Category: Art Institute

CHICAGO NAMED BEST BIG CITY IN THE U.S. BY READERS OF CONDÉ NAST  TRAVELER

Adventure, Art Institute, Boating, Chicago Architecture Center, Chicago History Museum, Chicago River, Chicagoland Area, Cruise, Family Excursions, Field Museum, Magnificent Mile, Museum of Science and Industry, Navy Pier

A city full of hidden gems and spectacular landmarks, Chicago is hardly a second city. Located on the shores of Lake Michigan, it is an all-season destination recently voted for the seventh time as Condé Nast Traveler’s Best Big City in The U.S.

I have to admit when it comes to cities, I’ve always considered Chicago among the best having grown up in the metropolitan area and riding the South Shore, the only remaining interurban in the U.S., to Millennium Station frequently for watercolor classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. Who doesn’t love walking past those bronze larger-than-life lions flanking the entrance whose unofficial names are “On the Prowl” and  “An Attitude of Defiance” created by sculptor  Edward Kemeys in 1898?

Part of the city’s allure is its fabulous architecture and beyond the lions there’s dining in the 17,000-square-foot Walnut Room at Macy’s on State–sorry, it’ll will always be Marshall Field’s to me–which was the first restaurant in a department store in the U.S. and is famed for its  Circassian wood paneling imported from Russia and Austrian chandeliers. Also at Marshall Field’s (ooops Macy’s) is the magnificent Tiffany dome ceiling built in 1907 and crafted with 1.6 billion pieces of Favrile glass. As if one Tiffany dome ceiling isn’t enough, the Chicago Cultural Center just a short walk away from Macy’s, also boasts a Tiffany dome ceiling.

Also made of made of Tiffany Favrile glass–Tiffany patented this type of iridescent art glass in 1894–the 38,000-square-foot dome spanning 1000-squarefeet consists of 30,000 pieces of glass and is the largest Tiffany glass dome in the world. And in interesting historic aside, the glass for the dome was manufactured by the Kokomo Opalescent Glass Company in Kokomo, Indiana a company that dates back to the late 1880s. When pieces of glass were needed to replace those that were missing or broken during the renovation of the dome in the early 2000s, all it took was a call to KOG who still had the original glass recipes on file.

Among the hidden gems is a personal favorite, Green Mill Cocktail Lounge which had already been open for two decades when Al Capone and his men stationed themselves in his favorite booth so that he could see whoever was coming in and out of both the back and front entrances. A gangster has to be prepared, ya know. The Green Mill has been open since 1907 and you can still go there for live jazz every night in the prohibition-era style speakeasy. Capone’s booth is still there–how much closer to history can you get?

Chicago is a city of museums both internationally known such as the Field Museum and the Museum of Science & Industry but also small delights such as the Driehaus Museum, a marvelously restored Gilded Age home filled with treasures, Art on the Mart,  the largest permanent digital art projection in the world, and the Chicago History Museum reknowned for its more than  more than 50,000 costumes and textiles dating from the eighteenth century to the present including works by Gabrielle Chanel, Mainbocher, Charles James, Christian Dior, Pauline Trigère, and Yves Saint Laurent

Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, Chicago. Courtesy of Choose Chicago.

There are architecrural boat rides on the Chicago River and a Ferris wheel at Navy Pier known for its grand views of Lake Michigan. Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park is one of the largest fountains in the world, the Gothic Revival-style Rockefeller Memorial Chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago, and, of course, there’s Cloud Gate, nicknamed The Bean in Milliennium Park.

All this is just the start of what Chicago has to offer so its no wonder the for the seven straight year it’s been voted best city with over 520,000 votes from Condé Nast Traveler readers after a record-breaking summer travel season that saw all-time highs for hotel revenue.

Choose Chicago President and CEO Lynn Osmond proudly nnounced that Chicago honors this historic recognition and how it recognizes what brings visitors to Chicago.

“Today’s recognition of our great city as the Condé Nast Traveler’s Best Big City in The U.S., for the seventh year in a row, is proof that Chicago continues to be a force as a destination for visitors from all over the globe,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson. “We have something for everyone — 77 amazing communities, beautiful parks and lakefront, world class arts, culture and food, and much more. This is a distinction to be proud of, and we will continue to welcome travelers from all over the world to experience all our city has to offer and the soul of Chicago.”

“For the seventh year running, I couldn’t be prouder that Chicago has been named the number one big city in the nation,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “From our unmatched infrastructure and picturesque lakefronts to our diverse food scene, world-class museums, and, of course, the kindest people you’ll ever meet, Chicago has it all—and the world is taking notice. Whether you’re looking to take a family trip or to relocate your small business, Chicago has something for everyone and we cannot wait to welcome you home.”

For 36 years, Condé Nast Traveler has captured input from readers to determine the winners of their Readers’ Choice Awards, the longest-running and most prestigious recognition of excellence in the travel industry. And every year since 2017, Chicago has led the pack as the Best Big City in the U.S. This year’s awards were based on the input of more than half-a-million readers.

“I am so proud to share that Chicago is once again the city of champions,” said Osmond. “For seven straight years, through the challenges of the pandemic and beyond, travelers have recognized the truth about Chicago – ours is a vibrant, hospitable city brimming with attractions and amenities for all types of visitors. I want to thank all Chicagoans for making our city so welcoming to visitors from around the world. I especially want to thank the Choose Chicago staff. This award validates all of our hard work selling and promoting this city we love.”

Chicago’s selection as the Best Big City in the U.S. is a recognition of the city’s incredible hospitality and tourism industries and the people that make our city so welcoming to visitors. For seven straight years, voters have recognized that Chicago is a destination unique among its peers, with something to offer every type of visitor. With 77 vibrant neighborhoods ready for exploration, best-in-class accommodations, an acclaimed dining scene, thrilling live music and theatre, world-renowned museums and cultural institutions, stunning architecture and natural beauty, visitors have endless ways to explore the seven-time Best Big City in the U.S.

“More than half a million people cast votes for this year’s Reader’s Choice Awards,” said Glenn Eden, Chairman of the Choose Chicago Board of Directors. “Clearly, those who come here are having uniquely memorable experiences that stick with them – the kind of experiences that will make them return to Chicago and recommend our city as a vacation destination to their friends and families. Winning this award seven straight years is a recognition of the resilience of Chicago’s tourism and hospitality sector and the unwavering affinity that travelers have for our city. It gives me confidence that we are going to see continued growth in our local visitor economy for years to come.”

Choose Chicago is also thrilled to release summer 2023 performance data today showing that Chicago experienced a strong summer of travel:  

  • Summer (June, July and August) hotel revenue totaled $825 million, and hotel taxes totaled $46 million, both all-time records for summer months.
  • Over one million room nights were filled each month this summer, totaling 3.24 million hotel room nights. That is 4% higher than last year and represents a 92% recovery share compared to 2019 numbers.
  • Leisure visitors in particular came to Chicago in droves this summer – buoyed by a packed calendar of concerts, events and festivals, total leisure hotel room demand increased by 8% compared to summer 2022. 
  • International visitation increased by 13% compared to summer 2022.

While it was an excellent summer of travel in Chicago, the excitement does not end now that it’s fall. Visitors to Chicago will continue to experience a full calendar of events and attractions through the end of 2023. Later this week, we will be launching Theater Season, a new campaign to promote local theaters and the over 150 productions taking place across the city. Later this month, we will celebrate the one millionth finisher of the Chicago Marathon during the 45th running of the iconic race, open some of our city’s most notable architecture for exploration through Open House Chicago, and wrap up with Halloween celebrations across the city including Arts in the Dark and the Haunted Halsted Halloween Parade. Later this year, Chicago will transform into America’s premier holiday destination, kicking off with the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival and continuing with events and activations through the end of the year. 

