Waldorf Astoria Chicago

Even in a city with some truly monumental architecture, the Waldorf Astoria Chicago feels like a remarkably grand hotel. One look at the huge English courtyard, or the museum-like marble lobby, and it’s clear that this is a full-scale luxury hotel all the way — especially since all this black, white, and polish gives off a dazzling Art Deco vibe. Fortunately the hotel undercuts its potentially chilly elegance with outstanding service, for which no staff person is allowed to accept a tip — or maybe that’s just good old Midwestern friendliness.

The Waldorf Astoria Chicago is currently one of very few hotels in the United States to carry the handcrafted European Vi-Spring bed, adorned in suitably fine linens. But surely it won’t be long before the competition follows suit — this bed is awesome. And each floor has only a small number of rooms, leaving plenty of space for fireplaces, terraces, and oversized tubs with LCD screens mounted in the bathroom mirrors.

With two restaurants on site, plus round-the-clock room service, as well as a nicely apportioned gym, you might decide to skip a stroll down the nearby Magnificent Mile, taking a walk along the treadmill and eating a steak in your room instead. Or you could bum a ride around the Gold Coast in one of the hotel’s BMWs. The spa boasts its own lap pool, and individual or group treatments — in the water, on land, or at the private Men’s Atelier — can be arranged.