Frontera Grill / Topolobampo

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

Two Restaurants, One Address, a Shared Obsession with Mexico

On North Clark Street in Chicago's River North neighborhood, two restaurants share a building and a philosophy but offer distinctly different experiences. Frontera Grill is the lively, rustic original — opened in 1987 after chef and owner Rick Bayless and his wife Deann spent five years living and cooking across all of Mexico's states. Topolobampo, which followed in 1989, is the fine-dining counterpart: quieter, more focused, the place where Bayless's deepest Mexican cooking finds its most considered expression. The Chicago Tribune awarded Topolobampo four stars, and the wine program across both rooms holds a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence.

The Story Behind the Stoves

Bayless grew up in a restaurant family — his parents ran the Hickory House in Oklahoma City for nearly four decades — so hospitality was never abstract to him. What changed everything was the years he and Deann spent in Mexico before opening Frontera, cooking with chefs and home cooks, traveling every region, absorbing technique and tradition firsthand. That research became the foundation of Authentic Mexican, their first cookbook, and of every plate that has followed. Food & Wine named Bayless one of America's Best New Chefs in 1988, just a year after opening. Seven individual James Beard Awards followed over the years, including Outstanding Chef and Outstanding Restaurant for Frontera Grill.

Farm-to-Table Before It Had a Name

The commitment to local sourcing is structural, not decorative. The Bayless Gardens — a 1,000-square-foot production space in Bucktown — supplies the restaurants with specialty salad greens, edible flowers, herbs, and what the team calls "rooftop salsa" ingredients. Over a full growing season the beds yield more than 700 pounds of salad greens and 65,000 edible flowers. The Frontera Farmer Foundation, founded in 2003 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, extends that commitment outward by providing capital grants to small sustainable farms serving the Chicago area. Bayless was also a founding force behind the Green City Market and has received a Green Award from Chicago Magazine for his dedication to local foods and small farmers.

A Kitchen That Develops Its Own Talent

The team at Frontera Grill has its own competitive record. Sous chef Javauneeka Jacobs beat 16 chefs on the Food Network's Chopped in a Julia Child–themed challenge — and her winning dish subsequently appeared on the Frontera Grill menu. It's a detail that says something real about the kitchen culture here: ambitious, collaborative, and grounded in Mexican cuisine without being frozen in it.

Private Dining and the Broader Universe

For groups, the two restaurants offer several distinct private spaces: the intimate Library Room for a Topolobampo experience, the festive Morales Room on the Frontera side, and La Vista for something more relaxed. The broader Bayless universe — Bar Sótano, Xoco, Tortazo, and others — fans out from this same address, but Frontera Grill and Topolobampo remain the center of gravity: the places where the decades of Mexican cuisine research, farm sourcing, and kitchen craft converge most completely.