Room with a view
Anchored on its south end by the Intercontinental (its latest reincarnation) and the Drake on its north end (it's always been The Drake!), Chicago's Magnificent Mile is a classy strip of high-end stores, hotels, boutiques and restaurants. Located at its mid-point is the Allerton, surely one of the best bargains on this pricey thoroughfare. The Allerton's neighboring hotels include the more luxurious and expensive Peninsula, the Affina, the Park Hyatt, and the Omni. I got a great deal here on Hotwire. As an older property, rooms tend to be on the small side. Mine was furnished with a queen-sized bed (a king would never have fit), a minimalist thin table/desk pushed against a heating unit under a window (but compensated for with an excellent ergonomic swivel chair), a small closet of little use because the floor-mounted safe took up most of its space, and a bathroom with a full window view and a commodious marble tiled walk-in shower with a rainshower head and an abundance of hot water. Towels, etc. were plentiful and of good quality. There was a small shelf above the sink and toilet which is probably adequate for a male guest, but a female guest might have trouble finding enough room on it to accommodate all her toiletries and what-not. The room was supplied with four GLASS glasses (how I hate plastic cups wrapped in plastic -- something one finds all too often even in "better" hotels) which were replaced daily.
There was a wall-mounted flatscreen TV which you could really only watch from bed owing to its stationary positioning. The bed was very comfortable, the white linens sparkling. There were an abundance of electrical outlets in the room, but many of them already in use and the free ones inconveniently placed for my Bi-Pap breathing machine. So, I sacrificed the use of a bedside lamp to plug it in. The bedside table was miniscule - so small, in fact, that the alarm clock was on the table/desk on the opposite wall. But the view? WOW! I had two full windows in this corner room and another full window in the bathroom. From my 12th floor aerie, two of them looked north down Michigan Ave. overlooking the historic Water Tower and on to Lake Michigan and the Oak Street Beach. With the exception of the occasional fire engine or police siren, the room was amazingly and peacefully quiet.
There's shopping galore (even if only gazing in windows) nearby. There's a Brooks Brothers on the ground level of the hotel, a multi-storey indoor mall across the street anchored by a Saks Fifth Ave, a Neiman-Marcus on the next block and a Bloomingdale's further down the street. There's also a Polo Ralph Lauren store and Tiffany's is right there too! For regular, last-minute needs, there's a Walgreen's just steps away.
The neighborhood has an array of very easy-on-the-pocketbook eateries. M Burger (think In-and-Out or Five Guys) has only 7 stools, so plan on carry-out. It's across the street from the hotel. On the same block, head east to Elephant and Castle. Gino's East (originators of classic deep-dish pizza) has an outpost just a few blocks away. Even Walgreen's has a huge selection of good food items - sushi, even! I got a veggie tray, a fruit cup, pita chips and hummus, and a yogurt parfait there along with soft drinks.
Given the area's eating options, the Allerton's restaurant is serviceable but uneven and expensive with sporadic hours at dinner. I got an excellent reuben sandwich and lobster bisque from room service one night. However, the yolks on the eggs benedict one morning in the restaurant were hard-boiled, not runny. Another day at lunch downstairs, I repeated the reuben sandwich (go with a winner) with their excellent shoestring potatoes and a top-notch generous bowl of cream of mushroom soup. The $9 apple tart for dessert (which had been obviously nuked) did not come with the advertised ice cream but only a sliced, fanned-out strawberry. The menu featured "a trio of gelato's (sic) and sorbetto's (sic)." So much for proof-reading and basic grammatical knowledge, a sad sign of the times, alas.
My 12th floor hallway would have benefitted from a thorough vaccuuming, but overall the physical appearance of the Allerton is very good from its motor entrance to the lobby, restaurant, and other public areas including my room. Many of the meeting rooms are named after noteworthy architects associated with Chicago such as Burnham, Wright, Sullivan, van der Rohe et al which is a nice touch.