Where to eat and drink in the Windy City.

If you follow @mrporterlive on Instagram, you will be familiar with our #mrporterontheroad hashtag. This coming week, the MR PORTER US team is travelling again. We’re returning to Soho House Chicago for a members’ event on Tuesday night with Mr Ryan Babenzien, founder of sneaker brand Greats, as part of our long-running MR PORTER On Style series. When we’re visiting a city, we like to ask a local tastemaker for his or her recommendations on the places we should check out. So, we called on Chicago-based interiors and portrait photographer Mr John Stoffer for his insider tips.

Mr Stoffer knows Chicago rather well. Now 28, he grew up in Oak Park, 15 minutes’ drive west of the city. He married his high-school sweetheart Maura, a fellow photographer. The two tend to shoot together. After living in the centre of Chicago for six years, they moved back to Oak Park and a year ago they bought Mr Stoffer’s grandparents’ house, which they are in the process of renovating. The couple, who have been together for 12 years, now have a two-year-old daughter, Frances, and a four-month-old son, Brooks.

Here, in his own words, Mr Stoffer takes us on an Instagram tour of his favourite Chicago hangouts.

“They recently renovated this area of Soho House and I took the interiors shots for them. They turned it from a Pizza East restaurant into The Allis, which is more of a relaxed lounge. It’s named after Charles Allis, the industrialist and philanthropist who built this beautiful building in 1907 in the West Loop of Chicago, which is a very cool area of the city. During the day, this is a great space to work. It has a nice slow, relaxed atmosphere with just the right amount of hum and buzz. It’s completely filled with light. You can find a quiet corner for a meeting or just work on your laptop, so I’ll often edit photos here. The coffee and food are good and you can always meet someone for a cocktail later on.”

theallis.com

“This is a great place to take the kids. It’s a stunning two-acre piece of ‘landscape art under glass’. The ceilings are 40ft high and there’s an inside lake full of fish. Chicago can be pretty brutal in the winter, so this conservatory can provide an escape. If it’s below freezing outside, go inside to the hot and humid tropical jungle room and it’ll be 80ºF [27ºC]. Then you move through to the desert room which is much drier and a little cooler. It’s one of those places that both kids and adults love.”

garfieldconservatory.org

“This is one of my favourite coffee spots in Chicago. It’s in the Humboldt Park neighbourhood, which is a little gritty, although it is transforming rapidly. I like this place because it’s grungy and cool, kind of scuffed up. It feels like you’re going into a Cuban basement or something. They sell cigars and you can get boozy steamers, which are like coffee that's also a cocktail. They steam the milk and they add Baileys or some kind of coffee liqueur or whisky in with your espresso shot. Dangerous!”

ccferns.com

“This is another impressive piece of architecture in Chicago. Restoration Hardware [a high-end interiors chain] bought the building and has done something very cool with the space. It’s more of a showroom than a store, and it has a great café, which has a huge vaulted glass ceiling and fountain. The food is amazing. It’s operated by Brendan Sodikoff, one of Chicago’s best restaurateurs. For lunch, I recommend the burger. Grab a glass of wine and then walk through all the different floors of Restoration Hardware and see all the furniture.”

3artsclubcafe.com

“Estereo is a new bar in Logan Square. It’s a really interesting space. They’ve got this huge triangular bar and it’s on an angled corner, so it’s a really unusual layout. Estereo has got a Latin American feel to it, so all its cocktails are made with rum, pisco, mescal, cachaça or tequila. They also serve excellent coffee. This is definitely a good place to meet someone for a quick drink before moving on for dinner.”

estereochicago.com

“This is the restaurant just by the lobby of the Thompson hotel in the ritzy Gold Coast neighbourhood, just a couple of blocks back from the Lake. It’s a rustic Italian seafood restaurant that is a little on the sophisticated side, so it’s more of a date-night spot. The decor is incredible and it has an open kitchen so you can see the chefs at work. The service is impeccable.”

nicoosteria.com