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Waldorf Astoria Chicago
Chicago, Illinois, United States · Waldorf Astoria · Grand Luxury
The Gold Coast tower at 11 East Walton opened in February 2009 as the Elysian Hotel Chicago, home to the two-Michelin-star restaurant RIA and the Balsan bistro, and became Waldorf Astoria Chicago on February 1, 2012, with little physical change. The Waldorf name kept the bones and the dining-hotel ambition, and it holds AAA Five Diamond and MICHELIN One Key today.
- 214 rooms
- Opened 2009
- Neighborhood: Gold Coast
- Rooms from 375 sq ft (35 m²)
- Architect: Lucien Lagrange Architects
About Waldorf Astoria Chicago
- The hotel opened in February 2009 as the Elysian Hotel Chicago on the Gold Coast.
- It was renamed Waldorf Astoria Chicago on February 1, 2012, with little physical change.
- The address is 11 East Walton Street in Chicago's Gold Coast.
- The restaurant RIA held two Michelin stars during the Elysian era.
- The hotel holds AAA Five Diamond and was named Illinois' Leading Hotel at the 2025 World Travel Awards.
History
The tower at 11 East Walton Street in Chicago's Gold Coast is the most deliberately Parisian building to have been erected in the American Midwest in recent memory, and it was designed that way from the first pencil stroke. French-born architect Lucien Lagrange — the Chicago designer whose portfolio includes Park Tower, The Ritz-Carlton Residences, and a succession of Gold Coast landmarks — conceived the building beginning in 2002 as an explicit homage to the grand hotels of Paris in the 1920s: a 60-story tower with colonnades, spires, a cobblestone motor court, and a precast concrete facade of highly textured limestone that would look at home on the Champs-Elysées.
Construction ran from 2006 until 2009, and the project opened in February 2009 as the Elysian Hotel Chicago, developed by David Pisor and financed to a reported total of $238 million. The 188-room hotel occupied the lower 26 floors, with 51 condominium residences above, estimated at between $2.5 and $8.5 million each. The interiors, inspired by Coco Chanel — with drapes patterned after her dress designs and ballroom chandeliers modeled after her jewelry — brought a Parisian chic to the Gold Coast that the neighborhood's European-influenced architecture had always implied but never quite delivered. RIA, the hotel's two-Michelin-star restaurant, and Balsan, a contemporary bistro, established the Elysian as one of the most gastronomically serious luxury hotels in Chicago almost immediately.
Recognition followed quickly. Conde Nast Traveler named the Elysian the top hotel in the United States in 2011. Travel and Leisure ranked it number one in the world the following year. Despite these accolades, the hotel struggled to generate profit in its early years, and in late 2011 Jones Lang LaSalle announced a sale. Hilton Hotels and an investment group acquired the property and rebranded it as Waldorf Astoria Chicago on February 1, 2012.
The transition was seamless in most respects — the building itself had changed very little — and the Waldorf Astoria name proved an apt fit for a hotel already operating at the level of the brand's global standards. AAA awarded it Five Diamond status, which it has maintained. The hotel's only significant departure from its Parisian prototype is the 14,000-square-foot spa with its mosaic-tiled lap pool, a amenity that has no equivalent in Paris but is, in Chicago, considered essential.
The setting
Waldorf Astoria Chicago anchors 11 East Walton Street, a cobblestone-courtyard address in the Gold Coast designed by Lucien Lagrange and opened in 2009 — its Parisian colonnades and spires deliberately evoking grand European courtyard hotels of the 1920s. The location sits at the discreet residential core of Chicago's most established upscale neighborhood, steps from the Oak Street boutique corridor and the northernmost stretch of the Magnificent Mile. The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a ten-minute walk, and the surrounding cluster of five-star addresses confirms this block as the apex of Chicago's luxury hospitality geography.
Restaurants and bars
- Brass Tack — Restaurant
Amenities
- Spa
- Indoor pool
- Sauna
- Hot tub
- Fitness center
- Pet-friendly
Awards
- AAA Five Diamond (2026)
- Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star (2026)
- MICHELIN One Key (2026)
- Illinois's Leading Hotel 2025 (World Travel Awards) (2025)
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