A German-American restaurant on Adams Street that has been in continuous operation since 1898 — one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants in Chicago and a genuine Loop institution that has survived the neighbourhood's shifts with its character largely intact. The Berghoff serves traditional German and Austro-Hungarian dishes (schnitzel, sauerbraten, roast pork) alongside its own brand of German lager, brewed continuously since Prohibition.
The interior is the attraction as much as the food: dark wood, framed portraits, white-jacketed servers, and the physical accumulation of over a century of institutional identity. Lunch is the best time to visit, when the Loop crowd fills the room with a cross-section of Chicago working life. Adams Street at State.