The 10 best soul food restaurants in Chicago

This ranked list covers the 10 best soul food restaurants in Chicago, from a cafeteria line on West Madison Street to a vegan hot bar in Chatham and a James Beard-winning dining room in Hyde Park. The list is for anyone after fried catfish, smothered short ribs, collard greens and peach cobbler, whether the plan is a weekday lunch close to home or a Sunday dinner across town. Most picks are on the South Side and West Side, plus one brunch kitchen in Albany Park.

The list favors kitchens that cook soul food every day, have stayed open for years and are backed by local reporting or named awards. Prices run wide. A fried chicken dinner with two sides costs $8.99 at MacArthur’s, the Sunday dinner buffet at Pearl’s Place is $39.99 a person, and Virtue is a sit-down dinner room that takes reservations.

How we chose

Rank follows how central soul food is to the everyday menu and how many years the kitchen has been cooking, checked against coverage from WTTW, ABC7, WGN, Austin Weekly News, The Infatuation and other outlets. Named awards, such as the 2022 James Beard Award won by Erick Williams of Virtue, settled close calls. Restaurants that cook mainly breakfast and brunch sit below the full-day soul food kitchens. Every pick was confirmed open in 2025 or 2026 through the restaurant’s own website or a dated news report.

Hours and prices below come from each business and change without notice. Call ahead if you are making a special trip.

MacArthur’s Restaurant

A cafeteria line and two sides with every dinner are the routine at MacArthur’s Restaurant in Austin. MacArthur “Mac” Alexander opened the restaurant on West Madison Street in February 1997 to bring affordable, healthy meals to a neighborhood short on them, according to an Illinois House resolution honoring the business. Barack Obama wrote about Alexander in The Audacity of Hope and used to hold meetings there, Austin Weekly News reported in 2015. Nearly 30 years of daily soul food cooking on the West Side, backed by that public record, puts MacArthur’s first. Order the meatloaf, fried chicken or catfish, and check the day: beef short ribs ($18.99) run only on Sunday, Monday and Friday.

Hours: Mon-Sun 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Address: 5412 W Madison St, Chicago, IL 60644

Why they made the list

• A baked or fried chicken dinner is $8.99 with dark meat and $9.99 with white on the posted menu.
• Peach cobbler and banana pudding cost $2.50 for a small and $4.50 for a large, and a slice of sweet potato pie is $5.
• Alexander put up the money and his niece, Sharon McKinney, brought the cooking experience, Austin Weekly News reported.
• The House resolution credits Alexander with hiring formerly incarcerated workers to help them rebuild their lives.

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Soul Veg City

Chatham has had vegan soul food on 75th Street since 1981, when Prince Asiel Ben Israel opened the restaurant known for years as Soul Vegetarian East, VegNews reported. His children, Arel Brown and Lori Seay, have run the business since 2009, bought the building and reopened the remodeled room as Soul Veg City on June 19, 2021. The Infatuation recommends the smothered seitan steak with gravy, the cornbread dressing and the vegan mac and cheese. More than four decades in one spot is the longest run of either plant-based kitchen on this list, and that earns second place. Tip: the hot bar and salad bar are self-serve, and the remodel added a patio for warm days.

Hours: Mon-Fri 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sat-Sun 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Address: 203 E 75th St, Chicago, IL 60619

Why they made the list

• The restaurant’s website says the family has cooked exclusively with plants for 42 years.
• About 90 percent of the menu is made in-house, soft-serve ice cream and desserts included, according to VegNews.
• The 2021 renovation brought beer and wine and a pizza oven for flatbread-style pies.
• Battered chick’n drumsticks with house-made blue cheese and barbecue seitan sandwiches are on the menu.

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Virtue

Erick Williams spent nearly 20 years rising from salad cook to executive chef and part owner of a River North restaurant before opening Virtue on 53rd Street in November 2018, according to Fine Dining Lovers. The Southern American menu runs to blackened catfish, short ribs, gizzards and collards in a sit-down room. Williams won the 2022 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Great Lakes, the only Chicago winner that year, NBC Chicago reported. The awards are the strongest on this list, while dinner-only hours and a menu that reaches past the soul food classics hold Virtue at No. 3. Tip: book through the restaurant’s website, which takes parties from one to eight or more.

