Pendry Chicago

An Art Deco Icon Turned Design Hotel

Long before it took guests, the Carbide and Carbon Building was already a Chicago landmark, a black granite and gold leaf tower built in 1929 that locals have nicknamed the art deco champagne bottle for its dark shaft and gilded crown. Pendry's arrival turned that office tower into a 364-room hotel without sanding off what made it distinctive. The redesign, led by Toronto's Studio Munge, treats the building's Jazz Age bones as the headline rather than a backdrop, pairing black and white tiled floors with an extensive art collection that includes a lobby light installation by Dutch artist Arnout Meijer.

Why It Works

What earns this hotel its place is the way it commits to a point of view instead of hedging toward generic luxury. Studio Munge's brief was to make the public spaces feel like they had always been there, and the result, from the tiled lobby to the fireplace-lit bar, reads as considered rather than decorated. Venteux, the ground-floor brasserie, extends that confidence into the kitchen with a French-inspired, Provencal-leaning menu. A 9.3 rating across more than 170 reviews backs up a design concept that could easily have stayed more style than substance.

Why This Location

The hotel sits at 230 North Michigan Avenue, inside the Loop rather than the Magnificent Mile, which puts it closer to the Chicago River, Millennium Park and the Art Institute than to the shopping strip. It is a short walk from the river's architecture boat docks and from the Loop's theater district, and an easy cab ride from both airports' express routes. Travelers who want to be near Chicago's civic core, museums and river views, rather than its retail core, will find the address makes more sense than its Michigan Avenue name first suggests.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxury

• Vibe: Art Deco glamour, design-forward, moody at night

• Rooms: 364

• Best For: Design and architecture enthusiasts, couples, travelers who prefer the Loop to the Magnificent Mile

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The building itself, Chicago's own art deco champagne bottle, gold leaf crown and all

• Dining: Venteux for French-inspired brasserie fare and a Champagne and oyster bar, Bar Pendry for cocktails by the fireplace, a seasonal rooftop pop-up on the 24th floor

• Amenities: Fitness center, an extensive in-house art collection, meeting and event space

• Attractions: The Chicago River and Riverwalk, Millennium Park, the Art Institute, the Loop theater district

Venteux and a Bar Behind Heavy Drapery

Venteux anchors the ground floor with a 4,000-square-foot dining room built around circular banquettes, amber lighting and forty feet of floor-to-ceiling windows framing the Loop's architecture, pairing a Champagne and oyster bar with French-inspired, Provencal-leaning cooking. Bar Pendry sits apart from it entirely: guests push through heavy drapery into a dark, fireplace-lit room that functions as its own small gallery within the hotel's art collection. In warmer months, Chateau Carbide opens the 24th floor as an outdoor pop-up with striped loungers, trading the moody interiors for an open-air rooftop scene above Michigan Avenue.

Rooms Inside a Chicago Landmark

Three hundred and sixty-four rooms fill the tower above Venteux and the lobby, inheriting the building's narrow Jazz Age floor plates rather than a standard new-build grid, which gives many rooms a sense of proportion that newer Chicago hotels rarely offer. The black and white tile and art-forward styling carry up from the public spaces, so the design language stays consistent from the lobby to the room door. Guests traveling with pets are welcome, a detail that matters for an extended Loop stay, and the hotel's accessible and business-oriented amenities support longer corporate visits as easily as weekend trips.