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Condé Nast Traveler picks
 Best of Chicago
America's first skyscraper city owes its dramatic lakefront skyline to a tragedy. The 1871 Great Chicago Fire destroyed the business district of this nineteenth-century rail and inland trading hub but enabled Chicago to make a sudden, shocking leap from the Victorian period into the modern era—thanks to battalions of immigrant laborers and a handful of visionary builders such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, and Daniel Burnham. The Windy City got its moniker not from the freezing winter blasts off Lake Michigan but from the lengthy, impassioned speeches of politicians who won Chicago the right to host the 1893 Columbian Exposition, a world's fair that showcased the physical and cultural rebirth of America's second-largest city. Mild temperatures and street festivals make June and early July the best time to visit this architectural treasure-house, which became an urban design studio for the likes of Mies van der Rohe and, lately, Frank Gehry, who deems Chicago America's most visually exciting metropolis.
Attractions & Activities Get oriented with a virtual or physical visit to the Chicago Architecture Foundation, which offers a vast selection of citywide tours, including an all-day, all–Frank Lloyd Wright bus trip, neighborhood walking tours with volunteer residents, and a 90-minute boat cruise past 50 landmarks lining the Chicago River. Take everything in at sunset from the newly renovated 1,000-foot-high observatory of the elegant John Hancock Building, whose open-air viewing deck and stupendous 180-degree panoramas beat those of Chicago's 1,450-foot-high Sears Tower, North America's tallest building (312-751-3681; hancock-observatory.com). A trio of neoclassical monuments on South Lake Shore Drive helped raise the city's phoenix profile: the Field Museum of Natural History (312-922-9410; fieldmuseum.org), the Shedd Aquarium (312-939-2426; sheddaquarium.org), and the Adler Planetarium (312-922-7827; adlerplanetarium.org). A scenic bus or taxi ride north of the museum campus, the Art Institute of Chicago houses a world-class collection spanning 5,000 years and has the country's most esteemed gathering of French Impressionist and Postimpressionist canvases (312-443-3600; artic.edu). Chicago's latest grand scheme for attracting tourists is Millennium Park, a showstopping concentration of high design, including British sculptor Anish Kapoor's giant stainless steel jelly bean; Spanish artist Jaume Plensa's Crown Fountain, whose 50-foot-high LED screens flash portraits of 1,000 Chicagoans; and a Frank Gehry serpentine footbridge and outdoor amphitheater (millenniumpark.org). Most tourists stick to the city's north side and the Magnificent Mile, a district of fancy hotels and high-end retail shopping that runs up North Michigan Avenue from the bridge over the Chicago River to the 1869 Water Tower—the only structure that survived the Great Fire. The city's intellectual magnet is seven miles south, in the Hyde Park neighborhood near the University of Chicago. In a Daniel Burnham–designed building, the DuSable Museum of African American History was the first of its kind in the United States (773-947-0600; dusablemuseum.org). The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago is home base to a team that excavated in Iran and Iraq in the early twentieth century and is still digging in the Valley of the Kings. It has one of the nation's best collections of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities (773-702-9514; oi.uchicago.edu). Just south of the University of Illinois Circle Campus, the wonderful Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, in Pilsen, displays pre-Columbian and colonial-era art and has rotating exhibitions of contemporary crafts and artworks (312-738-1503; mfacmchicago.org). In the downtown Loop—the district named for the elevated railroad track that borders it—Buddy Guy's Legends showcases local and national blues talent (754 S. Wabash Ave.). Rosa's Lounge, in the up-and-coming neighborhood of Logan Square, attracts young musicians and artists (3420 W. Armitage Ave.). To lighten things up, head for Old Town and get a seat at Second City. The comedy club was founded by University of Chicago cutups during the McCarthy era, and the political