Chicago's most concentrated restaurant district, the Fulton Market neighbourhood on the western edge of the Near West Side has transformed since 2010 from a meat-packing district into the location of more nationally recognised restaurants per square block than anywhere else in the Midwest. Fulton Market proper is on the border between River North and West Loop, but is most easily approached from the River North side.
Key restaurants include Avec, Girl and the Goat, Monteverde, Au Cheval (for the cheeseburger), and a dozen others that have sustained national coverage for years. The former meatpacking infrastructure — the elevated truck docks, industrial facades, and cold-storage buildings — has been largely retained in the conversion, giving the district a physical character unlike the restaurant rows in other Chicago neighbourhoods.