Chicago Travel Guide: Best Hotels, Restaurants & Experiences

The Langham Chicago inhabits Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's final work, a 52-story glass and steel landmark overlooking the Chicago River. Spacious rooms feature mid-century design and bronze accents, while families benefit from a dedicated Kids Suite designed with the Chicago Children's Museum. The Chuan Spa offers a 67-foot indoor pool, Himalayan salt saunas, and heated stone loungers, while the Pavilion serves afternoon tea honoring the brand's 1865 London heritage.

The Art Deco Carbide & Carbon Building, erected in 1929 and crowned with 24-karat gold leaf, houses 364 rooms where Fili D'Oro linens and marble baths meet espresso machines and Bluetooth speakers. Venteux delivers French-Chicago fusion—oysters, dry-aged ribeye—while Bar Pendry hosts Sunday Boozy Tea with tea-based cocktails and live music. Château Carbide, the 24th-floor rooftop bar, channels Riviera ease with rosés against Loop skyline views.

The 1929 McGraw-Hill building serves as the striking home for this Michigan Avenue property, its limestone façade still adorned with original carvings by pioneering sculptor Gwen Lux. Inside, the fifth-floor lobby presents bold Art Deco geometry and metallic accents alongside a curated display of Lux's works, while guest rooms carry period glamour through to bathroom wallpaper inspired by her art. The open-air rooftop terrace delivers sweeping city views over firepits and handcrafted cocktails, complemented by weekend Tipsy Tea service.

Industrial-chic design meets Gold Coast elegance at this 247-room hotel, where eclectic modern art—including works by Wes Lang—frames rooms with sweeping Lake Michigan views. Nico Osteria, helmed by James Beard laureate Paul Kahan, delivers seafood-centric Italian cuisine, while Salone Nico's dramatic living wall and jewel-toned velvet banquettes draw the city's style-conscious crowd. Complimentary Lexus service with driver and loaner cars completes the upscale urban experience.

Chefs John Shields and Karen Urie-Shields command this three-Michelin-starred dining room, where lounge styling frames an open kitchen turning out boundary-pushing contemporary cuisine. Garden-grown produce fuels inventive compositions: kelp tart with English pea butter and trout roe, quail egg croustade with miso cure, a foie gras doughnut crowned with egg yolk fudge and Dungeness crab. Desserts such as goat yogurt sorbet with woodruff granita maintain the same rigorous creativity throughout.

Husband-and-wife team Tim Flores and Genie Kwon—both Oriole alumni—run Chicago's finest Filipino restaurant, a two-Michelin-star establishment in East Village. Evenings bring a 13-course gastronomic menu showcasing modern interpretations of traditional Filipino cooking: salmon beurre blanc spiked with tamarind and smoked eggs, lamb breast in peanut curry, mussel-and-mushroom adobo balancing tang and savory depth. Daytime transforms into a bistro serving brunch and Kwon's exceptional pastries.

Grant Achatz's Lincoln Park flagship fuses molecular gastronomy with theatrical immersion, deploying scented vapors and hidden ingredients across a progression of diminutive courses. The black truffle explosion—ravioli bursting with truffle broth—remains a signature, while bourbon-maple Arctic char and duck suspended over juniper air demonstrate relentless inventiveness. Dessert arrives as an edible helium balloon, culminating in a nitro-splattered Pollock tableau painted directly onto the table.

Chef Lee Wolen's decade-strong flagship delivers modern American cooking with precision and flair. The ricotta gnocchetti, finished with crispy chicken skin, exemplifies the kitchen's confident technique, while brown butter-toasted Hokkaido scallops paired with green garlic and buckwheat showcase seasonal ingredients handled with exceptional clarity. The mirrored dining room balances elegance with ease, and a skilled cocktail program rounds out the one-star experience.

Chef Phillip Foss runs this Michelin-starred Thai restaurant from a warehouse space beneath his own apartment, staging a single nightly seating where guests wander the pantry and watch plates come together. The counter-culture ethos extends to BYOB with no corkage, shrimp cocktail croquettes finished with lickable shrimp snow, and a cult signature that anchors every menu: French fries paired with potato-leek soup and nitro-poached vanilla ice cream.