks, but don’t want to deal with the downtown crowd. This is one of the best neighborhood bars in America and it’s often crowded on weekends. It’s one of the most popular bars in Chicago and it keeps getting better.

Middle Brow continues to reinvent itself in Logan Square. The brewery, which has a love for wild beers and makes some of the city’s best pizza, has dove head first into the world of natural wine, offering funky and easy-going pours with grapes from Michigan and California. This move has created Chicago’s first natural winery.

Division Street in Wicker Park has seen a few phases in recent years. Once a neighborhood for creatives, the bar scene has shifted to more sporty and family-friendly. Desert Hawk reverses that trend, returning a little charm to the area. The West Coast owners want to bring a little of the Golden State to Chicago with tequila drinks and an arsenal of cocktails. The food is also noteworthy: there are tacos and smash burgers from Cocina Sublime. Formerly known as Taco Sublime, they’ve popped up at Marz Community Brewing and Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club and specialized in cheesy, griddled food.

Raizes opened more than a year ago in North Center. The bar serves Mexican food and occasionally hosts pop-ups. The drinks are ambitious, much of the menu includes agave spirits, and they are finished with flourishes atypical for a neighborhood tavern. They are thoughtful and well-balanced, with something for everyone. The word “gem” is cliched, but this is an upscale cocktail lounge hidden in plain sight.

Indian restaurant Wazwan has transformed as chef Zubair Mohajir, Arami owner Ty Fujimura, and Kimski chef Won Kim, have opened a bar with several holdovers (burgers, fried chicken sandwiches) from the old menu, plus new items like spicy chicken nuggets, duck fried rice, and more. Lilac Tiger features fun cocktails from beverage director David Mor inside a remodeled space. This bar embraces Indian, Korean, and Japanese flavors in its drinks and food.

Since the pandemic’s start, there have been only a few new owner-operated bars in Chicago. Lemon is a throwback to the “owned by the people for the people” spirit with friendly bartenders who will make nearly any drink customers can ponder, including some very clever takes on classics. This bar doesn’t have a lot of fancy whistles design-wise, and that’s wonderful for folks who want a classic dive experience, but maybe actually want clean bathrooms. The space is dark but warm — ensuring everyone who’s not a jerk has a good time is the goal.

Chicago loves its tropical drinks, especially during bitter winters. In Uptown, a first-time restaurant owner has opened Marina’s Bistro and Rum Bar which serves Puerto Rican cuisine. Find ridiculous concoctions like the “El Viejo San Juan cocktail” (coconut rum, pineapple rum, pineapple juice, coconut cream). It’s a four-seat bar, so this is a place for an early nightcap if customers aren’t eating a full meal.

Jook Sing takes an outsider’s view of East Asia, with food and drink inspired by Chinese, Japanese, and Korean flavors. It’s from the owners of the Press Room and while there’s a night market aspect with a retail section of ingredients, the space is more of a bar with well-thought-out bites. Drinkers will find options like a cocktail with cognac, rye, umesho, sake vermouth, and umami bitters, plus slushies and more.

1960s Parisian vibes provide the backbone for this newish cocktail bar in Fulton Market from Footman Hospitality, the local group behind spots like Bangers & Lace and Emporium Arcade Bar. A moody, low-lit space devoted almost entirely to drinks, it specializes in popular cocktails from the era, like martinis, highballs, and aromatized wines. There’s also a mostly French wine list (it’s heavy on sparklers and Champagne) and a solid lineup of natural wines.

The Bourgeois Pig, a coffee shop in Lincoln Park, has served DePaul students and others in the community for three decades. Ownership decided to remodel the upstairs apartment space, turning it into a speakeasy, leaning into gangster lore — customers even need a password to enter; the steel door comes from a Prohibition-era speakeasy. At night, the rest of the coffee shop morphs into a wine bar where customers can with their turns until a space upstairs opens up. The cocktails are aces and ownership has made a real effort to make the space feel like stepping back into a bygone era.

The Ramova, a revived music theater in Bridgeport, has a diner and brewpub — the beer is from Other Half out of New York. The cocktails and food are from the James Beard Award semifinalists the Duck Inn. Their partner and drink maestro, Brandon Phillips, has mixed up a batch of delicious kegged cocktails to serve impatient concertgoers. Find espresso martinis, micheladas, Bloody Marys (with garnishes like a mac & cheese ball), and more.

Nine Bar is Chinatown’s first cocktail bar, located behind the Moon Palace Express takeout counter. Owners Lily Wang (whose parents own Moon Palace) and husband Joe Briglio mix up “Asian-ish” takes on classic cocktails, creating Old Fashioneds, highballs, and margaritias with baiju, soju, and shochu. Punch has named it one of the best new bars of 2023.

Turner Haus is one of a handful of Black-owned breweries and their specialities extend to many different beer styles. They’ve partnered with local coffee shop chain, Sip & Savor, to give a Bronzeville space life at night. The space gives Turner Haus their own taproom, the only such venue owned by Black brewers in a predominantly Black community. Those pioneering traits aside, the beers are unique and include a stout aged in Uncle Nearest bourbon barrels.