We are leaving for our second trip to Costa Rica THIS WEEK, so I thought it would be a good time to start all of the Costa Rica content with a short little nostalgia post about Brian’s and my first trip to this gorgeous country in 2014. Brian and I had just started dating about 3 or 4 months before this trip, and if you really want to get to know someone well, go on an adventure with them! I…
I love going to Las Vegas, and you will see a lot of reviews of Vegas hotels, restaurants and activities on this site in the future. I love the weather there, I love the frenetic vibe, and I love the fact that you can just get away for a few days and forget about real life, pretty much instantaneously, once you start hearing the dinging of the slot machines. I come here to see my family who live in California,…
Bronzeville Winery recently opened on the south side of Chicago, not far from where we live, to a lot of hype, so when they were offering a special restaurant week menu, we decided to book a reservation and check the place out. Bronzeville Winery, more accurately a wine bar or wine-focused restaurant, is a very hip place in a brand new building on South Cottage Grove. Their drink menu not only specializes in wine, but also props up and supports…
We came to Bloomington, Indiana to visit our second-oldest, Noah, at IU. He plays sousaphone in the Big Red Band for the men’s basketball games, and so we managed to find tickets to a game and watch the band, and then took Noah out to a nice dinner afterwards. Before I talk about Feast, I just need to say that if you are at all interested in basketball, don’t hesitate to go to a game at IU. The feeling in…
We visited the Detroit Institute of Arts (The “DIA”) on December 31, 2022 for one main purpose, and one secondary purpose. The main purpose was to see our last Caravaggio painting of 2022, the secondary was to see the massive “Van Gogh in America” exhibit that was about to end there. The DIA is a small, but very nice museum on the north end of Detroit’s downtown area and right next to the Wayne State campus. The second level of…
I was so excited to be able to put this last, very special, Top Five list together for this year! Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m going to be able to have this particular countdown every single year, because 2023 is going to have a very very low number of Caravaggios for us, if any at all, due to the lack of Euro travel, and no domestic travel planned (yet) for this purpose. Hopefully we can squeeze in a trip to…
I have eaten at The Gage Restaurant in Chicago for either lunch or dinner at least 20 times. This restaurant is on Michigan Avenue, and, while on one of the most touristy streets in Chicago, right across from the Art Institute, The Gage remains stalwart, providing excellent food and service. We ate here most recently with Eli and Clara after seeing the Christmas Concert at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, just two blocks south of the restaurant. This is a bit…
Boy, looking at my “Activities” menu, we sure did a lot of cool stuff this year. From Guatemala to Europe and all sorts of places in between, we made a lot of memories. This list was absolutely the most difficult to narrow down to just five. We met cool people, saw amazing architecture, experienced beautiful landscapes, and did a few food tours. How do you pick just five? Well, it had to be done, and below are ChiLuxe Travel’s Top…
Elske is easily one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago. It earned its Michelin star almost immediately after opening, and has retained it since then, which has been about 5 years or so. I have visited this restaurant probably about once a year since it’s been opened, and we came here to celebrate our first indoor dining experience after getting vaxxed after COVID. They literally opened up that weekend, and I’m pretty sure they opened just for us. At least,…
Here I will countdown the most-read articles for the year of 2022. Since I only started the blog in May, it’s no surprise that some of my older articles are in the top five – however there are a few surprises in here too! 5. Bavette’s Steakhouse, published May 20, 2022 This restaurant review rounds out the fifth spot on the list, and that’s not super shocking to me. Bavette’s was so close to being one of the top five…