Level Chicago Fulton Market

We recommend Level to business travellers who want a proper spa after their meetings, and to couples in their thirties who prefer Fulton Market to the towers of Michigan Avenue. It is an address for those who dine at Girl & the Goat or at Smyth (3★ Michelin 400 metres away) rather than at their grandfather's steakhouse. Families find their place thanks to the spacious rooms and the pet policy, but the clientele remains mostly adult and connected.

The Level Chicago occupies a glass and steel building constructed in 2019, typical of the new architectural wave in the West Loop. Interiors signed by a local studio: polished concrete, light wood, brushed metal, monochrome palette punctuated with sage green velvet. Ceiling height of 3.20 metres in the rooms, XXL windows framing the sawtooth roofs of the former warehouses. The whole feels more like an enlarged boutique hotel than a classic palace, with 297 rooms spread over 18 floors.

The hotel has a ground-floor restaurant and a rooftop bar on the top floor, but we advise you to go out: Fulton Market concentrates some twenty remarkable tables within a 500-metre radius (Girl & the Goat, Smyth, Oriole, Ever). Breakfast is served buffet-style and à la carte, correct without being memorable. Room service operates until 11pm, short menu focused on American classics. The rooftop bar opens at 4pm, signature cocktails around 18 $, unobstructed view of the western skyline.

The Level stands on Union Avenue, a quiet artery of Fulton Market nestled between corporate headquarters and restaurants. Google 300 metres away, Randolph Street (the dining axis) two blocks away. Morgan metro station (green and pink lines) six minutes on foot, O'Hare 35 minutes by taxi outside rush hour. The neighbourhood was still industrial fifteen years ago; today it is Chicago's new centre of gravity: lively until midnight, residential after, zero tourists. We are 20 minutes from Millennium Park and the Loop by Uber, but we come here to stay in the West Loop.