jdmath0's Profile
Great Eats Around Chicago Palmer House - with a caveat....
Custom House can't be more than a 7 minute walk. www.customhouse.cc. It's an excellent new-american restaurant.
Italian Restaurant Marathon Weekend
A party of 10 should be fine anywhere, just book as soon as possible. I work as a concierge at a hotel and the Italian Restaurants get CRAZY that night. Saturday nights are busy anyway and then you add in the fact that all 45,000 runners seem to be trying to go to the same Italian restaurants and it's a mad house.
Italian Restaurant Marathon Weekend
La Scarola is awesome.
If you do want something fun and hip though, you could add Follia and Vivo.
http://www.folliachicago.com/ http://www.vivo-chicago.com/.
If anything they may be too lively if you are looking for a subdued evening before a race. Both are in the West Loop where there a lot of hip, progressive restaurants and a lot of lounge / clubs.
Delicious Bakery or Dessert in Chicago?
You may also be interested in Hot Chocolate, which is a terrific desert bar, pastry shop and restaurant. www.hotchocolatechicago.com. It's probably a ten minute cab ride from the Drake.
Breakfast and lunch near Marriott Magnificent Mile
Vermillion restaurant is within a couple of blocks of your hotel. Vermillion always comes to mind as especially friendly to a group of girls. They offer small plates of Latin American / Indian fusion cuisine. Everything is very flavorful and very interesting.
-Whoops. Update: I forgot that you are looking for Saturday. Vermillion only does lunch Monday - Friday. If you can fit it in at a different time, I think it's worthwhile.
Decent food with blues, jazz or piano bar
I second Nsxtasy's recommendation of Buddy Guy's. I would also add Pop's For Champagne. www.popsforchampagne.com The emphasis at Pop's is on the champagne, the deserts, and the jazz, but they offer a raw bar and small plates that I thought were better than a lot of more formal restaurants. The space is somewhat elegant (despite the tv's on the upstairs level), but you will feel crowded if you plan to make a full dinner out of it at, say, 8:00pm on a Saturday.
And obvs, Buddy Guys is a better choice if you want casual.
Anyone else have any thoughts on the food here?
Spring, Graham Elliot, or Aigre Doux
I am a big fan of Graham Elliot. His new restaurant is very different from Avenues though and is also quite different from Spring or Aigre Doux. The atmosphere is aggressivley hip, a little louder and more casual. The food is excellent but overly playful and post modern. Foie Gras Lollipops, dishes utilizing Cheez-itz, things like that. If you like the atmosphere of Spring, Aigre Doux may be your best choice. One other that I think may excite you would be L20. L20 is the new Chicago restaurant from Chef Laurent Gras. I think Spring and L20 are the two best restaurants in Chicago that focus on Seafood. L20 is a bit more formal, focusing on tasting menus like Trotters, etc. But L20 is still hip and accessible, and they also do an ala carte menu.
"Between" Boutique Cafe and Loune
Between is great, and Rad (the chef who will be on Top Chef) is great. But Between is different from a lot of the sort of casual fine dining restaurants where other well known chefs do their time. Between is as much a lounge as it is a restaurant, and it 's in the hip part of town so the clientelle is as much large groups of girls going out on the town afterwards as it is food tourists. That being said, the food is terrific and interesting and the ambiance is comfortable. Brunch here is also terrific. They do more than you can imagine with bacon.
Dinner near Double Door?
Hey I thought I already replied, but I don't see the response so I apologize if I double posted.
Within 1 block of the Double Door are Cafe Absinthe and the Violet Hour. Both are interesting. Absinthe is a neighborhood place that has been around longer than most of the neighborhood and it's the type of place that never took foie gras off of the menu when it was banned and used to sell absinthe from behind the bar when they could get away with it. It's casual and neighborhoody but it is closer to casual fine dining menu and price point wise. The Violet hour is a sort of psuedo speak-easy. There is no sign but it's easy to find. The emphasis is more on the gourmet cocktails than the food, but the food is good (and causal) and the experience is wonderful. There is no marking outside and it is Gorgeous inside. There is a newer place called Between Boutique and Lounge about 3 blocks down from Double Door that has really good Indian focused global cuisine and great cocktails in a lounge like setting. Karl is the name of the owner and if you ask for him and tell him that you are celebrating something he will take really good care of you. Irazu, which was mentioned already, is excellent and super casual Costa Rican Cuisine. Depending on how nice is nice and how formal is too formal, Mirai, Takashi and Spring are all within 4 and 1/2 blocks of Double Door. Mirai may be the best Japanese food in Chicago and is more hip than formal. Sit on the second level if you go there and get the Kani Nigiri, it's excellent. Takashi could be called new-american with french and asian influence. Chef Takashi is a James Beard Best of the Midwest award winnner and again the restaurant is more hip than formal and tops out at maybe $28 a plate with some really cheap small plates. Spring is just two blocks from Double Door. Spring is Seafood with Asian Influence. Another James Beard Award winning Chef and entees average around the mid to high twenties. Spring is very friendly and you could wear jeans but it definately has a somewhat formal feel to it. Hope some of that helps!
