Chestnut Street Inn Restaurant

You'll be hard-pressed to find a more impressive meal in central Illinois than the one you'll have at the Chestnut Street Inn in tiny Sheffield. Monika Sudakov, a professional dancer turned gourmet chef, uses in-season ingredients to craft a unique menu that changes daily based on what's available from local farms and where her whim carries her. Patrons pay a flat $27 fee for a four-course meal (five, if you include her wonderful homemade bread, which also changes daily). What's on the menu? It could be harira soup, roasted pepper and tomato soup, chicken tangine with dried apricots and chickpeas, sausage-stuffed mushrooms with white truffle oil, filet mignon with Hollandaise sauce and orange blossom crme brulee. Meals are served in the sunroom of a magnificent old mansion, which operates as a bed-and-breakfast. You dine while looking out at a beautiful expanse of manicured lawn and, in the summer, a stunning wildflower garden.