Dining in Chicago

[Dark Saint Alaick]

GARDEN OF ZANZIBAR TEA ROOM
54 West Randolph Street

An upstairs tea room where they tell your fortune in the tea leaves -- typical of the fortune telling tea rooms which have sprung up all over the Loop in recent years. Lots of fun for stenographers and their boy friends.


THE GYPSY TEA SHOP

22 West Monroe Street Where real gypsies read your palm or tea leaves. The original of these establishments in Chicago.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

ALONG THE AVENUE


Like proud and gaily-decorated soldiers standing at attention, the big skyscraper hotels of Michigan Avenue rear their million-windowed facades over Chicago's Lake Front. Serving a wealthy and exclusive clientele, these hotels, in their dining rooms, oflFer the very best in foodstuffs. They obtain the choicest cuts of meats from the stockyards; the vegetables served on their tables are fresh from the country; and the chefs and pastry cooks working in their kitchens are trained in the best traditions of Continental cookery.
Our survey of the Avenue eating halls and parlors begins at Michigan Avenue and Lake Shore Drive, the near north side crossroads of the Gold Coast. Here, the Drake Hotel stands as a citadel of wealth and fashion; a few doors east of it rises the exclusive Lake Shore Drive Hotel; several blocks northward we find the swanky Ambassador East Hotel; just south of it stands the Knickerbocker Hotel. In all of these high-toned hostelries are dining rooms that serve the choicest of dishes for a discriminating clientele.
Among these hotels are the Avenue restaurants and tea rooms -- the majority of them decorated in the modern style. Down the Avenue we follow them, crossing the Chicago river into the downtown district, until we come to the Palmer House, which is just one block west of the Avenue but always identified with it. From then on, we visit the dining rooms of the ritzy Avenue hotels in the downtown district -- the Auditorium, the Congress, the Blackstone, and the Stevens. Here, also, we make note of the more important restaurants and tea rooms. In the following pages, then, you will find the results of our survey.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

THE DRAKE
Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue

First and foremost of the Avenue eating establishments catering to Chicago's social world is the main dining room of the Drake Hotel. The location of the hotel, of course, has much to do with the high prestige of the dining room, being at the head of Michigan Avenue and dominating the Lake Shore Drive Gold Coast, which sweeps northward in an imposing curve of trees and tall apartment hotels along the shore of Lake Michigan. Incidentally, no other dining room in town offers a more beautiful metropolitan view than the one to be seen through the spacious windows along the north wall of the Drake dining room.

Huge, impressive, decorated in the Italian Renaissance style, with plenty of veined marble columns and gorgeous glass chandeliers, and soothed by the dulcet strains of the Drake Concert Ensemble, this rendezvous of the Four Hundred and such visiting celebrities as happen to be stopping at the Drake (and most of them stop there) , comes to its most active life at dinner time -- and mainly during "the season." Then, tuxedos and lownecked gowns are in abundance; the atmosphere is gay and swanky and cosmopolitan; and the debutantes and dandies are having the time of their lives. The cuisine, of course, is of the highest quality and the a la carte menu is more like a catalogue than a folder.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Historic banquets have been held in this dining room in honor of world-renowned celebrities. Gazing upon such a magnificent dining hall, you regret that old John B. Drake, founder of the Drake dynasty in Chicago, is not alive to stage in this place one of his far-famed annual game dinners that made his Grand Pacific Hotel (now gone) the talk of the country back in the seventies.

For luncheon, however, many of the millionaires and dowagers and others prefer the smaller Lantern Room, which overlooks Michigan Avenue. Here, you may see the interesting French wall lanterns which Mrs. John B. Drake II installed and which are replicas of ones she had seen in an old chateau in France. A striking silvered frieze, depicting various medieval sports and games, is also of interest, and so are the figurines of gay-colored candy which decorate each table and which are the work of Jacques Czerwinski, product of Parisian art schools and kitchens.

While an orchestra plays, you may enjoy that delicious Drake luncheon specialty, eggs Becker, created by the late Chef Becker of the Blackstone Hotel (owned by the Drake interests) and consisting of eggs and diced lobster in Newburg sauce, served on toast. But there is a varied selection of other ready dishes and all of them, prepared under the skillful eye of Chef Theo Rooms, would meet the hearty approval of the most fastidious of epicures. The Lantern Room is open for breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and supper dances, and the prices are not extraordinarily high. And the service is truly a tribute to the genius of Chicago's most noted maitre d'hotel Eric Dahlberg.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

