Chicago's Top Spots for Steak Frites
When it comes to classic pairings, steak and french fries (aka frites) go together like macaroni and cheese or peanut butter and jelly. Such a timeworn staple can be hard to pull off right though, so it takes a well-tuned kitchen to make a damn good plate of steak frites. Fortunately, Chicago is full of well-tuned kitchens. Here are some of the best steak-centric restaurants in town for a plate of steak frites.
Bavette’s Bar & Boeuf: Leave it to a French-inspired steakhouse to serve some of the best steak frites in town. Bavette’s Bar & Boeuf does a lot of things and they do them well, most particularly their French-leaning appetizers and entrees. This is especially true of their steak frites, comprised of an 8-oz. sliced prime rib-eye and a generous pile of crispy hand-cut fries.
Chicago Cut Steakhouse: Being one of the ultimate power lunch spots in the city, it makes perfect sense that Chicago Cut would beef up its midday menus with a solid plate of steak frites. Indeed, one of the anchors of the lunch entrees is an indulgent portion of rib-eye steak splashed with herbed butter and adjoined with a mound of frites.
Chop Shop: Head to this multi-tiered steakhouse/butcher shop/deli/event venue at dinner for one of their standout entrees: hanger steak frites. It’s a grilled 8-oz. cut of meat with chimichurri, roasted garlic aioli and french fries.
Devon Seafood Grill: Many come for the oysters and the fish, but the steak frites merit a visit all their own at this solid River North standby. Available on the dinner menu in the main dining room of this palatial eatery, the steak is Wagyu beef from Snake River Farms, enriched with brown butter sauce and served with a side of fries and spicy romesco for dipping.
Knife: The cool thing about this cozy neighborhood steakhouse in North Center is that any steak can be made into steak frites, considering every cut comes with your choice of onion strings or hand-cut frites. This include an 8-oz. beef tenderloin, a 28-day dry-aged strip steak and a 16-oz. boneless rib-eye. All are sourced from local farms in Illinois and Iowa and come with steak sauce and/or optional sauces like bearnaise, hollandaise, butter bourbon and smoked tomato butter.
Michael Jordan’s Steak House: USDA Prime steak is the name of the game at Michael Jordan’s Steak House on Michigan Avenue. This includes the beef used for the restaurant’s steak frites, which arrive with caramelized onion jus for added richness.