Restaurants – Page 2 – ChiLuxe Travel

Boka Restaurant, Chicago, A Masterclass in Michelin-Starred Dining

January 30, 2024 Aukse Comments 0 Comment

Restaurant week 2024 is wrapping up here in Chicago and we were lucky enough to score a table at Boka for dinner. Boka offers a prix fixe four course menu during restaurant week for $59, and offered wine pairings for an additional $40 per person. This is a great value for Michelin-starred dining in Chicago! Boka just celebrated its 20 year anniversary last year, has maintained their one-Michelin-star status since 2011, and there are obvious reasons why they’ve been around…

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Le Tour, Evanston, Illinois, A Lovely French Bistro

January 23, 2024 Aukse Comments 0 Comment

My cousin Irene lives in Evanston, which is the first suburb just north of Chicago, so we find ourselves here for some holidays and hanging out relatively often. Most recently, on a frigid Saturday in January, we came to Le Tour for a delicious french meal. The service here was attentive, and they were very focused on making sure we were comfortable and well taken care of. I absolutely despise bistro chairs, so they brought me a different chair which…

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Top Five Chicago Restaurants

January 18, 2024 Aukse Comments 1 comment

Well, Restaurant Week Chicago is here, starting tomorrow, and we will be checking out a few places next week and I’ll be posting updates right here on ChiLuxe Travel! But for now, a lot of folks ask me where the best places to eat in Chicago are, or where to go if you are here only for a night or two. This list is mainly geared more towards tourists in order to get the best taste of what Chicago has…

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High Tea at The Allis, Chicago

January 16, 2024 Aukse Comments 0 Comment

My Mom started a tradition eons ago that we go have tea someplace festive around Christmastime. We would go with my great-aunt, who has since passed away and my cousins. When my Mom moved out to California, I continued the tradition with my cousins, and we’ve had tea pretty much everywhere in Chicago you can have tea by now. I definitely should do a top five list of teas in Chicago! Now that my Mom is back, we’re a foursome…

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Top Five Restaurants for 2023

January 9, 2024 Aukse Comments 0 Comment

It was incredibly difficult for me to choose only five restaurant experiences for my list this year. We ate at so many great restaurants, but we also had delicious and bespoke experiences at several resorts this year too. We ate really well on all of our trips, with rarely an exception. I have to make an honorable mention here for the restaurants and bars at Nayara Resorts in Costa Rica. While they didn’t make the Top 5, it was a…

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Bar Mar, Chicago, A Shiny Happy Restaurant In The Loop

December 21, 2023 Aukse Comments 1 comment

I recently came to Bar Mar to have lunch with a friend in early December, 2023. Bar Mar is part of a complex of two restaurants by Jose Andres in the Loop area of Chicago, specializing in seafood. The space is bright and open, with lots of glass, giving it an open-air feeling, even though you’re inside. The furnishings are modern and funky, and I love the light fixtures as well. For lunch, Bar Mar offers a tasting menu of…

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Ode To Moody Tongue Brewery

December 19, 2023 Aukse Comments 0 Comment

Moody Tongue Brewery is the only two-star Michelin brewery in the world, and it’s right here on the South Side of Chicago! Typically, I take my husband Brian out to a steak house for his birthday, but this year, I thought I’d switch it up and take him here. He loves beer, and his “Untappd” app entries grow every week. Well, he was super excited to add 10 new beers to his app, and I was excited to add another…

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Corvino Restaurant, Substance Over Service

December 5, 2023 Aukse Comments 0 Comment

I really am not sure if I could ever be a Michelin Guide restaurant reviewer. It’s because the Michelin stars are given out based on, allegedly, the food alone. The quality, the uniqueness, the chef’s spin on it are all the things that go into Michelin stars. The problem for me is that, even when the food is absolutely outstanding, if the service is sub-par, or the ambiance of the place is meh, it impacts my experience way too much….

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Westport Cafe, A Lovely French Bistro in Kansas City

November 28, 2023 Aukse Comments 0 Comment

We ate at the Westport Cafe in between lots of touring around Kansas City. We were hungry and we needed fuel to get us through the rest of the day. Westport Cafe was exactly what we wanted – an adorable french bistro with an extensive menu with a ton of options for filling us up. We ate here on our only full day in Kansas City, November 5, 2023. Westport Cafe is in a neighborhood full of coffee shops, bars…

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Joe’s Bar-B-Que, Truly The Best In The World

November 21, 2023 Aukse Comments 0 Comment

Anthony Bourdain once said that Joe’s Bar-B-Que is the best BBQ in Kansas City, which means it’s the best BBQ in the world. This place is on his 13 restaurants to eat at before you die list, and none of these superlatives are an exaggeration. I’m not hugely into BBQ, so I may not be the world’s foremost expert on its quality, but I can easily say that Joe’s in Kansas City, Kansas, is the best I’ve ever had, and…

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