This year, since we’ve eaten so much amazing food, I’ve decided to do two Top Five Restaurant lists – one for Chicago, and one for around the world. This year, the Top Five list for Chicago is going to be really steak heavy, but it’s all leading up to my Top Five Chicago Steakhouses list, which I hope to publish sometime in 2025. We ate really well here in Chicago this year, and I’m looking forward to another year of…
Our annual outing for Brian’s birthday usually brings us to a steakhouse in Chicago, and with seemingly zillions to choose from, there’s always something different to try. Also, I’m really trying to hone and curate my top five Chicago steakhouse list before publishing, so they are top of mind right now. We visited RPM Steak in Chicago on November 30, 2024, and were pleased with a lot of the nice, celebratory touches they added to our meal to make it…
Did you know that there’s a two-star Michelin restaurant in the Eiffel Tower? Typically, such a huge tourist location (one might even say tourist trap!) will only offer the most basic, mass-produced food to cater to the gobs of tourists moving through. But, here in Paris, you can find one of the city’s most elegant dining rooms occupying the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. Le Jules Verne is a very special place, and we ate here on our last…
When you dine at a Three-Star Michelin restaurant, you expect perfection both with the food and the service, and, spoiler alert, Arpege was perfect with food and service. Choosing restaurants in Paris, especially ones with coveted stars, is an extraordinarily daunting task, but I decided to book at Arpege for a couple reasons. First, they allowed bookings relatively far out (over 3 months) which, as a planner, I love. Second, Chef Alain Passard has been serving exclusively a vegetarian tasting…
Did you know there is a French-American Brasserie with an actual working carousel bar in the middle of Chicago’s Loop Theater District? Well, now you do! I’ve enjoyed Francois Frankie a few times in the summer/fall of 2024, and I’m here to give it a resounding recommendation for drinks and dining in Chicago! Francois Frankie opened in Chicago in 2019, but has garnered more attention this year, when Matt Ayala became the Executive Chef. Bringing back his signature “Cochon Volant…
This is a review of Bavette’s Steakhouse in Chicago. If you are looking for Bavette’s in Las Vegas, you can check out that review here! It had been a while since we checked out Bavette’s in Chicago, probably before COVID, but I was really looking for a nice date night after weeks on end of constant school stuff: games, races, concerts, practices, you name it! Bavette’s is a tough reservation to get in Chicago – they only open up 21…
Just, wow! Pulling up to the RH Gallery in Indianapolis, you get an absolute sense of awe, and you actually forget that you are right smack in the middle of America. As you drive into the Dehaan Estate, a 151 acre property containing a beautiful lake, stunning outdoor sculptures, and even a peep of an obliging pheasant poking around, you can’t help but think that you might actually be in Europe. The driveway is designed to take you all around…
Luca was our last meal in London, and one of the best! As I mentioned in my review of the Clerk & Well, where we stayed on our recent trip in July, 2024, the Clerkenwell neighborhood is chock full of delicious eateries, so we rarely had to go far to eat really well near our home base. We were delighted with Luca, a one-star Michelin restaurant, and apart from a bit of a communication snafu at the end of the…
My husband scored a reservation (they book only 30 days out) for my birthday this August, 2024, to the very hyped, very hot, and very exclusive Asador Bastian, one of Chicago’s most highly-praised restaurants of the last year. We adore Spanish food, and we also love steak, and our recent experience at Bazaar Meat (another incredible Spanish Steakhouse in Chicago) made for some very high expectations. Truly, this was one of the best meals I’ve had this year. The place…
We were lucky enough to stay in the Clerkenwell neighborhood of Central London, a bit off the beaten path for tourist attractions, though close enough that most were walkable, or at the very least, easy to get to via public transportation. Clerkenwell is also a growing foodie neighborhood of London, and we were able to check out some of the very best it had to offer while visiting in July of 2024. St. John restaurant has a few outposts, but…