As Chicago celebrates another Best Big City award, we are well on our way to significantly exceeding last year’s visitation numbers, when we welcomed nearly 50 million visitors. Year-to-date hotel room demand is 13% higher than the same period in 2022. 

The 2023 Readers’ Choice Awards are published on Condé Nast Traveler’s website at cntraveler.com/rca and celebrated in the November issue. 

About Choose Chicago

Choose Chicago is the official sales and marketing organization responsible for promoting Chicago as a global visitor and meetings destination, leveraging the city’s unmatched assets to ensure the economic vitality of the city, its residents and our partner business community. Follow @choosechicago on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and X/Twitter and tag #ChicaGOandKNOW. For more information, visit choosechicago.com.

Photos courtesy of Choose Chicago and the Chicago Architecture Foundation.

This Summer Discover 12 Great Chicago’s Exhibitions

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The Art Institute of Chicago has a full slate of spring/summer programming. (Neighborhood: The Loop)

  • The Arranged Flower: Ikebana and Flora in Japanese Prints (until July 9, 2023) – Ikebana is considered a form of Japanese high art, reflecting the principles of minimalism, asymmetry, and the appreciation of space. The arrangements are designed to create a sense of balance and harmony between the flowers and the environment in which they are displayed. Today, Ikebana is practiced by people of all ages and backgrounds in Japan and around the world. There are many different schools and styles of ikebana, each with its own unique techniques and aesthetic principles. Several works on display are surimono—privately commissioned prints circulated among members of poetry circles on special occasions—featuring representations of this practice.
  • Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde: The Modern Landscape (May 14 – September 4, 2023) – Between 1882 and 1890, five artists—Vincent van Gogh, along with Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard, and Charles Angrand—flocked to villages on the fringes of Paris. Each artist explored the use of discrete brushstrokes and strong colors in innovative ways, and in turn developed novel styles of painting: Divisionism, Pointillism, and Cloisonnism. More than 75 paintings and drawings from this intensely creative period—many from private collections and rarely publicly displayed—come together for this insightful presentation. 
  • Ellsworth Kelly: Portrait Drawings (July 1 – October 23, 2023) –  It is not surprising that an artist’s work reflects their artistic influences and friendships. In the case of Ellsworth Kelly, his drawings show the impact of the artists he encountered during his travels to Europe in the 1940s, such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. This exhibition spans most of Kelly’s 70-year career, showcasing his evolving and wide-ranging approach to both portraiture and drawing. 
  • Remedios Varo: Science Fictions (July 29 – November 27, 2023) – The exhibition brings together more than 20 paintings created by Varo during her time in Mexico from 1955 until her death in 1963. These paintings offer a glimpse into Varo’s distinct and diverse practice and are supplemented by additional materials from the artist’s archive, including large-scale cartoons, notebooks, sketches, detailed studies, ephemera, and personal possessions. Varo was a key figure in the Surrealist movement, and her work reflects many of the movement’s core values and beliefs. Furthermore, the exhibition marks a milestone in the museum’s efforts to expand the borders of the global Surrealist movement, as it is the Art Institute’s first solo exhibition dedicated to a woman Surrealist painter and to a woman artist working in Mexico.

Chicago History Museum’s exhibit Millions of Moments: The Chicago Sun-Times Photo Collection (until December 31, 2023) features 150 images from the Chicago History Museum’s Chicago Sun-Times. It is a first look at highlights from five million negatives spanning the 1940s-early 2000s, one of the largest newspaper photograph collections ever acquired by an American museum. As the Museum continues to process negatives from this extraordinary collection, new images will be shared through their online portal, CHM Images. (Neighborhood: Lincoln Park)

  • Back Home: Polish Chicago – Opening May 20, 2023, the exhibition features more than 90 artifacts and documents as well as more than 100 reproduced photographs to help tell the story of the Chicago area’s vibrant Polish communities from the mid-1800s to today. Explore personal narratives, music, community involvement, as well as art installations from five local Polish artists. Guided tours are available for groups of 10 or more. 

Cleve Carney Museum of Art and the McAninch Arts Center (MAC) at the College of DuPage will present Warhol: Featuring Andy Warhol Portfolios: A Life in Pop / Works from the Bank of America from June 3 – September 10, 2023. The Warhol exhibition will feature 94 works from “Andy Warhol Portfolios: A Life in Pop / Works from the Bank of America Collection” on loan through Bank of America’s Art in our Communities® program. Aside from the Bank of America collection, which will be on display in a dedicated space in the exhibition, there will also be over 100 works from the College of DuPage Permanent Art Collection. Educational and interactive elements will include a biographical exhibition highlighting key points in Warhol’s life and career, video installation, a Children’s Print Factory area, Studio 54 and Silver Cloud Room experiences, and Central Park-inspired outdoor space, creating an immersive, multifaceted exhibition focused on the life and work of one of the most influential artists of the past century. (Glen Ellyn, Illinois)

The Field Museum’s newest exhibition First Kings of Europe (open through January 28, 2024) explores how ancient farming villages led to the earliest tribal kingdoms in Europe, gathering together more than 700 exquisite objects from the Neolithic, Copper, Bronze, and Iron Ages. The countries represented (and collaborating in this exhibition) include Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia. Highlights include some of the oldest gold treasures in the world from the cemetery of Varna, the gold crown of a Thracian prince, masterpieces of swordmaking and armor, weapons, jewelry, and more. (Neighborhood: South Loop / Museum Campus)

Harry Potter: Magic At Play extends its worldwide debut run in Chicago through September 4, 2023 at Chicago’s iconic Water Tower Place. The first-of-its-kind experience allows fans of all ages to engage with the Wizarding World like never before through 30,000 square feet of hands-on magical interactivity including games, exploration, sensory activations, and more that celebrate Harry’s own journey in discovering the wizarding world. Guests can explore the Dursley’s living room, step onto a boat and prepare to cross the Great Lake, attend some of Hogwarts’ most beloved classes, practice Quidditch fundamentals, and more. (Neighborhood: Magnificent Mile)

The Hyde Park Art Center’s new exhibit, Destination/El Destino: a decade of GRAFT, the largest exhibition to date of the Puerto Rican artist, educator, and community organizer Edra Soto, will be on display through August 6, 2023. The exhibition features a new large-scale commission of the artist’s GRAFT series with porous sculptures, documentary photographs, drawings, and games that activate the Art Center’s indoor/outdoor main gallery. (Neighborhood: Hyde Park)

The Illinois Holocaust Museum presents The Girl in the Diary: Searching for Rywka from the Łódz Ghetto (May 18 – September 24, 2023). In I945, a diary was discovered in the liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp written by Rywka Lipszyc, a 14-year-old Jewish girl documenting her life in the Łódz Ghetto between October 1943 and April 1944. More than 60 years after its discovery, the diary traveled to the United States, where it was translated to English, supplemented with commentaries, and published. Rywka Lipszyc’s diary, a moving memoir of life and adolescence in the Łódz Ghetto, is the focal point of this exhibition. Selected excerpts of the diary are supplemented by expert commentary from historians, doctors, psychologists, and rabbis. Blended with original artifacts and fleeting candid photographs of others’ lives in the ghetto, these commentaries help us understand the experiences Rywka describes in her diary. Through historical artifacts and documents, interactive touch screens, documentary videos, and exceptionally rare photographs, The Girl in the Diary explores the story of a young girl’s fight for survival in the Łódz Ghetto and reconstructs what might have happened to Rywka after her deportation to Auschwitz and beyond. There are no known photographs of Rywka. She exists for us only through words she wrote. (Skokie, Illinois)