satire still bites (1616 N. Wells St.). Chicago's diverse ethnic culinary offerings alone are worth a pilgrimage. Food guru Evelyn Thompson leads half-day, eat-as-you-go ethnic grocery store tours in different neighborhoods and introduces you to delicacies such as Cuban espresso, Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches, Assyrian pastry, Nigerian stew, Indian barfi, and Georgian khachapuri pie (tours, $25 per person). You'll find authentic Mexican, Salvadoran, and Nicaraguan street fare at the Sundays-only Maxwell Street Market. Lodging Chicago has an unusually diverse assortment of hotels that range from early high-rises with Beaux Arts details to dramatic postmodern towers. Not surprisingly for a cosmopolitan city, an impressive seven hotels rank on Condé Nast Traveler's Gold List of the world's best places to stay. On or around North Michigan Avenue, where most of the action centers, there's The Peninsula, the Sofitel Chicago Water Tower, the Conrad, the Four Seasons, the Park Hyatt, and the Ritz-Carlton (A Four Seasons Hotel). In the Loop near Millennium Park is the Hotel Burnham. Fans of retro elegance will appreciate the Allerton Crowne Plaza, a refurbished 1930s gentlemen's club with a happening North Michigan Avenue location at surprisingly down-to-earth prices. Next to the landmark Chicago Tribune Tower and across the street from the Wrigley Building, The InterContinental dates from 1929 and has an authentic Art Deco pool that Johnny Weissmuller once swam in. On a quiet side street and a short jog to the yuppie beach on North Lake Shore Drive, The Raphael has high ceilings and Old Europe–style rooms in a 1928 Italianate building. South of the Chicago River and close to the downtown theater district, The Fairmont, a modern tower, overlooks Grant Park and the Art Institute and is attached to an excellent athletic club with a pool, a track, and squash and racquetball courts. Dining Charlie Trotter and his eponymous restaurant first put Chicago on the map as a serious foodie destination back in the 1980s and introduced the tasting menu concept to the city (816 W. Armitage Ave.; 773-248-6228; prix fixe, $125–$200). The latest maestro is Grant Achatz, whose tasting-menu-only Alinea takes classical technique and American contemporary cooking into the twenty-first century with delicious science-geek menus of up to 27 courses and dishes—such as lamb with Australian bush tomato, Niçoise olive, and a “veil” of eucalyptus—that make foam look positively retro (1723 N. Halsted St.; 312-867-0110; prix fixe, $125–$175). At the literal apex of the city's fine dining scene, Everest, atop the Chicago Stock Exchange Building, showcases vertiginous views and Jean Joho's fascination for Alsatian technique and Midwestern terroir (440 LaSalle St.; 312-663-8920; entrées, $20–$50). A waterfall, intimate riverfront patio, and dramatic subterranean cocktail lounge draw Midwest Sex and the City types to the 300-seat Japonais, but the real reason for the long wait for a table is the excellent French-Asian fusion and the fashion sushi (600 W. Chicago Ave.; 312-822-9600; entrées, $19–$35). At Green Zebra, chef and co-owner Shawn McClain serves innovative small courses of vegetarian fare in a contemporary, earth-toned space (1460 W. Chicago Ave.; 312-243-7100; entrées, $8–$17). For night owls, the Rockit Bar & Grill has a massive upstairs bar with wooden booths and leather couches alongside tree-stump cocktail tables. The vibe is upscale New York lounge club meets laid-back Chicago neighborhood (22 W. Hubbard St.; 312-645-6000; entrées, $12–$27). Chicago-style deep-dish pizza is a local obsession. Aficionados, including film critic Roger Ebert, patronize the Exchequer Restaurant and Pub for the real thing (226 S. Wabash Ave.; 312-939-5633; entrées, $7–$24). Truth in Travel is the guiding principle for all content published in Condé Nast Traveler. Other travel publications often accept free travel and accommodations. Condé Nast Traveler does not. It is independent of the travel industry. The magazine always pays its way, and, as far as possible, its correspondents travel anonymously. By doing so, they experience the world—both the good and the bad—as other travelers do, and their reports and recommendations are fair, impartial, and authoritative.
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