Chicago fine dining
Alo, Margate House, Castel de Très Girard, Islander Resort, Mish, MAAI by Nikita, best Chicago fine dining, MORE
This week, we dropped the FOUND Summer ‘26 Report, a roundup of our favorite new restaurants, cultural finds, and getaways from the second quarter of 2026. Paid subscribers get access to Summer Reports across all FOUND cities (perfect travel cheatsheets). Here’s the full set:
RESTAURANTS • Toronto
Purity & precision
After more than a decade as one of Toronto’s most celebrated dining destinations, Alo has undergone its first major redesign. Following an extended closure and renovation, the restaurant reopened this spring.
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Sponsor
Where your friends actually eat, everywhere
You know the routine: land in a new city, text three friends for recs, screenshot the replies, lose the screenshots. Zest replaces it. Link a card (read-only) and every place you eat lands on your map automatically. Follow friends and their maps come with you: the pasta spot they found in Rome, their SF coffee order, the New York hole-in-the-wall they never post about. Next trip, you’re not reading strangers’ reviews. You’re looking at where people you trust actually went. Home included.
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GETAWAYS • England
Beach cheek
For a small, once-forgotten seaside town on the edge of Thanet, Margate punches above its weight in restaurants and culture — it’s even home to Madonna’s favorite Italian (intel). The latest reason to visit is Margate House, a small boutique hotel steadily growing in popularity since opening in 2023, and its restaurant, Willy’s, which debuted at the end of last year.
On a residential street facing Dalby Square, Margate House occupies a five-story Victorian townhouse. It’s a kid-free zone, which is part of its appeal – owner Will Jenkins has cultivated a Soho House-ish vibe, welcoming cool crowds and arty types for co-working and cocktails in quirky striped tumblers. At its heart is the beautifully decorated drawing room (above), a dusky pink zone with playful art and comfy sofas. Rooms are similarly stylish.
Like the rest of the house, the restaurant has a homey, chic vibe — it’s a casual room at the back of the hotel, with comfy counter seats around the open kitchen, and red-and-white striped seating on the terrace. Staff wear t-shirts with the words ‘I love Willy’s,’ a sentiment reflected by locals and DfLs (down-from-Londoners) visiting for pimped-up comfort food like sausage and mash and a black pudding Scotch egg. –Laura Price
GETAWAYS • Burgundy
Lingering on
In the heart of the Côte de Nuits, surrounded by vineyards that stretch toward the horizon, Castel de Très Girard sits just high enough above the vines to take in the view, yet remains rooted within the landscape.
On Sundays, the hotel hosts a brunch practically tailor-made for easing into the day after a generous dinner the night before (perhaps accompanied by one too many glasses of Grand Cru).
Whether seated by the fireplace or on the shaded terrace, guests inevitably find themselves drawn toward the centerpiece of the experience: the buffet. –Candice Chemel
GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket
Notable responses to the FOUND Routine query, “What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?”
→ TANYA KOLLAR, food program director, Outside Lands Music Festival (SF): I just bought a new Shiftpod and a Waykar portable camping air conditioner to bring to Burning Man, because I haven’t been in seven years, and I can’t camp the way I did in my 20s. The Shift Pod is a dome-shaped tent that’s big and has plenty of room for all my stuff. So I can put a queen mattress in there and make my own little sanctuary. I also got a Jackery solar battery, to try and be as sustainable as possible.
→ VALERIE MNUCHIN, owner, Léon 1909 (NY): I recently bought a vintage rose-cut flower pendant on a leather choker cord. It’s from my closest friend and favorite jewelry go-to, @elishtolizzie.
AROUND FOUND • Bonus Intel & Recs
→ MIAMI: After a few wonderfully chaotic days eating and drinking my way through Key West, I wasn’t quite ready to head straight back to Miami. Instead, I broke up the drive with two nights at Islander Resort in Islamorada. After undergoing a transformation, then reopening early last year, this little resort’s new look felt fresh to me, without losing any of the laid-back charm that makes the Florida Keys the Florida Keys.
→ LA: Gliding through the airy dining room of his modern Jewish deli, Mish, chef Eric Greenspan sidled up to our table like a Baryshnikov-inspired mensch. Holding a plate of golden-brown fried dumplings, he looked over our dish-laden table and exclaimed, “I can’t believe you didn’t order the kreplach!”
→ LDN: MasterChef: The Professionals-winning chef Nikita Pathakji opened her debut restaurant, MAAI by Nikita, in May in Clapham. Genuine family hospitality and refreshingly original food make for one of the best openings of the year; Claphamites are lucky to have it on their doorstep.
GETAWAYS LINKS: Meals I’d plan a trip around • London: the new, the great, and the timely • Nine French country houses for escaping • On the market in Provence, an artist’s home with lush garden • Across Europe, the hottest pop-ups for the rest of summer 2026.
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GETAWAYS • The Nines
Fine dining, Chicago
The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best. Paid subscribers access the complete Nines archive.
All Well (West Loop, above), 5-course $120 prix fixe menu from chefs behind Oriole, vintage quilts divide dining room and walk-in bar with separate bar snack menu, reserve