Lighthouse ArtSpace Chicago’s current exhibition Mozart Immersive: The Soul of a Genius (running through the end of May 2023), has Massimiliano Siccardi, immersive art installation pioneer, using state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence as inspiration to craft astonishing visuals inspired by the 18th-century destinations of Mozart’s world. With video direction by Vittorio Guidotti, legendary dancer and actor Mikhail Baryshnikov’s tortured portrayal of Leopold, Mozart’s father, will enthrall audiences. Luca Longobardi re-arranged and recomposed 17 selected works from Mozart’s repertoire for the eclectic soundtrack, which also features exclusive music from the Italian composer and was recorded by a 45-piece symphonic orchestra and conducted by four-time Grammy®-nominated Constantine Orbelian. (Neighborhood: Lincoln Park)

Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) welcomes Gary Simmons: Public Enemy (June 13 – October 1, 2023), the first comprehensive career survey of the work of multidisciplinary artist Gary Simmons. Since the late 1980s Simmons has played a key role in situating questions of race, class, and gender identity at the center of contemporary art discourse. Notable for his early application of conceptual artistic strategies, Simmons exposes and analyzes histories of racism inscribed in U.S. visual culture. This exhibition covers thirty years of the artist’s career, encompassing approximately seventy works. (Neighborhood: Streeterville)

  • This summer, visitors can also enjoy “Tuesdays on the Terrace” when it returns from June 13 – August 29, 2023. This annual, free summer concert series on the MCA’s Anne and John Kern Terrace Garden highlights artists from Chicago’s internationally renowned music community. For the first time, this year’s roster of performers extends beyond a purely jazz focus to include more diverse genres and styles that have unique Chicago roots, incorporating hip-hop, house, blues, bomba, and more.

The Museum of Science and Industry is celebrating its 90th anniversary with a series of exciting events including the museum’s first Meet Her! (Katya Echazarreta) event on May 13, 2023, which celebrates the first Mexican-born woman to go to space. Katya Echazarreta is featured in “Mission Unstoppable” on CBS, hosted the YouTube series “Netflix IRL,” and recently was honored with her own Barbie. She’s also an accomplished electrical engineer who worked at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (Neighborhood: Hyde Park)

Stage 773’s new immersive walk-thru experience, WHIM, blends carefully curated cocktails and a world where every art form comes together – paintings, music, sculpture, street art, and live performance – all by Chicago artists. The experience includes the “Lobby of Second Chances,” the “Second Shots Bar,” and the “Enchanted Forest,” featuring a live performance stage and a giant enchanted tree towering over it all. (Neighborhood: Lakeview)

WNDR Museum, Chicago’s original immersive art and technology experience will, starting May 12, 2023, debut a three story immersive infinity installation by the globally iconic Yayoi Kusam. Featuring a series of floating yellow and black polka dots alongside walk-in and peep-in installations, Dots Obsession will fill WNDR’s atrium and transport visitors into Kusama’s obsession with polka dots, repetition, celestial bodies, and the experience of the infinite. (Neighborhood: West Loop / Fulton Market)

About Choose Chicago

Choose Chicago is the official sales and marketing organization responsible for promoting Chicago as a global visitor and meetings destination, leveraging the city’s unmatched assets to ensure the economic vitality of the city and its member business community. Follow @choosechicago on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and TikTok and tag #ChicaGOandKNOW. For more information, visit choosechicago.com.

What’s New and Happening in Chicago – Winter/Spring 2023

Art Institute, Chicago Architecture Center, Chicago restaurants, Chicago River, Chicagoland Area, Historic Restaurants, St. Patrick's Day, Steppenwolf Theatre, Theater

The New Year brings a plethora of new opportunities to explore Chicago. Whether it’s the host of new, hot restaurants, haute shopping experiences, or high-energy, immersive shows and attractions,

it’s clear: the Best Big City in the U.S. (six years running!) isn’t resting on its laurels. In fact, it’s just getting started.

January signals the triumphant, sold-out comeback of First Bites Bash after a three-year hiatus. The all-inclusive January 19 event inside the iconic Field Museum kicks off the 16th annual Chicago Restaurant Week, celebrating the area’s acclaimed culinary scene across 17 days and more than 300 top restaurants. Restaurant Week includes special prix fixe menus ($25 for brunch or lunch and $42 and/or $59 for dinner).

These signature events are a great way to indulge in around-the-world delicacies without leaving the city. Immersion takes on a new form with Stage 773’s WHIM, a walk-thru experience inviting guests to partake in a whimsical night out inside a world where every art form comes together – paintings, music, sculpture, street art, and live performance – all by Chicago artists.

And, on the heels of Black History Month, Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center debuts The Negro Motorist Green Book, an exhibit dedicated to African American travel in the Jim Crow era.

February is well-known for being a month dedicated to and all about love, and this year, there’s no shortage of events to fall in love with.

This month marks the beginning of a bevy of bold performances at stages across the city, from Broadway in Chicago, the Belmont Theatre District and the Joffrey Ballet. And with the return of Chicago Theatre Week (now in its 11th year), that means these can’t miss live performances are available from February 16-26 for $30 or less!

The Chicago Auto Show, the largest auto show in North America, returning to McCormick Place Feb. 11-20. And throughout the month, raise a glass to great American writers at the American Writers Museum’s new Get Lit happy hour series.

Complete with the 60-plus-year tradition of dyeing of the Chicago River green, March makes a colorful point to the world that no city celebrates St. Patrick’s Day quite like we do. From the signature parade downtown to neighborhood-specific festivities, Irish history and culture run deep in neighborhoods like Beverly, Albany Park, and Mt. Greenwood.

With so much in store this year, go ahead: Discover big-city culture, Midwestern hospitality, and urban adventure. Come explore the city that feels like home! Visit ChooseChicago.com for more information.

Please click here for the full list of What’s New in Chicago for Winter/Spring 2023: https://www.choosechicago.com/press-media/whats-new-in-chicago/whats-new-and-happening-in-chicago-winter-spring-2023/

6 Unique Things to do in Chicago That Every Local Should Know About

Adventure, Art Institute, Baseball, Beaches, Chicago Architecture Center, Chicago restaurants, Chicagoland Area, Family Excursions, Lake Michigan

Check out the recent Redfin article written by Ana Guzman that Travel/Food was featured in.

If you’re living in Chicago, chances are you’ve seen popular tourist attractions like Cloud Gate, also known as the Bean, or have walked around the Navy Pier. Although these attractions make Chicago unique, have you ever wondered what else is out there? If that’s the case, we’ve got you covered. We’ve gathered Chicagoans to share their favorite unique things to do in Chicago to give you some fresh ideas. So whether you’re ready to shake up your routine or new to the city looking for apartments for rent in Chicago, check out locally approved attractions you want to take advantage of.

Are you looking to step back in time? The Art Institute of Chicago will help transport you as you like. The museum houses one of the country’s largest permanent collections and other centuries-old artwork.

1. You can’t go wrong with the Art Institute of Chicago

Martin, a local Chicagoan from SmartMoneyMatch, a network that connects the global investment community, recommends the Art Institute of Chicago when the weather is terrible. “It’s always worth a visit. It’s filled with masterpieces from every era, from Georges Seurat’s iconic painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte to Andy Warhol’s print of actress Elizabeth Taylor.”

