"If you press your face up against the window of Obelix, well, you’ll want to wash your face. You’ll also see what appears to be a typical, white-tablecloth French restaurant. It’s not. While this River North spot is a place where the waitstaff folds our napkin whenever we leave our seat, it’s also somewhere we can casually pop in for drinks with friends and split foie gras tacos at the bar. Obelix expertly walks the tightrope of feeling formal without being stuffy. And that same balance is present in its menu filled with a mixture of classics like escargot and playful, fusion-y ones like the foie-co. Somehow, Obelix has made eating 10-day dry-aged duck breast and French onion soup exactly what we want to be doing with our Saturday night. Reservations are released 30 days in advance. But while dinner seats can be hard to nab (unless you want to eat at 10pm on a Thursday), it's much easier to snag a spot for weekend brunch at 10:30am-2pm, or lunch at 11:30am-2:30pm on Thursday, Friday, and Monday." - adrian kane, john ringor, veda kilaru