This downtown Chicago hotel has been a favorite of movie stars, sports legends, royalty and presidents since 1910.

This hip cocktail lounge is exactly what you’d expect from a bar named after a line of T.S. Eliot poetry: pristine (the carefully constructed cocktails are excellent), pretentious (you won’t find a sign on the door—just look for the long lines) and, ultimately, completely and unarguably gorgeous.

Owner Malcolm Molloy has that fresh-off-the-boat brogue that could charm the pants off your own mother. But please don’t take this for one of your run-of-the-mill McIrish pubs…

If you’re lucky, you can snag a couch in the back by the fireplace where you can take in the cool vintage bar (built in the ’30s to resemble a bar on the U.S. Normandy), sip some seasonal glogg and check out the friendly neighborhood crowd (equal mix of gay and straight).