Logan Square, Chicago

The western end of the Blue Line trio

Logan Square is built on a genuinely distinctive street grid — broad, tree-lined boulevards radiating from a central monument at Logan Boulevard and Kedzie, laid out in the late 19th century and still giving the neighborhood a more spacious, less block-by-block feel than Wicker Park or Bucktown closer to downtown. That extra room, plus rents that have historically run lower than its two neighbors, has made it the neighborhood where a new generation of Chicago chefs and bartenders has opened some of the city's most talked-about restaurants and cocktail bars over the past decade.

It reads as the most local of the three Blue Line North Side neighborhoods — less overtly geared toward visitors than Wicker Park, with a dining scene built as much for the people who live here as for anyone traveling in for it. That's exactly the appeal for a visitor who wants a genuinely lived-in evening rather than a curated one.

The 606 Trail

Logan Square is the western terminus of the elevated trail that also runs through Bucktown and Wicker Park.

Bucktown

The next stop toward downtown on the same Blue Line corridor.

Getting there, and planning a night

The Blue Line's own Logan Square stop puts you directly at the neighborhood's boulevard intersection, on the same 24-hour line that also serves Wicker Park and Bucktown closer to downtown — a single ride covers all three if you're stringing together a North Side evening. It's also the line that runs direct to O'Hare, useful if a Logan Square dinner is bookending a flight.

Because the destination restaurants and bars here draw a citywide crowd, not just neighborhood foot traffic, reservations at the best-known spots are worth booking ahead the same way you would in West Loop/Fulton Market. Pair a Logan Square dinner with a walk or bike along the 606 Trail beforehand, and you've covered the strongest food-and-trail combination on the North Side.

• Blue Line at Logan Square — the western end of the same corridor serving Wicker Park and Bucktown.
• Logan Square is the 606 Trail's western terminus.
• Book ahead at the neighborhood's destination restaurants — demand pulls from across the city, not just locally.

Wicker Park

The busiest and most tourist-facing of the three connected Blue Line neighborhoods.