Hours: Tue-Thu 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.; Fri-Sat 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Sun 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Address: 1462 E 53rd St, Chicago, IL 60615

Why they made the list

• Williams grew up in Lawndale and Austin, NBC Chicago reported after the 2022 win.
• Chef de cuisine Damarr Brown followed with the 2023 James Beard Award for Emerging Chef, as Resy’s roundup of that year’s winners shows.
• Chicago magazine named Williams a Chicagoan of the Year in 2020, Fine Dining Lovers notes.

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Pearl’s Place

Breakfast, lunch and dinner each come as a buffet at Pearl’s Place, at Pershing Road and Michigan Avenue in Bronzeville. The owners have served the neighborhood for more than 30 years, the restaurant says, and the state tourism site Enjoy Illinois describes the cooking as southern soul food with a creole touch. Chef’s suggestions on the menu include smothered short ribs of beef, a smoked ham hock dinner, jerk turkey and shrimp with cheesy grits. Three decades of all-day soul food rank Pearl’s fourth, even with the highest prices on this list. Tip: breakfast is served all day, and the restaurant takes reservations at (773) 285-1700.

Hours: Mon-Sun 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Address: 3901 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60653

Why they made the list

• The weekday breakfast buffet is $26.99 from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
• Weekday lunch is $29.99, and dinner runs $31.99 Monday through Wednesday and $34.99 on Thursday and Friday.
• Sunday dinner is the top price at $39.99 per person.
• Pearl’s belongs to the Bronzeville’s Finest family of restaurants and handles catering and party planning.

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Daley’s Restaurant

Food Republic and the Chicago Crusader both date Daley’s Restaurant to 1892, when Irish immigrant John Daley began feeding construction crews in Woodlawn, and both call Daley’s the oldest restaurant in Chicago. Greek immigrants bought the business in 1918 and kept the name, and in 2019 the restaurant moved across 63rd Street into the Woodlawn Station development. The menu splits between diner breakfasts and soul food, with cornmeal-crusted catfish, salmon patties, liver and onions, pot roast and peach cobbler, per Food Republic. That age puts Daley’s in the top five; the diner half of the menu keeps the restaurant from ranking higher. Tip: the website still carries a pandemic-era pickup notice, so call (773) 643-6670 to confirm dine-in seating.

Hours: Mon-Sun 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Address: 6257 S Cottage Grove Ave, Chicago, IL 60637

Why they made the list

• The daily special is a whole baked Cornish hen with homemade cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce and beef gravy.
• Tasting Table lists a Sunday dinner lineup of oven-baked chicken, pot roast and young steer liver.
• Tasting Table repeats the story that Muhammad Ali ate at Daley’s before and after trips to the gym.
• The Green Line’s Cottage Grove station, the end of the East 63rd branch, is a short walk away.

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Chicago’s Home of Chicken and Waffles

The order at Chicago’s Home of Chicken and Waffles is in the name: fried chicken with a waffle and a sweet or sweet-hot sauce, as the Wednesday Journal described the plate in 2010. Tonya and Darnell Johnson opened the King Drive restaurant in 2008 as Rosscoes House of Chicken and Waffles and renamed the business after legal action by Roscoe’s House of Chicken n’ Waffles in Los Angeles. The menu also runs to fried catfish dinners and Mama Bren’s Peach Cobbler. More than 15 years in Bronzeville and a second restaurant in Oak Park put the original at No. 6. Tip: on Wednesdays, kids eat free with an adult meal of $20 or more, dine-in only.

Hours: Mon-Sun 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Address: 3947 S King Dr, Chicago, IL 60653

Why they made the list

• The Junior’s Kiddie Special costs $10.95 for children 10 and under.
• A second location is at 543 Madison St in Oak Park.
• WGN reported in 2020 that candied yams, mac and cheese and chicken sausage share the menu with the waffles.
• Sunday lines after church were already common in 2010, the Wednesday Journal reported.

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Majani

Tsadakeeyah Emmanuel, known as Chef T, calls his cooking New Soul Food, and every plate at Majani in South Shore is vegan. He and his wife, Nasya, the pastry chef, opened at 71st Street and Exchange Avenue in 2017 after about four years of catering, South Side Weekly reported. Arts Midwest named the barbecue cauliflower a fan favorite and also pointed to oyster mushroom “fried chicken” and black-eyed pea fritters. The 30-seat cafe is younger and smaller than Soul Veg City, which places Majani at No. 7, though ABC7 found a busy weekday lunch there in June 2025. Tip: start with the black-eyed pea fritters, a dish on the menu since the 2017 opening.