BRADSHAWS
127 East Oak Street

Although a small, unassuming place, around the corner from Michigan Avenue and having all the appearance of being just another Gold Coast tea room, Bradshaw's serves some of the best food in the North Central district. The establishment is conducted by Mrs. Jene Fageros, a capable and conscientious Norwegian cook from Minneapolis, and her daughter, Bernyce, who is an artist and a graduate of Columbia. Nowhere can you find better apple pie -- the delicious fresh apple slices are exposed and instead of the usual covering of crust Mrs. Fageros uses a layer of chopped walnuts. Her bran muffins also are incomparable, being made of figs, bran, milk, and eggs. Luncheons are 65 and 85 cents and dinners $L00 and $1.50. Mrs. Bernice Challenger Bost, editor of Tower Town Topics magazine, and many well-known men and women from nearby advertising offices come here daily for luncheon, and it is one of the favored spots of Lake Shore Drive society. Through the windows you may observe, on the other side of the street, the lawns at the rear of Mrs. Edith Rockefeller McCormick's palatial residence -- if that is of any interest to you.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

KNICKERBOCKER COFFEE SHOP
163 East Walton Place

Excellent substantial dishes, the kind that business men enjoy, are offered in this small eating room just off the lobby of the Hotel Knickerbocker. There is German apple pancakes with head lettuce, broiled Spanish mackerel and boiled potato, Szedigner beef goulash, and any number of other items. This coffee shop, decorated with unique pinkish wallpaper, is popular among advertising men and executives from the towering Palmolive Building next door, as well as among society people. Luncheons are 65 cents -- and worth it.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

NINE HUNDRED NORTH
900 North Michigan Avenue

This place was aptly described recently as "Modern -- but beautiful!" And so it is. If you are a lover of modern art, here is a thrill for you. It was designed by Mrs. Howard Linn, the talented Chicago society woman, and its first manager was Mrs. William Vaughn Moody, widow of the noted poet and foremost of the town's hostesses.

The Crystal Room is where the main thrill lies. Small, oval in shape, exquisitely done in black and white and with many hexagonal columns of black glass and hidden colored lights, the room looks large and intricate byvirtue of the clever arrangement of French mirrors. Several novel private dining rooms, notably the Straw-Room, made of hand-painted straw squares, are also features of the place.

During the sultry evenings of summer, however, most patrons dine in the Patio -- a large open-air court with a fountain in its center. Here, under the July stars and to the strains of an orchestra, you may enjoy Chef Charles Font's delightful Stuffed Lobster Thermidor, or any of his other dishes, in a most gay Monte Carlo-like atmosphere. This courtyard, by the way, is part of the Nine Hundred North Michigan Avenue Building, designed by the Jarvis Hunts, Senior and Junior, noted architects, and occupied by numerous Chicago millionaires and their families on the cooperative plan.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

WOMAN'S EXCHANGE

942 North Michigan Avenue

For women only -- and the only one of its kind in Chicago. Very exclusive. About fifteen tables at the rear of the Woman's Exchange of Chicago, which is a charity shop estabHshed by Mrs. Kellogg Fairbank, Mrs. Louis F. Swift, and other wealthy society women. You help yourself at the serving counter. Excellent home cooking. Salads and pastries best in the city, and excellent are the creamed cheese and anchovies served on rye bread. Heavily patronized by socially prominent women at tea time. When you are through lunching, you tell the cashier what you ate and she makes out the bill. No so bad!

[Dark Saint Alaick]

180 EAST DELAWARE RESTAURANT

180 East Delaware Place

Most charming and interesting of French restaurants in Chicago, just off the Avenue. The ceiling is beamed, the floor is made of tile, dark brocaded draperies hang over doorways and windows, real candles are on the tables, a fireplace is at one end and a big table of most tempting hors d*oeuvres is at the other, and all is delightfully atmospheric and redolent of the Old World. But most interesting of all is Jacques Fumagally, the ma It re d 'hotel, who goes about welcoming guests in true Parisian style. Born in Monte Carlo, Jacques was formerly with the Ritz in Paris and the Sevilla Biltmore in Havana. With the able assistance of Chef Julliard Medou, Jacques offers you a few specialties, such as cottage cheese a la Jacques and 180 Delaware special salad. The menu is large and contains all the popular French dishes. Table d'hote luncheon, 75 cents, and table d'hote dinners at $1.00 and $1.50. This French restaurant is located in swanky and exclusive Streeterville, once the bailiwick of old Cap'n George Wellington Streeter, the militant squatter.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

HUYLER'S

917 North Michigan Avenue

The modern atmosphere of this important Avenue restaurant, with its four dining rooms, is in keeping with the building in which it is located -- the cloudpiercing Palmolive Building, a modernistic skyscraper with setbacks, which, with its powerful Lindbergh beacon, dominates the entire near north side both day and night. The Pink Room, first of the rooms, is done in rose-pink and contains a lunch counter and booths. Then comes the Gold Room, a formal dining room where prices are higher. The Walton Coffee Room, at the rear, done in blue and silver, is a sort of sandwich shop. The Fountain Room adjoining is self-explanatory. The foods served in all these rooms are of the best quality and not only typists but fashionable men and women from the Gold Coast patronize the various rooms daily.