2. Visit the Chicago River in the summer

In the summertime, Chicago becomes an outdoor oasis for all residents and visitors. From the various parks and the waterways, you’ll find a place you’ll love to explore.

“My favorite unique thing to do in Chicago is to go kayaking on the Chicago River in the summer,” says May, a Chicago local from Nutrition Happens, a space dedicated to health, wellness, and nutrition. “Whether you’re a resident or just visiting, there’s nothing better than soaking in the famous skyline views with a peaceful paddle down the river.”

Chicago local Jane Simon Ammeson agrees. “Rivers were the highways of the past, but the Chicago River offers uniquely modern adventures for me. I can paddle its waters and shiver at scary stories during a Ghost and Gangster kayak tour, and sip a Spanish Rioja while gazing at the city lights. I love to stroll along the Riverwalk, choose a favorite place to dine, and plan my next adventure while watching the boats go by.”

3. Take a visit to the Shedd Aquarium

A unique helicopter view of the John G. Shedd Aquarium on Lake Michigan, Chicago.

Bungee QC Fitness shares that their favorite unique thing to do in Chicago is visiting the Shedd Aquarium. “With over 1,500 species of fish, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates from around the world, the Shedd Aquarium showcases an impressive array of aquatic life. 

The Shedd Aquarium is one of the country’s oldest and most respected aquariums. If you’re in the area, you don’t want to miss it.

4. Explore nearby neighborhoods

Chicago is full of charming neighborhoods like River North and Edgewater. You’ll indeed find beautiful places in Chicago that will blow you away within a matter of minutes from each other. So grab your shoes, head out the door, and get ready to explore.

“Chicago is a great city for food and family fun,” says Jenny and Sheena, local Chicagoans from “And Then We Had Kids” Podcast. “Park & Field, located in the Logan Square neighborhood, is an excellent restaurant for all ages, and they even host fun family events and a bottomless boozy brunch on the weekends. If you’re looking for a place to host your event, Park & Field features fee-free party rentals. And the best part is they’re dog-friendly.

5. Dine in local favorite restaurants

Whether you’re searching for homes for sale in Pilsen because of the authentic eats or just looking for hidden gems in Chicago, you’re sure to find something that will make your mouth water. 

If you’re a foodie, you’ll want to check out the Irish Nobleman Pub on the West Side. Enjoy a cocktail or glass of wine while enjoying the lush foliage, flowers & hummingbirds in the summer. The patio is lined with AstroTurf, so it’s like a green oasis near downtown Chicago – and that also makes it super comfortable for bringing my dog along. It’s not just a Chicago favorite spot to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day; the summertime patio is an attraction on its own.

Are you looking for a fancy night on the town? Vess, a local from Bus Connection, a sophisticated transportation service, recommends stopping by Bavette’s Bar and Bouf. “One of Chicago’s finest steakhouse restaurants, Bavette’s Bar and Bouf is truly a hidden gem. Feel the swanky ambiance of a prohibition-era speakeasy, softly lit with red velvet wraparound booths and sultry jazz music soundtracks. It’s the most unique and intimate place to wine and dine.”

6. Go to any event hosted by Sofar Sounds

Sofar Sounds connects the community with secret concerts in unique spaces. You’ll receive the address of the event within 36 hours before the event. You’ll experience different shows, from musical genres and comedy to dance. 

“My recommendation for a unique thing to do in Chicago is to go to events hosted by Sofar Sounds,” says Emily from Mezz Entertainment. “Through this experience, you can attend intimate gigs throughout the city, like the loop and Lincoln Park. I love discovering new artists to listen to from these shows.” 

About Ana Guzman

Ana is part of the Redfin content marketing team and enjoys writing about home improvement and life & style. Her dream house would be a contemporary style with lots of natural light.

Chicago Museums: Springtime 2022

Art Institute, Muses

Museums & Art Exhibitions for Springtime Chicago

The American Writers Museum reopened May 14, 2021 with a new exhibit Ray Bradbury: Inextinguishable (May 2021- May 2022), chronicling the life of the well-known writer of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and The Illustrated Man, who was also a screenplay writer, a friend to Walt Disney, an amateur painter, and so much more. 

The Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago has a full Winter/Spring 2022 schedule, featuring the exhibits:

  • Subscribe: Artists and Alternative Magazines, 1970-1995 (Until May 2, 2022) – Beginning in the early 1970s—as underrepresented groups were demanding new forms of visibility following the emergence of political movements such as Black Power and the Stonewall Rebellion—a handful of British and American photo-driven alternative magazines came on the scene. The Face, i-D, Rags, Out/Look, and other new publications amplified marginalized voices, especially those of queer makers and makers of color, and made room for those makers to question who and what was accepted as mainstream. This exhibition brings together over 130 magazines as well as photographs and time-based media works that evidence how these publications, by prizing formal experimentation and generating new affiliations across identities, challenged mainstream definitions of culture and belonging
  • Morris and Company: The Business of Beauty (Until June 13, 2022) – Artist, designer, and writer William Morris (1838–1896) founded Morris & Co. 160 years ago, in 1861. The company quickly became regarded for its handmade wallpapers, textiles, and furniture and its style became synonymous with the British Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century. Morris and his collaborators—which included his wife Jane Burden Morris, younger daughter May, artisan and designer John Henry Dearle, as well as artists such as Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rosetti—considered themselves design reformers. Accordingly, they experimented with dye recipes based on natural materials, revived hand-printing methods for fabrics and wallpapers, and reintroduced hand weaving for woven wool and silk textiles as well as pictorial tapestries. Although Morris & Co. closed its doors in 1940, the company’s aesthetic vision remains potent to this day through the continued reimagining and reworking of the textile and wallpaper designs. This exhibition explores that longevity, highlighting Morris & Co’s design tenets and favored techniques as well as Chicago area sites where the work of Morris and his contemporaries appeared. 
  • The Golden Age of Kabuki Prints (Until April 10, 2022; April 16- June 26, 2022) – The drama of Kabuki theater was most successfully conveyed in the prints of the Katsukawa School of artists because they captured the individual characteristics of each actor. Kabuki actors were the celebrities of their time, and prints depicting them found an eager audience in their fans. Founded by Katsukawa Shunshō (1726–1792), the Katsukawa school included several prominent artists, all of whom created portraits of actors performing in popular Kabuki plays in Edo, though almost all of these prints show the actors in a realistic setting—on the street or under a flowering tree—rather than on a stage. The best-known artists of the school, in addition to Shunshō, were Katsukawa Shunkō (1743–1812) and Shun’ei (1762–1819). This exhibition includes examples by all three of these artists and is drawn from the more than 700 Katsukawa School prints in the Art Institute’s collection.
  • Life and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt (Opening February 11, 2022) – The transformed space explores aspects of life and the afterlife in the Nile Valley with the first new installation of works from the museum’s historic collection of ancient Egyptian art in a quarter-century. Striking artifacts—displayed along one wall of the gallery in a series of innovative cases that promote viewing from multiple vantage points—provide insight into the beliefs and practices of this illustrious North African culture.
  • Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective (April 23 – August 22, 2022) – Over the course of a career that has spanned nearly six decades, Mel Bochner has been at the forefront of Conceptual Art, producing thought-provoking work in nearly every medium: drawing, painting, prints, photography, sculpture, books, and installations. This exhibition is the first to use drawing as its principle organizing focus, foregrounding the importance of this body of work within the artist’s practice from its beginnings in the 1960s through the present. The show demonstrates Bochner’s pioneering role in redefining the traditional boundaries of drawing and illuminates the artist’s evolving ideas about seriality, temporality, and the slippage between word and image.
  • CEZANNE (May 15 – September 5, 2022) – This exhibition is the first major retrospective of the artist Paul Cezanne (French, 1839–1906)’s work in the United States in more than 25 years and the first exhibition on Cezanne organized by the Art Institute of Chicago in more than 70 years. Planned in coordination with Tate Modern, the ambitious project explores Cezanne’s work across media and genres with 90 oil paintings, 40 watercolors and drawings, and two complete sketchbooks. This outstanding array encompasses the range of Cezanne’s signature subjects and series—little-known early allegorical paintings, Impressionist landscapes, paintings of Montagne Sainte Victoire, portraits, and bather scenes—and includes both well-known works and rarely seen compositions from public and private collections in North and South America, Europe, and Asia.

