Chicago’s Banchet Awards Name 2027 Finalists, Marking the Show’s Biggest Year Yet
Chicago’s restaurant industry got its biggest local news yesterday, and it didn’t come from a new opening or a surprise closure. It came from an envelope.
The finalists for the 2027 Banchet Awards for Culinary Excellence were announced Tuesday morning, putting a fresh batch of the city’s most talked-about restaurants, chefs and bars into the spotlight ahead of a ceremony that’s bigger, in nearly every sense, than any Banchets before it.
A Milestone Year Gets a Bigger Stage
This marks the Banchet Awards’ 25th anniversary, and organizers are treating the occasion as exactly the kind of milestone worth upgrading for. According to the Banchet Awards’ own finalist announcement, the ceremony is moving from its longtime home at Venue SIX10 in the Loop to the considerably larger Harris Theater at Millennium Park, with the event set for Sunday, January 31, 2027.
Michael Muser, executive director of the Banchet Foundation, framed the anniversary in a statement, saying the Banchets celebrate the restaurants and the people behind them who make Chicago one of the world’s great dining cities. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Muser spent Tuesday personally visiting finalist restaurants to deliver the news in person, a detail that captures just how local and hands-on these awards remain compared to their bigger national counterpart, the James Beard Awards.
Who Made the List
The 2027 finalists span 12 categories, and the range is wide by design. Fine-dining destinations share the spotlight with neighborhood counter-service spots, and a secret panel of judges chose the lineup, the same selection process the Banquets have used throughout their history.
In the Chef of the Year category, finalists include Zachary Engel of Galit and Cafe Yaya; Adam McFarland and Tom Rogers of John’s Food & Wine; Zubair Mohajir, whose restaurants include Coach House, Lilac Tiger and Muhājir; and Jenner Tomaska of Esmé, Petite Edith and The Alston. For Restaurant of the Year, finalists include Asador Bastian, Brasero, Cellar Door Provisions and Maxwells Trading.
Best New Restaurant finalists include All Well, Creepies, Petite Edith and The Greggory, with West Loop newcomer Creepies pulling double duty as a finalist in both that category and Rising Chef of the Year. On the neighborhood side, Cerdito Muerto, Il Mio, Spice by CMB and Torizen are up for Best Neighborhood Restaurant, while Bar Bambi, Belmont Tavern, Culebra and Oliver’s compete for Bar of the Year.
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Three Special Honors Beyond the Categories
Alongside the 12 competitive categories, the Banquets are recognizing three individuals and restaurants with honors that fall outside the standard voting.
Chef Paul Kahan will receive the 2027 Culinary Excellence Award, recognizing a career that includes Blackbird, avec, The Publican, Big Star and Dove’s Luncheonette, restaurants that have shaped how Chicago eats while training generations of chefs who’ve gone on to open their own places across the city.
Manny’s Cafeteria & Delicatessen, the longtime Chicago institution, will receive the 2027 Iconic Restaurant Award. And chef Sarah Stegner of Prairie Grass Cafe will be the first-ever recipient of a newly created Environmental Leadership Award, recognizing sustainability work in the restaurant industry.
Why This Shortlist Carries Extra Weight
Every Banchet Awards cycle draws attention within Chicago’s restaurant community, but this year’s list carries more weight than usual for a few compounding reasons. The 25th anniversary alone would be enough to draw notice, but pairing it with a move to a significantly larger venue, plus the addition of a brand-new award category, signals an organization actively expanding rather than simply repeating a familiar format.
The finalist list itself also reflects just how much Chicago’s dining scene has shifted and grown over the past year. Restaurants spanning Korean, Ukrainian, Levantine, Turkish and Mexican cuisine all appear among this year’s finalists, alongside fine-dining institutions and a 90-plus-year-old deli, a spread that reflects the genuine range of what’s actually driving conversation in Chicago kitchens right now, rather than just the most expensive tables in town.
What Comes Next
Winners won’t be announced until the ceremony itself on January 31, 2027, leaving a four-month stretch where this finalist list effectively functions as Chicago’s unofficial dining to-do list. For a city that already takes its restaurant scene seriously, having two dozen-plus finalists newly validated by an anonymous industry panel tends to translate directly into reservation demand.
Whether a diner is chasing fine dining bragging rights or just looking for a reliably great neighborhood spot, this year’s Banchet finalists offer a genuinely wide net to work from. With the ceremony now set at Chicago’s Harris Theatre instead of a smaller Loop venue, the 25th anniversary celebration itself looks set to match the scale of the list it’s honoring.
