Smyth opened in Chicago's West Loop in 2016 with John Shields and Karen Urie Shields leading the kitchen together. Three Michelin stars were awarded in November 2023 and retained in 2024 and 2025. Following Alinea's demotion in the 2025 guide, Smyth became the only three-star restaurant in Chicago — a distinction it holds at the highest standard with a tasting menu that changes daily, produce from its own garden, and the fourth-best restaurant designation in North America.
The CHefs & THe Restaurant
Husband and wife. Charlie Trotter. Alinea. Then their own kitchen in the West Loop.
John Shields trained under Charlie Trotter before working at Alinea under Grant Achatz — the two most important fine dining kitchens in Chicago's history — then built his own reputation at Town House in Virginia with his wife Karen Urie Shields. They returned to Chicago in 2016 to open Smyth, named after Smyth County, Virginia, where their cooking identity was formed. The restaurant opened in the ground-floor space at 177 North Ada Street in the West Loop and received one Michelin star within six weeks. A second followed in 2018. The third — the one that places Smyth alongside Per Se, Le Bernardin, and the other three-star institutions of American fine dining — came in November 2023.
The Shields describe their cooking philosophy as a narrative of their journey through Smyth County, Virginia: a love of specific place, specific producer, specific season, expressed through the daily menu change that is the restaurant's most demanding commitment. The tasting menu changes every day. Not weekly, not seasonally — every day. The kitchen's fermentation program, its Japanese and Scandinavian influences, its deep engagement with Midwest farmers and producers, and its boldness of combination all appear within a format that requires the kitchen to be, essentially, always creating rather than executing a fixed repertoire.
The downstairs dining room — The Loyalist — operates as a more casual companion, serving burgers and seasonal small plates at walk-in pace. The most celebrated burger in the West Loop is downstairs. The three Michelin stars are upstairs.
The Food
Farm on a plate. Bold. Seasonal. Lactic. A menu the kitchen has never served before.
The Michelin Guide describes Smyth with specific precision: bold cooking that pushes boundaries while consistently impressing. Sheer creativity applied to seasonal produce, some sourced from the restaurant's own garden. The specific dishes the Guide cites illustrate the range: a kelp tart filled with English pea butter and trout roe; a croustade topped with a poached, miso-cured quail egg; a doughnut filled with foie gras and set with egg yolk fudge and shredded Dungeness crabmeat. Raspberry butter boosts a lobster custard. A tangy tropical goat yogurt sorbet with woodruff granita and mamay sapote seeds closes the meal.
The daily change is not a marketing conceit. The kitchen documents its menus meticulously — the number of different menus since opening 2016 runs into the hundreds. The commitment to produce from small Midwest farmers and fishermen, and to what the Shields describe as connecting to the people who bring those products, means the menu is determined by what is best on any given day rather than by what the kitchen wants to cook. The result is that no two consecutive visits produce the same meal. Returning guests cite this as the primary reason they come back.
We are trying to express "farm on a plate" — not in a literal sense, but more as an idea. We want to create memories. We want people walking away saying, "I'm never going to forget that."
JOHN SHIELDS
The Kitchen's Signatures
Bold flavours. The garden. Fermentation. The Midwest. And a different menu every night.
Kelp Tart, English Pea Butter, Trout Roe
A preparation that represents the Smyth kitchen's command of contrast: a tart shell made from kelp — briny, marine, specific — filled with English pea butter that is sweet and silky, topped with trout roe that adds salinity and pop. Three flavours from three different ecological registers, combined in a single bite that illustrates the kitchen's approach to sourcing and combination.
Foie Gras Doughnut, Egg Yolk Fudge, Dungeness Crab
The Michelin Guide's most cited Smyth preparation: a doughnut — sweet, fried, yielding — filled with foie gras, set with an egg yolk fudge that provides sweetness and richness, and topped with shredded Dungeness crabmeat. A dish that sounds impossible and eats as a coherent flavour proposition. Bold without being aggressive. Technically precise beneath its apparent playfulness.
The Fermentation Program
Lactic fermentation — kimchi-style, yogurt-style, salt-preserved — runs through the Smyth menu as a consistent technical thread. The fermented elements provide acidity, depth, and umami in ways that are both Japanese and Scandinavian in their logic, applied to Midwest produce. The kitchen's fermentation program predates the three-star recognition and is one of the reasons the Shields describe their cooking as having a "slight nod" to those traditions.
The Daily Menu Change
The tasting menu changes every day — a commitment that makes Smyth unique among three-star restaurants in the United States. What is on the menu any given night is determined by what the restaurant's farmers, fishermen, and garden produce that day. The kitchen documents every menu. The archives extend back to 2016. No two consecutive visits have ever produced the same meal.
The Restaurant Garden
The Smyth garden — managed by the kitchen team — provides seasonal produce that appears directly in the tasting menu. The connection between the garden and the plate is not mediated by a supply chain; it is as direct as possible. What grows today may appear on tonight's menu in a preparation that the kitchen develops the same afternoon.
The Loyalist — Downstairs
The Loyalist operates in the space below Smyth as a walk-in bar and restaurant serving the West Loop's most celebrated burger alongside seasonal small plates. A significantly different experience from the upstairs tasting menu — informal, walk-in, accessible — but cooked with the same kitchen's standards applied to a different format. The best entry point to the Shields' cooking for guests who are not booking the tasting menu.
Before You Go
Everything practical, plainly told
- Address: 177 N. Ada Street, West Loop, Chicago, IL 60607 (Smyth upstairs; The Loyalist downstairs)
- Phone: +1 773-913-3773
- Website: exploretock.com/smyth (reservations via Tock)
- Getting There: West Loop, Chicago. The nearest CTA Green/Pink line station is Morgan, approximately 5 minutes on foot. The restaurant is on North Ada Street between Randolph Street and Washington Boulevard — the heart of Chicago's restaurant district. Taxi and rideshare are readily available from the city centre.
- Bookings: Via Tock at exploretock.com/smyth. $100 deposit per person required at booking. The restaurant operates dinner service Wednesday through Sunday. Following three consecutive years of three stars and the North America #4 ranking in 2025, demand is high. Book 4–8 weeks ahead for most dates; weekend dinners require the longest lead time. Smyth became Chicago's only three-star in November 2025, which has further increased demand.
- Price: Standard tasting menu: $420 per person before beverages, tax, and gratuity. An upgraded menu experience is available at prime times with additional courses. Wine pairing additional. Total with pairing approximately $600–$700+ per person. The Loyalist downstairs offers walk-in casual dining from approximately $25–$45 per person.
- The Loyalist: Walk-in bar and restaurant in the basement below Smyth. Open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday, first-come, first-served at the bar or tables as available. The burger is widely considered among the best in Chicago. No reservation required.
Smyth isn’t a meal—it’s a manifesto. A place where Illinois’ black soil becomes black gold, where chefs wield blowtorches like paintbrushes, and every bite whispers: “This is the Midwest, but not as you know it.” For those craving cuisine that’s equal parts roots and revolution, this West Loop marvel is where Chicago’s soul gets reinvented.