10.19.2010

The Elysian: A Love Story

Lately, my husband has been working literally around the clock, always writing, always brow furrowed over some puzzle. How to improve his reports and produce them more efficiently? How to help teachers better understand the inner workings of their students young brains? In the temporary absence of date night, I have found solace in my pots and pans. Oh brown butter and sage, oh truffle oil, you have saved me! My husband, though busy, is happy and nearly always full.

This may or may not have had something to do with his decision to finally make good on a request I have been making for the past three years.

You see, my husband loves to travel as much as he can. It is specifically the food indigenous to whatever region he is visiting that pushes him to book our flights on Southwest, endure some long awful plane ride with him in the 18th row and me in the 26th, wedged between a crying baby and an overly talkative businessman who refuses to take the diamond ring as a hint, and hole up in whatever grungy shithole had the best deals on Expedia. Accommodations, and their general fitness for human occupancy, do not register on my husband’s radar. As long as we are in a beautiful setting eating lots and lots of great food, he could care less. Don’t make me get into our trip to Napa Valley. The food? Incroyable! The scenery? Magnifique! The Econolodge? A near death experience.

For a very long time, I have been wearing him down. I tell him at every opportunity that we could save the dough on airfare and just stay for a night or two in a gorgeously well appointed hotel in Chicago, our very own home town. I am an accommodations lady, what can I say? Give me high thread count and a soaking tub and I am putty in your hands!

So after a particularly tough week of barely seeing anything of my husband other than the back of his head as he tap tap tapped away at the keyboard, he announced that he had something planned for us. A surprise. And I, ever the bratty North Shore transplant to the big city, asked: Is this going to involve travel? The thought of packing my bags and shipping off for a road trip to Ann Arbor was . . . less than agreeable. Blessedly, my husband was unaffected by my scrunched nose – down which I looked at him – and bad attitude. He just smiled. “No travel babe, but you’ll need a bag.”

Is it? Could it really be what I hope it is?

As things turned out, it was. Never one to let go of the reins and allow myself a real surprise, I relentlessly prodded my husband for information over the course of the week. Finally, he caved. He had booked us a room at the Hotel Elysian, a brand new boutique hotel on Chicago’s Gold Coast, complete with dinner reservations at one of the Hotel’s very talked-about restaurants: Balsan.

I immediately called the one and only Mireille Hamon and booked an appointment for a makeup application. I had been looking for an excuse. She had a wedding booked that Saturday but graciously squeezed me in beforehand. I promised her that I would take a taxi straight home and sit completely still with my arms extended away from my body, lest I mar her artistry and arrive at dinner looking less than fresh.

By the time Saturday rolled around, I could barely contain myself. I hopped in a cab wearing yoga pants, a black tee shirt and gym shoes. Because who doesn’t look sexy in loungewear and full-on evening makeup?

Mireille greeted me with a huge smile, as always. I plopped down in the wooden barstool at her worktable and described the dress I would be wearing to dinner while her assistants organized her go-bag for the wedding, speaking to each other in alternating French and English and pretending not to eavesdrop. With each detail I gave, Mireille’s eyes opened wider. By the time I had finished describing the white silk dress with a portrait collar, red embroidery creeping up the pleated skirt and a big red leather belt, I thought she might drop to the ground to roll around in glee. This is why I love her. Mireille’s sense of play is absolutely powerful. I can tell you right now; this woman was born to do exactly what she does.

As we both agreed that it would be wonderful to make a nod to the early 60s style of my dress, I sat back and let her play. The matte eyeshadow in bone and deep charcoal, the winged eyeliner, and the big red lips were fantastic. She took one look at me and announced, in her absolutely edible Parisian accent: “We must do lashes!” And so there were false lashes, lots and lots of them, applied gingerly with the back end of a makeup brush.

After taking a step back to really examine her handiwork, she spent the better part of ten minutes telling me how gorgeous I looked, snapping pictures, asking her assistants to join in the fun. “Come, just look at her! How beautiful?” And the assistants: “Oh, she looks wonderful! Let me help you take some pictures, these should go on the website!” Is it any wonder I make my way to her little studio on Oak Street once a month to have my eyebrows done no matter what? I left the place practically purring, so pleased with myself that I almost forgot why I was there in the first place.

Our arrival at the hotel jogged my memory.

When you pull up to the circle drive of the Hotel Elysian, your feet will barely touch the ground. A team of 6 were dedicated to opening our taxi doors, collecting our luggage, welcoming us warmly to the hotel and generally kissing our asses. Did I mention no one would accept a tip? And this is all before we entered the lobby. Which was incredible.

The lobby at the Hotel Elysian is covered in white marble and boasts a pair of the most beautiful, jarring sculptures I have ever seen. The concierge must have caught me staring and explained to me that they are made of maple syrup and amaranth, among other things. When he saw my husband slowly creeping towards the sculptures, he assured us loudly that they were not, in fact, edible.

Upon check-in, we were informed that the standard king rooms had been overbooked . . . and that we had been upgraded to a deluxe executive suite on the top floor. This never happens to us. Not even on our honeymoon. We took the elevator up ahead of our luggage, which was to arrive later with more smiles and tip refusals. In the room we were greeted by gorgeous gray and cream updated midcentury décor, dark brown cabinetry that looked so much like a chocolate bar you almost wanted to take a bite out of it, and more white marble. In the mini-fridge, of all things, was (and this is a shout out to all of you Michiganders out there) a Zang bar from Zingermans. Within minutes my husband and I were curled up in bed in fluffy hotel robes, fighting over the last bite of the Zang bar.

If there is native Chicagoan pleasure more embarrassing or shameful than dressing up in your finest and walking around the Gold Coast like a tourist, I couldn’t identify it. But it really is just that, a pleasure. My husband and I promenaded slowly around Oak and Michigan, whittling away the last hour before our dinner reservation arm in arm. I introduced my lipstick red Stuart Weitzman pumps to the Chicago pavement gingerly, smiling boldly into the faces of other strolling couples.

By the time we were seated at our table at Balsan, we had worked up a serious appetite. We started the meal with some of the biggest, briniest oysters I have ever eaten (which I slurped down with gusto and can almost taste on my tongue right this moment) and – to my in-laws, please cover your eyes now – something ridiculously sumptuous called Lomo Iberico, a cured pork loin from a very specific region of Spain in which the free range pigs feast on wild acorns. And to my in-laws, if you are reading this, I swear to you your son didn’t even smell it; he didn’t even look at it!

The meal proceeded with a parade of morel mushrooms and bleeding egg yolks, of earthy beets and cool mint, of rich buttery cheeses and pure honey with the crunch of the hive still in it. By the time we ordered our blackberry and corn parfait for dessert, our waiter congratulated us and told us he was very impressed by the sheer quantity of food we had ordered and consumed.

Thankfully, I am delighted enough by my own healthy appetite to have been only mildly offended.

And best of all, once we had retired to our hotel room and once again wrapped ourselves up in those fluffy hotel robes, my husband turned to me and said:

"We should do this once a year."