Interior Motives
Our fourth-annual design tour of new Chicago restaurants
By Kate Harrigan
Chicago is one of the world’s great food towns, and anyone who hadn’t visited in a while has some serious dining to catch up on. Innovative eateries – feasts for all the senses – continue to inspire and delight. As the Windy City’s chefs sharpen their knives in preparation for the gastronomic spree that surrounds the annual visit of the National Restaurant Association (May 19-22) our tour of the city’s most intriguing new eateries is designed to help readers fill their dance cards. Call now to make reservations.
Molive
The Whitehall Hotel
107 E. Delaware Pl.
(312) 573-6300
Pull up in front of Chicago’s venerable Whitehall Hotel on Delaware Place and turn your chariot over to the liveried doorman. A tall gent in a cloak escorts you down narrow hallways and through silent sitting rooms where the ghosts of empire builders speak in low voices. One can almost feel a young nation flexing its muscle.
Then turn a corner and look into Molive. You’re greeted by an enchanting pastel school of Lalique fish. Beyond, dark paneling whispers of the past, but the walls are decorated not with portraits of stern city leaders, but rather with romantic paintings of Latin couples dining and laughing.Miami-based designer Kathy Kessler’s interior is a distinct departure from the traditional hotel dining room, a contemporary Californian/Mediterranean restaurant worlds removed from the steak-and-martini comfort of what went before. The main dining room is a companionable June/December marriage. The original paneling and a stunning recessed ceiling have been saved, but play off a jungle pattern that begins on the carpet and is carried onto banquettes topped with fanciful flashes of fake fur. Black and gold linens cover tables accented with oversized martini glasses.It isn’t until you step onto the terrace, however – a glass jewel box illuminated by tiny colored pin lights and set directly on the Magnificent Mile – that the journey from 19th-century to 21st-century Chicago is complete. Take a seat and savor Chef de Cuisine Janine Falvo’s hickory-encrusted New York strip with mushroom quiche, toast the whimsical mannequin/waiter who presides over the terrace, and enjoy one of the best seats on North Michigan Avenue.NoMI
Park Hyatt Hotel
800 N. Michigan Ave.
(312) 335-1234
A few blocks down the Magnificent Mile and seven floors up, NoMI (the name is derived from the hotel’s prestigious North Michigan Avenue address) is doing its own part to reshape diners’ expectations of the hotel restaurant. The air here is more rarefied than breezy – Executive Chef Sandro Gamba’s cuisine is elegant rather than playful. But designer Tony Chi, of New York-based Tony Chi and Associates, has created a space that is as comfortable as it is elegant, and where diners are encouraged to relax, to explore, to experience.
Entering NoMI, you pass through the wine cellar. There, if you’re lucky, the sommelier will offer a taste of a wine he is introducing. Beyond lies the lounge – second in the series of interlocking rooms that offer dramatic views of Chicago’s Gold Coast. Bolivian rosewood and Italian marble mosaic tiles make the floors almost as captivating as the view. The work of local and internationally renowned artists fills the dining rooms and lounges, as well as a dramatic art gallery that is available for receptions.Seated in the main dining room, it is difficult to decide where to direct your attention. The view of Chicago’s famous Water Tower, immediately in front of the huge bay window, is impossible to ignore, but so is the dramatic open kitchen, sufficiently set back to be discreet while allowing the diner to feel the excitement of the kitchen.Gamba says the comfortable elegance of the space reflects his French-inspired cuisine. “I want the food to be as simple as possible to understand,” he says. “We are tying to do something new for this kind of hotel, offering high-quality food and service while still making the guests comfortable – not making them intimidated. Here, they can take off their ties and enjoy themselves.”NAHA
500 N. Clark St.
(312) 321-6242
The walk across NAHA’s dining room feels like a stroll through a cool forest. Perhaps it’s the tremendous height of the ceiling, the screens of living grasses that separate one part of the room from another, or the way sunlight filters through the mesh blinds. The feeling here is barefoot, and the temptation is to slip your shoes off under the table.
