Restaurants in Skokie

International flavors shape the menu at Cafe' Bella, which opens with globe-trotting appetizers from bruschetta to hummus to a trio of fruity guacamoles. The spot transitions from daytime café to evening bistro, starting the day with steaming pours of house-blend coffee, café caramelos, and a selection of ciabatta sandwiches, wraps, and pitas. For dinnertime, chefs conjure up a mix of Mexican-style fajitas, steaks, seafood, and the spot's popular caribbean jerk chicken breast, accompanied by mashed potatoes with a madeira sauce and an edible steel drum set. As diners savor preservative-free, all-natural fare, they can admire a spackling of local artwork making exposed-brick walls decent.

As the sound of live music perfumes the air, The Abbey Pub crafts a menu populated by Irish and American pub fare, complete with burgers, finger food, and custom pizzas. Next door, the venue hosts hometown and traveling bands that play genres ranging from indie rock and blues to dog-whistle symphonies. On the restaurant side, patrons can sip on domestic and imported brews, as well as a wealth of Irish whiskey, scotch, and bourbon, as their fingers wander to an appetizer of curry fries or a tower of sourdough pretzels. Sandwiches, burgers, and entrees such as bangers and mash satisfy bar-goers at dinner, and brunch on the weekends wakes up bellies emitting cartoon Zs from their navels. Fourteen flat screen TVs and a 15-foot projector incite cheers and a raw spectrum of emotion with telecasts of rugby, soccer, and major national sporting events.

Open until at least 2 a.m. every night of the week, Fizz welcomes revelry-seeking crowds with a list of as many as 100 different beers and a menu of savory finger foods. Ales and lagers from local breweries—including Goose Island, Half Acre, and Revolution—join an assortment of beers from across the country and around the world on a quest to keep glasses full and frothy. In between sips, patrons can sample the kitchen's menu of 10-ounce sirloin burgers, hand-pulled-pork sandwiches, and pizzas with 22 available toppings that come from all five corners of the food pyramid.

The bar's 150-seat beer garden stays open year-round, remaining covered and heated during the winter so that guests can laugh in Jack Frost’s stupid face while enjoying the space's couches, televisions, and dartboards. Indoors, the bar keeps groups engaged with team trivia competitions and swing nights throughout the week.

Located a half-block from the site of John Dillinger's final shootout, Dillinger's Chicago Bar & Grill's staff decants pints and dishes out a menu of pub fare bearing names of notorious gangsters. To augment its historic-crime theme, the establishment is housed in a brown-brick façade resembling a warehouse and enforces a mandatory zoot-suit dress code.

Translating an all-American staple into a pan-American delicacy, Hotdogeria's cooks sling a menu of gourmet hot dogs. With flavors from Canada to Mexico to Brazil to Argentina, the Hotdogeria sends taste buds on a road trip spanning at least eight months. Foodies from publications such as Chicago magazine and Thrillist have journeyed to the stand, whose ketchup-and-mustard-colored awnings complement its Vienna beef hot dogs.

6 Degrees celebrates society's interconnectedness with its convivial environs and vast menu of pub food. Grub ranges from chicken wings and wraps to the bar's infamous Horseshoe sandwich, which layers cheese sauce, meat, and fries atop slices of texas toast. Patrons' pictures line one of 6 Degrees' walls to shed light on the various connections between them, and big-screen plasma televisions hang from the exposed brick walls displaying the big game or home videos from Kevin Bacon.