Dorado Restaurant, Chicago

Chef Luis Perez boasts an extensive experience with food, with a childhood spent taste-testing his mother's traditional Mexican dishes and a decade mastering European bistro cuisine under Chicago chef Jack Jones. Like the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, the menu at Perez's Lincoln Square restaurant is a memorable meeting of France and Mexico, resulting in plates of smoked-duck nachos, mint-roasted lamb with brandy-guajillo sauce, and cremini-mushroom quesadillas filled with goat cheese. Surrounded by sunny yellow walls and flowing baby-blue drapes, guests dine on dishes that fuse savory and sweet, such as the almond-crusted trout covered in creamy coconut sauce or center-cut pork chops with plum mole. Desserts of caramel-covered flan and rich tres-leches sponge cake cap off these eclectic suppers, as diners raise toasts with glasses of BYO beverages.