Chicago Cultural Center

The Chicago Cultural Center’s new exhibitions include: 

  • The Great Chicago Fire in Focus (Until Spring 2022) – Following the Great Chicago Fire of October 1871, commercial photographers descended on the city to record its devastation but the paper-based prints offered for sale by the photographers lost much of the negative’s sharpness. For over fifty years, historian and photographic collector David R. Phillips sought and discovered the long-forgotten glass plate negatives that photographers inserted into their cameras 150 years ago. When combined with today’s digital reproduction technologies, these rescued 1870s glass negatives provide detailed imagery of the Chicago Fire’s devastation with a dramatic clarity never before possible.

Chicago History Museum’s newest permanent exhibition, City on Fire: Chicago 1871, guides visitors through the crucial events and conditions before, during and after the fire which overwhelmed Chicago for three days, submerging a city built of wood and causing severe destruction and homelessness and inflaming tensions against the immigrant Irish O’Leary family. This family-friendly exhibition features more than 100 artifacts from the Chicago History Museum’s collection, interactive and multimedia elements, and personal stories from survivors of the fire. 

  • The Chicago History Museum’s Jaffee History Trail is now open. The interpretive path through the park space around the Museum incorporates features such as a fire relic from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and the Couch Tomb, a reminder that the area was once a Chicago city cemetery. Developed in partnership with the Chicago Park District and support of neighborhood groups, the Jaffee History Trail creates a new destination at Lincoln Park’s southwestern corner.  The new landscaping includes approximately 150 young trees and large beds of native plants, which will attract birds and other pollinators. 

DuSable Museum of African American History is exhibiting the Un(re)solved installation, a multiplatform experience examining a federal effort to grapple with America’s legacy of racist killings. Who are the men, women, and children whose cases were reexamined under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act? In the Un(re)solved installation, explore a living quilt and use augmented reality to bring the stories woven throughout, to life. Offered in partnership with Frontline PBS. Learn more here.

  • In Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories, opening May 2022, guests are invited to experience stories told by Native American and Indigenous people of self-determination, resilience, continuity and the future. Visitors will learn about the historical significance of items in the Field’s collection, like traditional regalia and pottery, and immerse themselves in works by contemporary Native artists, including Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) raised beadwork from Karen Ann Hoffman of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and flute music from Frank Waln of the Sicangu Lakota. They will also dive deeply into current issues, like threats to Native land and the rights of tribal nations to govern themselves.

Greektown

Greektown Chicago presents a new outdoor art exhibit Hello Helios: The warming suns of Chicago’s Greektown with 24 vibrant three-dimensional artworks lining Halsted Street from Monroe to Van Buren Streets  through spring 2022. Painted by a diverse group of Chicago artists and named for Helios, the god of the sun in Greek mythology, the 24 sun sculpture editions celebrate the sun and light up the start of summer in Chicago. Many works in the exhibit draw inspiration from related mythologies, including those in the Greek, Aztec, Yoruba, Japanese and Native American cultures. 

Lighthouse ArtSpace Chicago will house Frida: Immersive Dream (February 24 – May 28, 2022), which explores the Mexico-born artist’s work with 500,000 cubic feet of monumental large-scale projections animating Frida Kahlo’s oeuvre, accompanied by a ravishing musical score. 

For a unique after-hours outing, head to the Loop’s Medieval Torture Museum, the largest interactive historical museum in the U.S. Visitors are transported back in time hundreds of years to one of the darkest periods in history. Guests can explore immersive, hands-on recreations of torture chambers from the Middle Ages, made up of a unique collection of hundreds of objects. A self-guided audio tour introduces the museum’s collection and characters, while the Ghost Hunting Experience lets guests “capture” restless spirits.

Caroline Kent

Museum of Contemporary Art

Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art has a busy Winter/Spring 2022 schedule, featuring the exhibits: 

  • Bani Abidi: The Man Who Talked Until He Disappeared (Until June 5, 2022) –  Pakistani artist Bani Abidi (b. 1971, lives and works in Karachi and Berlin) critiques those who hold power—and the many ways they wield it. Abidi is a master storyteller, using humor and absurdism to take on issues of militarism and nationalism as well as memory, belonging, and self-determination. Like an archeologist of urban life, Abidi intermingles fact with fiction in stories that navigate the intersection of personal and political drama. This major survey, developed in collaboration with the Sharjah Art Foundation, explores more than two decades of Abidi’s practice and features video, photography, sound installations, and new work, as well as work from the MCA Collection.
  • Chicago Works: Caroline Kent (Until June 12, 2022) – How does language structure our world? Who gets to be inside or outside a language? What would it mean to invent a new mode of communication? And what social conditions make creating a new language necessary?
  • These are questions that Chicago artist Caroline Kent (American, b. 1975) explores through paintings, drawings, sculpture, and performance works that speak in an abstract visual vocabulary she developed over years of practice. In this Chicago Works exhibition, Kent encourages visitors to engage with her invented language of abstraction—one that defies easy interpretation or translation.
  • Alfredo Jaar: The Structure of Images (Until July 3, 2022) – In our image-saturated and media-obsessed world, what stories remain untold? Employing images, lights, and mirrors, Alfredo Jaar (Chilean, b. 1956) asks us to acknowledge subjects who are often under-recognized. Projects range in scope and subject: as one artwork focuses on an Ethiopian refugee amid the Eastern Sudan crisis, another observes remarkable but overlooked women including human rights lawyer Shada Nasser, author and activist Nawal El Saadawi, and politician Camila Vallejo. Featuring a selection of key works and installations that span three decades, The Structure of Images showcases Jaar’s critical approach to addressing injustice in our world.
  • Based on a True Story . . . (February 12-August 14, 2022) – In Based on a True Story . . ., 19 artists play with fact, fiction, and the grey areas in between. Drawn primarily from the MCA Collection, their artworks wrestle with our understanding of truth and belief by exploring fiction: Some artists craft an identity or personal memoir. Others stage complex urban landscapes that confuse our perception of the world. Still, others challenge the way the past is portrayed by historians and institutions like museums. Based on a True Story . . . invites visitors to question how we see truth—and how fiction can help us imagine new realities.
  • Coming in Spring 2022, MCA will present the first career-spanning retrospective of the internationally renowned Chicagoan Nick Cave in an exhibition titled NICK CAVE: FOROTHERMORE (May 14–Oct 2, 2022). Highlights of the exhibition will include never-before-seen works, including a continuation of the artist’s popular Soundsuits series with the premiere of Soundsuits 9:29 and a mesmerizing, site-specific installation, Spinner Forest, composed of thousands of kinetic spinners that will hang in the museum’s two-story atrium and fourth-floor lobby.

