The James Chicago Hotel

Class: First

Style: Cutting edge

Rooms: 297

Something richer than the average boutique, and more stylish than the typical luxury hotel — that’s the idea behind the James. The flagship in what’s to be a new chain, the James Chicago is actually the fledgling company’s second effort — the prototype, in Arizona, was sold to Morgans and is now the Mondrian Scottsdale.

Maybe it’s lessons learned from the first try, or just the fact that a first-tier city demands a first-class hotel, but this one, it must be said, comes off as a highly polished affair. The look is significantly more dressed-up than one might expect in Chicago, a town which despite its architectural pedigree still draws a large share of its travelers from Middle America. The rooms are swanky, in a restrained way, furnished with familiar designer pieces and rescued from the edge of minimalist boredom by an edge of decadence — vast TV screens, rich fabrics, top-flight entertainment centers and lush modern spa-style bathrooms.

A steakhouse is just about as quintessentially Chicagoan as a restaurant can get — the James features David Burke’s Primehouse, serving Kentucky-raised beef dry-aged on the premises. There’s a small spa downstairs, and an extensive fitness center, the latter down to the fact that one of the James’s founding partners also founded the Equinox fitness clubs. And no urban design hotel would be caught dead without something like the J Bar, a stylish and reasonably exclusive cocktail lounge where hotel guests mix with some of the more discerning locals.