The end of the year is quickly approaching, which means it’s time to celebrate the best of 2024.
Hot on the heels of La Liste’s Top 1,000 Restaurants rankings, Esquire has just released its 2024 list of the Best New Restaurants in America. And—of course—a local standout was honored: Maxwells Trading.
“Here chefs Erling Wu-Bower and Chris Jung have collaborated on a long and large menu on the theme of ‘let’s cook what we want to eat.’ Their cooking is hard to define and impossible to label,” wrote Esquire editor Omar Mamoon.
We most definitely agree with that assessment and the accolade. In fact, Maxwells Trading is also on our list of the best restaurants in Chicago you have to try right now. In her review, Time Out restaurant critic Maggie Hennessy praised the uncategorizable cooking, finding it joyful and filled with witty nuance.
“What lingered for me long after our meal ended was the exuberance of experiencing something as deliciously original as it is accessible; of both feeling seen and softly nudged out of my city kid element over and over,” Hennessy wrote.
Maxwells Trading opened in West Loop at the end of 2023 and quickly made waves. Led by chefs Erling Wu-Bower (Nico Osteria, Pacific Standard Time) and Chris Jung (Momotaro), the kitchen draws on all sorts of influences, ranging from Southeast Asia to Northern Italy to the Midwest. It’s certainly caught the eyes of critics as well, earning inclusion in Robb Report’s 10 Best New Restaurants in America list and, now, Esquire’s annual ranking.
Check out the full list of winners below.
Esquire’s Best New Restaurants in America, 2024
- Four Kings - San Francisco, CA
- Azizam - Los Angeles, CA
- Budonoki - Los Angeles, CA
- Camélia - Los Angeles, CA
- Mae Malai Thai House of Noodles - Los Angeles, CA
- Mori Nozomi - Los Angeles, CA
- 7 Adams - San Francisco, CA
- Charlie's Napa Valley - St. Helena, CA
- Alma Fonda Fina - Denver, CO
- Dogon - Washington, D.C.
- Itamae AO - Miami, FL
- Little Sparrow - Atlanta, GA
- Maxwells Trading - Chicago, IL
- Acamaya - New Orleans, LA
- Oun Lido's - Portland, ME