The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) at Columbia College Chicago is featuring:

  • From March 3-June 26, 2022, MoCP at Columbia College Chicago presents Beautiful Diaspora / You Are Not the Lesser Part, a free exhibit featuring 15 artists from around the globe whose works showcase diversity both in front of and behind the camera, as well as challenge notions of global segregation. Organized by Asha Iman Veal, MoCP’s Associate Curator, this thought-provoking collection challenges the audience to reflect on the parallel experiences and relationships between global artists of color and diverse Black artists. The exhibition features work by Xyza Cruz Bacani (Philippines), Widline Cadet (US), Jessica Chou (US), duo Amy Sanchez Arteaga and Misael Diaz (US), Işıl Eğrikavuk (Turkey/Germany), Citlali Fabián (Mexico), Sunil Gupta (Canada/UK), Kelvin Haizel (Ghana), David Heo (US), Damon Locks (US), Johny Pitts (UK), Farah Salem (Kuwait/US), Ngadi Smart (Ivory Coast/UK), Tintin Wulia (Australia), and the debut of Abena Appiah (UK).

Museum of Ice Cream (MOIC) is bringing its experiential museum to Chicago this coming summer 2022. Located at The Shops at Tribune Tower at 435 N Michigan Ave, the one-of-its-kind space will span 13,544 square feet and encompass retail, entertainment, and a cafe and bar. Plans include the rollout of new features and attractions specifically designed for Chicago including the Sprink-L, a Chicago-inspired CTA “L”; a giant dessert-themed putt putt course with a pink Chicago dog ice cream treat; and a 3,500-square-foot speakeasy accessible to the general public.

At the reopened Museum of Illusions Chicago, guests can enjoy more than 80 visual and educational exhibits featuring holograms, stereograms, optical illusions, and immersive rooms that are designed to tease the senses and trick the mind. Social distancing measures will be strictly enforced along with temperature checks, reduced capacity, timed-ticketing and increased sanitation and cleaning. 

Museum of Science and Industry

Museum of Science and Industry Chicago (MSI)’s popular Boeing 727, which made history during the early age of jet travel, reopened to the public with a new Take Flight exhibit that celebrates the historic United Airlines plane and explores how the airline industry connects people. The project involved restoring and highlighting the plane’s interior and creating brand-new interactives to bring flying to life. The plane’s fuselage bears the name of Captain William Norwood, the first African-American pilot for United, whose story is featured in the exhibit. A 150-foot display takes guests on a behind-the-scenes journey from aircraft assembly to takeoff, showcasing the variety of careers and people working in aviation. This spectacular wall reveals the complex systems that help people build new planes, manage airport operations and track flights and passengers all around the world.

New attractions coming to MSI for Winter/Spring 2022 include: 

  • Black Creativity Juried Art Exhibition (January 17 – April 17, 2022) – The longest-running exhibit of African-American art in the nation—hosted at MSI since  1970—showcases nearly 200 works by professional and student artists. The annual Black Creativity program also features an Innovator Gallery of African-American leaders  who are transforming Chicago; educational workshops for students; family events; and the Black Creativity Gala. A special exhibit, Black Creativity: Architecture, explores the impact of Black architects throughout history, from ancient buildings to modern skyscrapers. 
  • The Art of the Brick (February 10 – September 5, 2022) – Designed to inspire ingenuity and creativity, The Art of the Brick is the world’s largest and most elaborate display of LEGO art featuring more than 100

  • Coal Mine and U-505 Submarine, two guest favorites, will reopen to the public in February 2022 after pandemic-related closures. The Coal Mine takes guests down a mineshaft, along the rails and through a true-to-life coal mine with an engaging tour of mining history and innovations. The U-505 On-board Tour is an interactive walk through history, from the cramped quarters to the feel of battle. 

The Poetry Foundation

The Poetry Foundation has a slate of new events for the Winter/Spring season, including free readings, talks, exhibitions, and more. On February 5, 2022, the Foundation will kick off a new partnership with Poetry Ireland with COMMONground, the first in a series of transatlantic events. The reading and conversation with acclaimed Irish poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa and award-winning American poet Teri Ellen Cross Davis, moderated by Erin Fornoff, probes concepts of struggle, motherhood, and the complexities of honoring the past while raising the future.

  • For And Nor But Or Yet So, Bob Faust’s installation honoring poet Patricia Smith, is extended until March 13, 2022. The installation can be viewed on the exterior of the Poetry Foundation building, which will reopen to the public in April 2022 for in-person events. 

Rise Up: Stonewall and the LGBTQ Rights Movement, the newest special exhibition at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center running through May 8, 2022, explores the June 1969 police raid of the Stonewall Inn as the flashpoint that ignited the modern gay rights movement in the United States. Blending together historic images and artifacts of the LGBTQ+ rights movement, the 85 items on display in Rise Up include posters from Harvey Milk’s campaign for public office in San Francisco, a rainbow flag in its original colors signed by its creator Gilbert Baker, and early LGBTQ magazines and publications.

  • Opening January 27, 2022 (Holocaust Remembrance Day), visitors can experience the virtual reality exhibition The Journey Back: A VR Experience, which applies cutting-edge technology to engage visitors on a journey as they walk through concentration camps with Holocaust Survivors who experienced them. The exhibition is a global game-changer, revolutionizing the field of Holocaust memory through innovative technology and transportive storytelling. In this exhibit, the participant controls their own 360-degree experience as they walk with Survivors Fritzie Fritzshall and George Brent through their childhood homes and current day Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and Ebensee.

The University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art presents Bob Thompson: This House is Mine, running from February 15-May 15, 2022, the first museum exhibition dedicated to this visionary painter in more than twenty years. Through more than 85 paintings and works on paper, the exhibition traces Thompson’s brief but prolific transatlantic career, examining both his formal inventiveness and his engagement with themes of collectivity, jazz, love, bearing witness, struggle and justice.

What’s Happening Springtime Chicago

Art Institute, Chicago restaurants, Film, Historic Restaurants, Hotels, Regional & Ethnic, Steppenwolf Theatre, Theater

The stages of Chicago’s theaters are once again lighting up after more than a year of darkness with myriad new performances that capture Chicago’s creative spirit, including the North American tours of Come From Away, Hadestown, Moulin Rouge! The Musical, SIX, To Kill a Mockingbird and others. The recently reopened Steppenwolf Theatre Company now has a new $54 million arts and education center that includes a theatre-in-the-round is hosting the world-premiere of King James, an intimate exploration of the place that sports and athletes (think “King” LeBron James) occupy in our emotional lives and relationships.

More Chicago Theater Offerings

Chicago Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot and Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) Commissioner Erin Harkey have just announced the designation of 2022 as the “Year of Chicago Dance”, a yearlong collaborative initiative which will activate Chicago’s dance industry to address critical issues facing dancers and showcase dance performances, social dancing, and special events for the public in dozens of venues throughout the city. 

The Arts in the City

At the Art Institute of Chicago, a groundbreaking exhibit on Life and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt will be followed by the first major retrospective of French artist Paul CEZANNE to be exhibited in the U.S. in over 25 years. The Museum of Contemporary Art will present the first career-spanning retrospective of the internationally renowned Chicagoan Nick Cave in an exhibition titled NICK CAVE: FOROTHERMORE while the blockbuster immersive arts venue Lighthouse ArtSpace Chicago will house Frida: Immersive Dream, an exploration of the Mexico-born artist’s work with 500,000 cubic feet of monumental large-scale projections animating Kahlo’s oeuvre, accompanied by a ravishing musical score. 

