Fisk & Co.

When your plan for the night includes some combination of the phrases “hotel restaurant” and “Chicago Loop,” you might be concerned that you’ll be stuck eating overpriced food while you pay $40 an hour for parking. And if your evening involves a meal at Fisk & Co. those concerns are valid.

Fisk & Co. is a restaurant attached to the Hotel Monaco, but other than potentially being surrounded by people wearing conference name tags (and having to leave the restaurant to use the bathroom), you probably won’t notice. The dining room is on the smaller side, and has an atmosphere with vaguely nautical decor that fits the seafood-focused menu.

photo credit: Sandy Noto

Food-wise, mussels are the specialty here, and you can get them served in a variety of different broths (like white wine or green curry). Unfortunately, they're not very good. The mussels are rubbery, and the broth is frequently unbalanced, being too sweet (in the case of the curry) or too bland (the white wine). The rest of the menu is seafood-focused as well, with a raw bar and underwhelming entrees like a soggy, overdressed lobster roll that will immediately remind you Chicago is nowhere near the ocean.

When you realize you’ll need to get dinner in the Loop, it’s perfectly normal to experience a sense of dread followed by resignation. After all, your choices for a decent, not-overpriced meal after a day spent filing for divorce or taking selfies at The Bean are limited. So skip Fisk & Co. and visit one of these other neighborhood spots instead.