Chicago’s new top stud

A tale of a posh hotel, a steak house, and one special bull

March 10, 2006—Two years ago, Stephen Hanson and Danny Errico transformed a former Holiday Inn into Scottsdale’s hippest hotel (hey, everything’s relative). Now, after selling the James Hotel to the Morgans Group (Mondrian, Delano, et al.) for $47.5 million, the duo have teamed up with W alum Brad Wilson to open the more luxurious James Chicago. The new property comes equipped with your standard array of high-end goodies—Wi-Fi and plasmas in every room, swank gym, hopping bar scene, a members-only lounge—but it also has at least one draw we’ve yet to encounter anywhere else. To wit, every cut of beef served at the on-site steak joint, David Burke’s Primehouse, will come from a cow sired by a single 2,500-pound Kentucky bull, above. And “Prime,” as he’s known to his friends, is no ordinary stud—his USDA marbling score puts him in the top two percent of the 14,000-plus Angus bulls in the country. Suddenly the food at Asia de Cuba seems a little, well, effete.
James Chicago opens March 17, 555 East Ontario St., Chicago, (877) 526-3755, www.jameshotels.com/chicago, rooms from $250; David Burke's Primehouse, 616 N. Rush St., (312) 660-6000, www.brguestrestaurants.com.