With careful COVID-19 protocols and social distancing in place, hybrid and live events will return to the city with the 

Chicago Restaurant Week will follow soon after in late March/early April, celebrating the city’s award-winning culinary scene with special prix fixe lunch and dinner menus (ranging from $25-$55) available via dine-in or takeout/delivery options. At long last EXPO Chicago, the international exhibition of contemporary and modern art, will return to Navy Pier in early April.

Come find out why Chicago was once again designated by Conde Nast Traveler’s readers as the Best Big City in the U.S. in 2021, for the fifth year in a row and check out what’s new for Winter/Spring 2022! Visit www.ChooseChicago.com for more information.

Chicago Accolades!

The Langham Chicago
  • The Michelin Guide celebrated Chicago’s resilient culinary scene by granting three new restaurants Michelin stars, including: 
  • Ever (West Loop – Two Star), where Chef Curtis Duffy and Michael Muser preside over a bespoke room in which fine dining enchants palates with complex flavors, stirring textures and visual fireworks;  
  • Moody Tongue (South Loop – Two Star), Jared Wentworth’s seasonal, ingredient-driven tasting menu concept housed in the Moody Tongue brewery building;
  • Porto (Bucktown – One Star), where Chef Marcos Campos’ style is anchored by his Spanish heritage and explores the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal through its conservas, seafood and specialty rice dishes.

Chicago’s New Accomodations

Canopy by Hilton Central Loop, located directly across the street from Willis Tower, in the epicenter of Chicago’s financial district, features a total of 215 total guest rooms (192 regular rooms and 23 suites). Famous attractions such as The Art Institute of Chicago, Millennium Park, and Chicago Riverwalk are less than 10 minutes away.

Open all day, the onsite Depot 226, a Bistro, market and coffee shop, offers a stylish, retro space that is inviting and comfortable and perfect for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or even a casual dinner. 

The Chicago Hotel Collection welcomed a new location in Millennium Park this summer featuring 4-Star all-suite accommodations with full kitchens, perfect for business, leisure, extended stays, corporate relocations, or large groups/families.

Guests will have access to an expert Concierge Team and receive an incredible daily amenity package featuring 3 drinks per night, free Wi-Fi, use of Peloton Bikes on-site with reservation, early check-in/late check-out, booking credits to use for their next stay when booked direct and a complimentary 1-year Club 1 Hotels membership. Another outpost, the Magnificent Mile Hotel & Suites, opened December 2021, just 350 feet from Michigan Avenue.

The LaSalle Hotel, Autograph Collection, situated in the heart of the Financial District, offers a sophisticated and tailored experience for business and leisure travelers.

Experience fine dining at Grill on 21, an elevated and modern take on the classic American grill concept featuring a focus on quality and sustainability. An expansive gym offers premiere TechnoGym equipment as well as Peloton bikes. World-class accommodations include spacious rooms averaging 430 square feet, oversized Calacatta marble bathrooms with luxurious walk-in showers, and a window-side marble top dining table. The hotel is projected to open in March 2022. 

Pendry Hotels & Resorts announced its further U.S. expansion with the renovation of the Art Deco Chicago landmark, the Carbide & Carbon Building (and former St. Jane Hotel), as Pendry Chicago in spring 2021.

Featuring 364 redesigned guestrooms and suites in a contemporary palette awash in warm minimal tones and comfortable finishes, the Pendry Chicago also features public spaces thoughtfully designed by Alessandro Munge’s Studio Munge. The hotel’s signature restaurant and bar concept, Venteux, is helmed by Executive Chef-Partner Donald Young (Temporis, Les Nomades, Bistrot Saveurs), Chicago’s youngest Michelin-starred chef, and overseen by hospitality and nightlife pioneer, Andy Masi, and his Clique Hospitality group. In addition, the hotel features a lobby bar and lounge, a spectacular rooftop lounge, 12,000 square feet of meetings and event space, curated fitness and wellness programming, and an extensive art collection.

The St. Regis Chicago is set to debut in 2022 as the 50th St. Regis globally. 

Through architectural ingenuity and a shimmering homage to sky and water, the 101-story St. Regis Chicago, designed by award-winning architect Jeanne Gang, has changed Chicago’s iconic skyline. It is now the third tallest building in Chicago, the 10th tallest in the United States, and the tallest building in the world designed by a female. The tower’s crystalline form was inspired by the facets of a shimmering gem and the building is coated in six varying shades of blue-green glass to reflect the changing colors of Lake Michigan. The Hotel will comprise the first 11 floors of the building, featuring 192 luxurious guest rooms, multiple signature dining options, a 12,000 square foot, world-class St. Regis Spa, a fitness center, indoor pool and outdoor sunken terrace with scenic views, a 5,000 square foot ballroom and 3,000 square feet of executive and pre-function space and the St. Regis Signature Butler Service. The Hotel’s backyard is a six-acre wide open botanical green space featuring a children’s play park, dog park, and attractive ornamental and water gardens.

Chicago Restaurant Week

This year marks the 15th anniversary of Chicago Restaurant Week (March 25-April 10, 2022), a celebration of the city’s award-winning culinary scene bringing together hundreds of the area’s top restaurants across more than thirty Chicago neighborhoods. This year there are 50+ women- and minority-owned restaurants participating (many for the first time) from neighborhoods as far ranging as South Shore and Bronzeville. Diners can enjoy special prix fixe menus from restaurants throughout Chicago and nearby suburbs, with multi-course meals available at $25 for brunch or lunch, and $39 and/or $55 for dinner (excluding beverages, tax, gratuity, and delivery fees). This year, diners will continue to have the flexibility to experience Chicago Restaurant Week through dine-in or takeout/delivery options.

Chicago Restaurants & Dining

Adalina

Opened last summer in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, Adalina serves a modern and engaging Italian menu by Michelin-starred chef Soo Ahn, previously with Band of Bohemia. Adalina’s menu creates a balance between Northern and Southern cuisines; guests can expect house-made extruded and stuffed pastas, imported meats and cheeses, and hand-selected beef and seafood selections.

Alla Vita

Opened in September 2021 in the West Loop neighborhood, Alla Vita (which means “to life” in Italian) is the newest concept from Executive Chef Lee Wolen and Boka Restaurant Group, serving a casual, family-style menu of fresh, delicious Italian food made simply with the best ingredients.

Chef/Owner Stephen Gillanders (S.K.Y., Somerset) debuted his newest concept, Apolonia in the South Loop in April 2021. Named after Gillanders’ grandmother, Apolonia offers seasonal, seafood-centric coastal European and Mediterranean fare. Pastry chef Tatum Sinclair has developed a collection of noteworthy items such as a savory black truffle puff bread, and a signature pistachio gelato. Sommelier Jelena Prodan has created a distinct beverage program with wines thoughtfully sourced from all around the globe, an expansive by-the-glass selection, and an exciting, one-of-a-kind vermouth program with custom-blended Apolonia vermouth on tap. 

In partnership with the famous Gibsons Restaurant Group. Chef José Andrés debuted Bazaar Meat and Bar Mar in December 2021 inside Bank of America’s new Chicago headquarters, near the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Bazaar Meat celebrates all things carnivorous, including personalized tasting menus featuring expertly dry-aged Wagyu and the like hand-selected from more than 400 cuts of meat, while Bar Mar is a true celebration of the bounty of the sea, with modern takes on iconic seafood classics like fried calamari and lobster rolls.