Sat. late dinner for 5?
All of those places sound great. If I was you I would also use the late night dining to my advantage. I would go to Avec at least one night. Avec serves until at least midnight every night, is phenomenal, is medium priced, and going at later than 10:00 will help you forgo the normally really long wait. Frontera Grill seats until 11:00 on Friday and Saturday and is also terrific and reasonably priced. You could also do Sushi Wabi or the lounge at Graham Elliott. Cheers
Recommendations near W Lakeshore
Pink Dress,
I am a concierge at W City Center hotel. You will have to stay at our W property next time. You will be in a great location at W Lakeshore though. W Lakeshore is set back on the lake so, as mentioned above, you are near a whole lot, but it's a few extra blocks to walk to most things. W Lakeshore also offers an Acura MDX driving service that will take you anywhere you want to go free of charge as long as a car is available if you want to venture farther from the hotel but don't want to pay for a cab. For that weekend I would recommend booking restaurant and car reservations in advance. I also think Delacosta and Fox and Obel are great choices within walking distance of the hotel. For non-fodd stuff I recommend that Chicagoline Architectural and Historical cruises which I mention because A. They are awesome and B. They leave from next to Fox and Obel if you wanted to do both one day. They do a good job. Blackbird and Japonais are great restaurants as are their respective sister restaurants Avec and Mirai, respectively. It all depends though, on what area you would like to be in, what time you are headed out, atmosphere, etc. One new opening that I recommend is Tikashi. I think it's fantastic. No bar scene to speak of, but good looking, boutique sized place, somewhat hip, great food. W Lakeshore has a bar called Whiskey Sky on the 22nd floor, that has a beautiful view which should be only more stunning if you were inclined to watch fireworks. You should call or email your concierge before your visit. They can do a good job of assisting you. Cheers.
Breakfast in the loop?
There's not a lot of good breakfasts with booze in the loop. Ristorante We in the W hotel at Adams and Wells is an option. If it is Saturday or Sunday The Gage at Michigan and Monroe does a very good brunch.
Victor Hotel...Good sushi?
Eat elsewhere. You will be within walking distance or the best restaurant row in Chicago. Sushi Wabi is one of the best places in the city for sushi and it's a short walk. All the places mentioned in the other replies are great. For a trendy night out before Victor with top notch food you can not go wrong with Sushi Wabi, Otom, Red Light or (two blocks further) Avec.
West Randolph Restaurants-What's new?
Sepia is great, as the last poster mentioned. The food and service at Alhambra is garbage. It is only interesting for a WTF type of experience. The night I was there there was a Middle Eastern Electroclash type band, they placed us in a seperate room where there were no other diners and when we asked the server how long Alhambra had been open he said "Well, at least since today. I started today." Oh, and it looks and feels like a Soanish Castle where they would hold Eye's Wide Shut type sexual escapades. Alongside Sepia, I recommend Otom. As Avec is the more aproachable, less expensive sister to Blackbird, Otom is to Moto. Technically it's on Fulton, next to Moto, Folia and Lumen, but it's still there in the West Loop, West Randolph area. Service, food, cocktails and atmosphere are top-notch. It is described as fancied-up American comfort food in magazines because they serve a mac and cheese entree, but in actuality Otom has dishes with influences from all over the world that they do well. We had a Thai Mussells dish, a short rib ravioli and some sort of Asian sirloin that were all excellent.
Advice About Schwa
You should get the nine course because you'll want to try everything, but I've never seen them not bring out two extra courses (quail egg ravioli included) if you order the three course, and I've left full on three courses. The three course is $55. I think the nine couse is $110 or so.
They don't answer the phone at night so call in the morning. Or beter yet go there in the morning if you live in Chicago. The door is always open and they are always there.