“We didn’t want a cookie-cutter restaurant,” says Chef/owner Carrie Nahabedian. “Nothing here comes out of a catalogue.” NAHA is a family endeavor – owned by Nahabedian and her cousin, Michael Nahabedian, and designed by Michael’s brother, Tom Nahabedian, whose attention to detail extends to custom-designed wine caddies. “Tom feels no detail is too small, no matter how large the restaurant,” Chef Nahabedian says.The space is generous, free of pretension. The reception area is dominated by a huge banquette fronted by leather ottomans and dotted with large pillows. The room sweeps gracefully around a wide bend that houses the bar and opens onto the dining room. Huge windows give onto the surrounding Courthouse District, perpetuating the feeling of being outdoors. Sweeping sage drapes, made by Jane Culligan, wife of Tom Nahabedian, save the room from even a hint of urban loft. Small pots dot the lounge tables, filled not with blossoms but with plants from the forest floor. “It’s more about the plant than the flowers,” Chef Nahabedian says.The clean open space allows one to concentrate on Nahabedian’s cuisine, which is influenced by her Armenian roots as well as by years spent on the West Coast. “Working in California has really developed the seasonal aspect of my cooking,” she says, “but the flavors of the Mediterranean stand in my mind very vividly, and are always very much a part of my personal cooking style.”Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab
60 E. Grand Ave.
(312) 379-5637
There are evenings for the finest French cuisine, savored while gazing at the Chicago skyline, and others for sampling Mediterranean fare on city streets. There are times when one craves what is comfortable and luscious and indulgent. And then it is time for Joe’s – a Miami institution successfully grafted onto the shores of Lake Michigan.
Here, servers in tuxedos glide past tables and booths large enough to accommodate the generous servings they will be called on to hold. Designer David Rockwell, of the Chicago design firm The Rockwell Group, collaborated with Aria, also of Chicago, to create a large but embracing space. Dark paneling and seafarers’ lanterns hint of an old East Coast seafood house, while mirrors, warm lighting and big-band music lift the spirits. “This place is all about making people feel like regulars on their first visit,” says Executive Sous Chef Tim Beres.The original Joe’s grew from a turn-of-the-century beach shack to a 400-seat seafood legend on the strength of its succulent stone crabs. But when Chicago-based ICON LLC and Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, Inc. teamed to bring the concept to Chicago, the Midwestern tradition of great steaks seemed an appropriate addition to the original seafood menu. The combination is pure extravagance.Executive Chef Gary Baca’s steaks are accompanied by hash browns, a vinegar cole slaw and exceptional grilled tomatoes. The stone crabs, dipped in Joe’s delicate signature mustard sauce, are a treat for Midwesterners, and the Key Lime pie can hold its own against Florida’s best. “There aren’t a lot of bells and whistles,” Beres says. “It’s just the best food, simply prepared, and excellent service.”Kit Kat Lounge
3700 N. Halsted St.
(773) 525-1111
Least any visitor leave the city with the impression that all great Chicago restaurants are situated within a few blocks of the North Branch of the Chicago River, we wind up this culinary tour several miles up the lakefront – a journey in attitude as well as in city blocks.
At the Kit Kat Lounge, one is more likely to encounter a female impersonator than a server in a tuxedo, and the atmosphere is funk rather than finery. But Executive Chef Patrick Weise’s Caribbean-influenced cuisine is inspired, and with 28 varieties of “martini” to choose from, the toddle back downtown will be a lark.Like Joe’s – which serves as the northern outpost for its Miami inspiration – the Kit Kat Lounge was hatched in warmer climes. The concept is rooted in Puerto Vallarta, and Weise’s orange/tomato/ginger soup is as sweet as a Mexican breeze. Follow it with a “martini” made with vodka, banana liqueur, and cranberry, pineapple and orange juices.Weise describes the cuisine as “electric rather than eclectic.” He plays with Asian, French and Indian flavors, surprising the sweet with the hot and aiming always for the unexpected. The restaurant, with its white-leather banquettes, huge round mirrors and sleek modern bar, was designed by Guy Cody Design Build. It is the perfect stage for Weise’s energetic cuisine. The room is as electric as the food and this is not a place to sit back and relax but rather to sit up and take notice, and perhaps sample a martini that would shake up James Bond.Chef magainze, May 2001
