Elite Traveler Fall 2022

Below Chicago’s skyline, home of the world’s fi rst skyscrapers

Adalina restaurant is led by award-winning chef Soo Ahn

Where to eat

Thanks to the railroads, Chicago’s central location and the propensity of Midwestern farmers raising livestock, the Windy City became a carnivore’s hot spot and a meatpacking epicenter more than a century ago. It only follows that the metropolis would become famous for its steakhouses. Book a table at Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse (gibsonsteakhouse.com) , an institution for more than 30 years. Expect eight di ff erent colossal cuts, each from their own Gibson’s Prime Angus beef. Sides like twice-baked potatoes and gargantuan desserts seal the deal. Most people know that Hanoi was dubbed the Paris of Vietnam at the turn of the century. At elegant Le Colonial (lecolonialchicago.com) diners have an opportunity to partake in that bygone French vibe, a mood as glitzy as a silver screen classic. With white tablecloths, sparkling crystal, formal service and a terrace overlooking Oak Street, this institution serves piquant delights from shrimp on sugarcane to dumpling soup to ginger marinated Long Island Peking duck. Serious gourmands, as well as curious ones, travel to Chicago just to eat at Alinea (alinearestaurant.com) , a three Michelin-starred superstar in Lincoln Park. The domain of celebrated chef Grant Achatz, a kingpin in the molecular gastronomy movement, Alinea continues to bedazzle. Sleekly designed so as not to compete with Achatz’s inventive food, the intimate restaurant pro ff ers three distinct experiences nightly, each a sensorial gambol, ingeniously curated. Take the Kitchen Table, the restaurant’s most exclusive seat.

Dine indulgently beneath a chandelier dripping with more than 150,000 glittering crystals at Gold Coast-sited Adalina (adalinachicago.com) , the realm of award-winning chef Soo Ahn. O ff ering a creatively tweaked ramble around Italy, Adalina executes Italian classics with a modern twist — as in the brunch favorite fried chicken and toast or toothsome dinner options: snail-shaped lumache with shrimp and bistecca alla fi orentina, a breathtaking 40oz porterhouse, meant to be shared with your date. Like a microcosm of eclectic Chicago and its e ff usive culinary ethnic neighborhoods, 12,000-ft Urbanspace (urbanspacenyc.com) , located near Millennium Park, State Street shopping and the theater district, provides one-stop noshing for those in search of local cuisine in a single, in fi nitely hip setting. A thoroughly modern food hall (open from 7am to 8:30pm) with myriad local restaurant outposts, Urbanspace allows for sampling an array of Chicagoan cuisines from Thai (Keadkao) to Filipino (Isla Filipino). Wet your whistle at Peregrine Club Bar, famous for its European inspired cocktails.

Left, from top Dishes from Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse; cuisine at Le Colonial

Photo neiljohnburger.com