Birthday girls night out...

Hoping to get some good restaurant recs for an upcoming girls night out to celebrate four birthdays. We'd like to go somewhere upbeat and fun, but with great food - food quality needs to trump atmosphere. We don't need it to be the newest, trendiest location, but we'd like it to be upscale without a ton of pretense, and definitely not stuffy. Ideally the location would be somewhere between south loop and Lakeview (we are staying in the Gold Coast area) with price per person around $60ish or below (flexible on this but just not Alinea flexible ). Thanks for any thoughts...

Also, any ideas for an after place? Maybe a wine bar/lounge that might have some live music? Someone suggested a comedy club though that kind of scares me having not been into that scene for a while. We definitely don't want to go clubbing, but would like to go somewhere cool. Has anyone been to The Whistler?

Thanks!

Sounds to me like Sable might be your place: http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=28245

Been there a number of times and enjoyed the food and drinks all around. A bit 'scene,' but not annoyingly so. And the menu is universally worth the price, especially by RiNo standards, booze and eats. You might even want to stay there, but for afterwards, well, Violet Hour is probably the place to go, and a bit closer.

Japonais

dma wrote:Has anyone been to The Whistler?

See The Whistler

mtgl wrote:Sounds to me like Sable might be your place: http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=28245

Yup, Sable would definitely work. The food is terrific, they do small plates and half portions so you can just keep ordering a lot of different things, the craft cocktails are great, etc. And the food is very reasonably priced.

Here are another few more possibilities.

GT Fish & Oyster is a great place as long as everyone's okay with seafood. They have terrific seafood in a small plates menu format. Like Sable, they have great craft cocktails. The atmosphere is upscale and lively, while not overly noisy. It's in River North.

Mercat a la Planxa is an upscale tapas restaurant in the Loop (southeast corner of the Loop). The atmosphere is upscale and lively, with a large dining room with a high ceiling, so it seems like a big nightclub. It's the best tapas restaurant in Chicago.

Nacional 27 has a similar atmosphere to Mercat (right down to the nightclub-ish large dining room with a high ceiling). It's in River North and the cuisine is Latin fusion.

Another lively upscale Latin fusion restaurant is Carnivale, in River West.

All of the above places accept reservations, over the phone as well as on Opentable. (Beware, some of the "hot/trendy" places that don't accept reservations often have waiting times to be seated of two hours or more.)

If the Whistler's of interest you could do dinner at Yusho, which is pretty closely and offers the benefit of small plates.

I think some fun places to go would be:

Socca
The Gage
Sable
Slurping Turtle
Boarding House
Quartino
Purple Pig

I've always had a good experience going out with the girls at Gilt Bar and they accept reservations. Sable is a good recommendation too.

Gilt Bar
230 West Kinzie Street Chicago, IL 60654
(312) 464-9544

CVittorio wrote:I've always had a good experience going out with the girls at Gilt Bar and they accept reservations.

I believe they stopped taking reservations recently.