Hours: Check current hours before you go.

Address: 7167 S Exchange Ave, Chicago, IL 60649

Why they made the list

• ABC7 reported in June 2025 that Majani had just marked eight years in business.
• Emmanuel grew up in northern Wisconsin and went vegan in the 1980s after joining the Hebrew Israelite community, Arts Midwest reported.
• He is raising money for a four-restaurant vegan food hall at 79th Street and South Shore Drive, aiming for fall 2026, ABC7 reported.
• Moroccan stew, collard greens and cornbread were on the opening menu in 2017, per South Side Weekly.

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Soulé

Chef Bridgette Flagg founded Soulé in 2017 on West Chicago Avenue, and the restaurant’s website now lists a single address on Roosevelt Road in North Lawndale. Flagg traces her cooking to her grandmother, Beatrice “Bea” Tolliver, who brought Mississippi Delta cooking north from Greenwood, WhatNow Chicago reported. The menu is Creole-leaning soul food: jerk shrimp, lamb and grits, blackened catfish and shrimp, fried chicken and banana pudding. The Infatuation reviewed the North Lawndale room as a new location in January 2023 and praised the full bar and friendly servers. That shorter run at one address puts Soulé at No. 8. Tip: the kitchen opens at 2 p.m.

Hours: Tue-Sun 2 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Address: 3615 W Roosevelt Rd, Chicago, IL 60624

Why they made the list

• WhatNow Chicago described the North Lawndale opening as the neighborhood’s first full-service restaurant in more than 50 years.
• Flagg planned the room to seat up to 100 and to train formerly incarcerated people to cook, the same 2022 report said.
• WhatNow listed Scottie Pippen, Star Jones and Lil Baby among the restaurant’s celebrity fans.
• Dine-in, takeout and delivery are all available, according to the restaurant’s site.

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Luella’s Southern Kitchen

Luella Funches, who came to Chicago from Morgan City, Mississippi, in the 1940s, is the great-grandmother behind the name of Luella’s Southern Kitchen, chef Darnell Reed’s restaurant. After about a decade in Lincoln Square, Reed bought a building on North Kedzie Avenue in Albany Park and reopened there on August 6, 2025, as a breakfast and brunch restaurant, WTTW reported. Order the shrimp and grits with maque choux, the buttermilk fried chicken or a Hot Brown, and save room for beignets. Daytime-only hours since the move are why Luella’s sits ninth. Tip: the kitchen closes at 2 p.m., and the restaurant is dark on Monday and Tuesday.

Hours: Wed-Fri 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Sat-Sun 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Address: 4114 N Kedzie Ave, Chicago, IL 60618

Why they made the list

• Reed was a 2022 James Beard Awards semifinalist, WTTW noted.
• Owning the Albany Park building gives Reed better financial terms and control over maintenance, WTTW reported.
• Collard greens, mac ‘n’ cheese, chicken and waffles and biscuits and gravy carried over from the Lincoln Square menu.
• The restaurant sits on Kedzie Avenue just north of Irving Park Road.

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Peach’s on 47th

Southern comfort cooking at breakfast and lunch is the business at Peach’s on 47th, chef Cliff Rome’s restaurant on King Drive in Bronzeville, FOX 32 reported in 2023. The station pointed to the peach bourbon French toast, shrimp and grits and a Southern Benedict that Rome calls “the hangover plate.” Barack Obama stopped in on May 23, 2025, greeted every table and ordered peach cobbler on the side, WGN reported. A breakfast-first menu with daytime hours closes out the list at No. 10. Tip: the Green Line’s 47th Street station is about a block west.

Hours: Wed-Sun 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Address: 4652 S King Dr, Chicago, IL 60653

Why they made the list

• Rome was picked as the Obama Foundation’s in-house culinary expert and chosen to run a restaurant at the Obama Presidential Center, WGN reported in May 2025.
• Rome started a training program called Mise en Place to develop future restaurant leaders, according to FOX 32.
• Chef Trillis Rollins started at Peach’s as a dishwasher and had become the chef by 2023, FOX 32 reported.

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See a place we missed or a detail that has changed? Send us a correction.