First time in Chicago! Landed at ORD at 5pm. We ended up Ubering to the hotel (was $45), which took 50 minutes. The alternative was the train, but we wanted to look up thing on our laptop and sleep.
The hotel we’re staying at is at The Loop (The Chicago Athletic Association). It’s a Hyatt hotel. I like the older vibe they are trying to maintain. However, for next time, definitely gonna try and get the junior suite with two double beds. But I will say the hotel is conveniently located around all the major tourist spots, like beside Millennium Park and the Chicago River
For our first night out, we went towards the west loop to eat at Chicago Q. Details are here:
http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/09/01/chicago-q/
The area reminded me of church and Weasley apartments in Toronto.
After dinner, we stopped by watched a comedy show in The Second City. It was a mix of a scripted sketch and improv. Definitely recommend going again.
We then went to a rooftop bar nearby called Utopia. It’s a chill place to hang out. We played beer pong, connect 4, and bean bag toss.
After, we visited a place near the River North area called Celeste. It’s a four story club (but since it was a Wednesday only 2 floors were open). I would recommend going back (they also surprisingly had food).
On the second day, we first did some shopping on the Magnificent mile. We hit up the Nike store, as well as Saks.
We then went to get some Chicago deep dish pizza at Gino’s. Details can be found here:
http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/09/01/ginos-east/
After grabbing some food, we walked off the food by going to the Water Tower Place mall. It’s fairly large, clean, looks new with multiple levels and lots of store. Seems like a good place to shop.
We the did an architecture tour that is on a boat in the Chicago river (only 45 minutes for $27!). Some things I remember from the tour:
-river flows opposite direction forcefully because of pollution reasons (Lake Michigan is full of pollution)
-many buildings have water tanks in the top floors to help with wind
-there are several “adaptive reuse” building in Chicago (re-purposing old factories)
-there’s a building that you can pay $1000 to propose to your significant other and get champagne
-the former Sears Tower is the the tallest building in Chicago
-they mentioned the Apple Store (which is by the river, and similar to the NYC 5th st store since it is two stories) use to have its roof like a MacBook cover with an Apple logo on top. They were told to remove the Apple logo
After the tour, took a bit of a nap before heading out to a fancy dinner at Aviary. Details can be found here:
http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/09/01/aviary/
We then went to a speak easy underneath the restaurant, where our waiter at the Aviary helped us bypass the waitlist. It is called The Office (likely since they pretended it was an office to conceal it from being a speak easy). Details here:
http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/09/01/the-office-2/
The rest of the days in Chicago were spent at the Arc Music festival. Here are some key highlights and details:
-Taking the subway is probably the best way too and from the festival (5 min walk from the hotel, and 5 stops away). It can get crowded at night, but still fairly fast
-Security is better with VIP global (instead of GA) since you don’t get groped in case you want to sneak anything in (since you get to choose the person that you would want to search you, so obviously the member of the opposite sex). Also if you are VIP you are forced to use VIP line (can’t use GA).
-It is dusty at the expansion stage. Bring a mask, and shoes will definitely get wrecked
-Elrow stage is super fun with lots of inflatables, and oversized puppet things, plus tons of confetti!
-Day 1 we saw Sam Divine, Boris Brejcha, Adam Beyer, James Hype, Eric Prydz (Holo)
-Day 2 we saw Dombresky, Hot Since 82, Fisher b2b with Loco Dice, and John Summit
-Day 3 we saw Peggy Gu, Vintage Culture, and Tale of Us
-Radius is a great club. It’s fairly large. Easy to get drinks, and like the production set up overall. Only thing is they don’t have Redbull, only Ghost (which is disgusting)
-Eric Prydz and Adam Beyer’s after hours set at Radius was the best ones each of them have done (maybe because it was more dancey/clubby than their usual sets).
-John Summi my set (at least the part I catches) at the festival was better than the after party at Radius
-Radius has a second room. Need to check it out next time
-We saw Vintage culture at Concord Music Hall. Great venue, but his set was better at ARC
Lastly, here are the other restaurants we went to during the trip…
-The Dearborn: http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/09/01/the-dearborn/
-Cindy’s Rooftop: http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/09/06/cindy-rooftop/