Eric Williams, owner of The Silver Room boutique, has partnered with global hospitality design trailblazer Cecilia Cuff of The Nascent Group on his newest venture: Bronzeville Winery. Opening in 2022, guests of the winery will enjoy a rotating wine list with selections from around the world highlighting African American-owned labels paired with an ever-changing seasonal menu that pays homage to the flavors of the African diaspora, paired with wine, craft cocktails and beer for every palate. The team’s goal in the design of the Winery is to encourage guests to spend time, to socialize and network in the space. To that end, the decor will feature a revolving art collection, and a state-of-the-art sound system will pipe in a well-curated playlist and live music. Programming will feature wine talks, art openings, and cultural events; the space will also be available for private events.

Esmé Chicago opened August 2021 in Lincoln Square, from Chef Jenner Tomaska and Katrina Bravo. This fine-dining concept is also mission-driven and community-focused as they partner with local artists on collaborative tasting menus.

Gordon Ramsay Burger, a new concept from celebrity chef and restaurateur Gordon Ramsay, opened in a 5,000 square foot space in the city’s River North neighborhood in December 2021. The Chicago location, equipped with an island bar and seating for 120, will be the second Gordon Ramsay Burger location in the U.S – and the chef’s first restaurant in Chicago. Alongside elevated, butter-based burgers (blending different cuts of meat to impart a bolder flavor), the developing menu also plans to include milkshakes, fries, vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options. There are also ketchup-laden hot dogs on the menu (a bold choice for a Chicago audience).

Hinoki Sushiko from Chef Otto Phan & Chef Gustavo Barahona, opened April 2021. This two-story space in the Elston corridor offers two types of chef-driven experiences under one roof: a 50-seat izakaya-style downstairs lounge serves traditional Japanese comfort food with a modern take, along with craft cocktails and Sake and a 40-person upstairs dining room (and 8-seat sushi counter) for Edomae-style Omakase dining serving a 15 piece meal.

Kitchen United MIX, a to-go food hall, is opening a second Chicago location in the former Wells St. Market.  Kitchen United MIX, the future of takeout & delivery, is the nation’s first “Multi-Restaurant Ordering” to-go experience, the only destination that allows foodie fans who love variety to order meals from 10+ restaurants, all on the same bill. They have locations around the nation, including one in Chicago’s River North neighborhood.  The new 10,500 square-foot facility houses local, regional and national restaurant brands, including Hawaiian Bros, Greenleaf, Siri Indian Express, Trejo’s Tacos, Dog Haus, Plant B and more. 

Black owned Kitchen + Kocktails, which made its debut last summer 2021, has taken the city by storm. From flavored fried chicken and lobster tails, to shrimp and grits and southern classics with a twist, this is a great addition to the River North culinary scene. 

KOVAL Distillery opened its hotly anticipated tasting room last fall on Chicago’s Malt Row, named for the bevy of breweries in the Ravenswood neighborhood. The sun-filled tasting room, outfitted with a marble bar and leather sofas, seats 96. French doors open to an ivy-covered outdoor patio that accommodates up to 30 people. Guests can sample flights of whiskey and gin, or try cocktails made with KOVAL spirits and paired with small bites.

DineAmic Hospitality reinvented its popular, decade-old concept Public House, as Radio Room last summer, an American restaurant sports bar and music lounge set. The 10,000-square-foot space can seat 300 guests at full capacity in four unique spaces and becomes a go-to for everything from game day to late-night jam sessions.

A 15-foot stage is backlit with a wall of smart marquee bulbs that strobe and dance with the music during late-night live performances or laid-back sets at brunch, and the design theme juxtaposes vintage kitsch with today’s tech. At The Studio, an intimate private event and daytime dining space inspired by a real-life recording studio, guests can partake in blue-tooth headphone karaoke that only their party can hear. Meanwhile, nostalgia reigns in The Deck, a 10-by-10-foot space housing the Pop-A-Shot Shot Bar, where guests can shoot baskets and sip throwback shooters like Flaming Doctor Peppers and Pickle-backs. Chef Nolan Narut, former Executive Chef of Ella Elli and Stefani Prime, hits all the right notes with a menu inspired by American Southern comfort food from culinary cities like Nashville and Charleston but made with fresh, local ingredients.

Joe Flamm, the South Side Chicago native, Spiaggia alum and Season 15 winner of Top Chef, debuted Rose Mary in April 2021, inspired by his Italian heritage and the bold, bright flavors of Croatian cuisine.

The space, located in the historic Fulton Market District and named for Flamm’s grandmothers, as well as the herb rosemary which grows natively along the Italian and Croatian coastlines, offers a seasonal menu of rustic yet refined dishes that encapsulate what Flamm has coined “Adriatic drinking food.” Designed by award-winning Los Angeles-based firm Studio UNLTD, the dynamic interior with whitewashed brick walls, honey-colored oak millwork, and pale stone surfaces—all accented by moments of red clay and deep, azure blue tilework—reflects the utilitarian yet celebratory spirit of traditional family-run, age-old taverns in Croatia known as konobas. Rose Mary has also taken second place in TimeOut’s list of The 21 best new restaurants in the world right now.

In Summer 2021, José Andrés, chef, restaurateur and founder of the nonprofit World Central Kitchen, and his ThinkFoodGroup — opened Jaleo, in River North, bringing alive the spirit and flavors of modern-day Spain through an impressive assortment of tapas, paellas, sangrias, Spanish wines and sherries, all within a festive, casual atmosphere. In fall, he opened Pigtail, an intimate, speakeasy-style bar on the lower level of Jaleo, taking its name from the ibérico pork which infuses almost every dish on the menu (Pig), and the bespoke cocktails (tail). 

Time Out Market Chicago is excited to add to its carefully curated showcase of delicious cuisine with Lil Amaru set to open late January 2022 . A spinoff of its sister restaurant Amaru, located in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, Lil Amaru will feature globally inspired Latin Street Food and Tacos.  

Opened this past April 2021 in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, Tree House is a flourishing, nature-inspired, chef-driven bar and restaurant serving up elevated renditions of comfort food and bar classics, including three distinct styles of pizza. Marco Colin (The Publican, Soho House, Alinea), executive chef at La Luna Chicago, will take on the additional role of executive chef at Tree House with a high quality, ingredient-focused approach to modern Italian fare. The kitchen’s two ovens, a custom-built, wood-burning brick oven and traditional deck oven, serve up Tree House’s three styles of pizza. The bar program pairs well with chef Colin’s playful menus, featuring an array of vibrant cocktails curated for celebrating, such as Negronis, spritzers and frozen cocktails. In full capacity, the restaurant holds 200-seats, glistening with a disco ball fixture overhead and an aesthetic enlivened through fixtures like tree-inspired installations made by local artists, sprawling greenery, exposed concrete and bright colors and patterns.

New York food hall Urbanspace will open two Chicago locations, the city’s first new food hall since the pandemic. Urbanspace West Washington recently opened while a second 12,000 square foot location, inside Willis Tower, is projected to open in Winter 2022. 

This spring, Chicago’s youngest Michelin-starred chef, Donald Young (Temporis, Les Nomades, Bistrot Saveurs) debuted  Venteux, a lively French brasserie featuring a swanky oyster and Champagne bar located in the new Pendry Chicago. As Executive Chef-Partner, Young opened the high-energy brasserie in partnership with acclaimed national entertainment maverick and restaurant operator, Clique Hospitality (Pendry Hotels & Resorts, MGM Resorts International, Blackstone Group). Located at 230 North Michigan Avenue within the city’s historic 1920s art deco landmark Carbide & Carbon Building, Venteux commissioned world-renowned design firm Studio Munge to create a luxurious ambiance that invites guests in to get wrapped up in comforting French fare imbued with Young’s signature creativity.

Cover photo courtesy Christopher|F Photography featured on Choose Chicago.