New Restaurants
New Nightspots
| Name |
Address |
City |
Phone |
| Cru Cafe & Wine Bar |
25 E. Delaware Pl. |
Chicago |
312-337-4001 |
| Eno |
505 N. Michigan Ave. |
Chicago |
312-321-8738 |
| Pops for Champagne |
601 N. State St. |
Chicago |
312-266-7677 |
| winebar |
3339 N. Halsted St. |
Chicago |
773-871-6227 |
Coming Soon
Coal Fire
Thin-crust pizza of the New Haven, Connecticut, variety will be the specialty of this Near West BYOB coming to 1321 W. Grand Avenue in the New Year.
Frill
HB's Hearty Boys are on a roll, opening this romantic, retro supper club with small plates and live music this spring in Lakeview (3819 North Broadway).
Good Deals and Other News
A Twinkle in Trotter's Eye
Word is out that Charlie Trotter will helm two restaurants, one fine dining and the other all-day casual, in The Elysian, a posh new Gold Coast hotel slated for an October 2008 opening at 11 E. Walton Place. Trotter will also handle the hotel's in-suite dining, spa cuisine and banquets.
Now serves a Sunday brunch buffet with live jazz accompaniment (6 AM–2 PM; $13.95 per adult, $6.95 per child under 12).
Eno
Luxuriate on the finer things in life at this new Mag Mile lounge in the InterContinental Chicago (505 N. Michigan Ave.; 312-321-8738) where cheese and chocolate are temperature-controlled and served on marble slabs, with pairing choices from a 500-bottle wine list.
Encouraging families to stop in for dinner (4–9 PM), all entrees on Sundays include complimentary soup or salad, coffee or tea and dessert.
This upscale vegetarian innovator takes another step forward with a new menu of intriguing nonalcoholic beverages including dill lemonade, walnut soda, pink-peppercorn-thyme soda and carrot-ginger ale.
Celebrates National Soup Month throughout January with soup flights – three mini-soups for $6.95. Single samples are available for $2.95 each (Chicago, 773-348-8886; Oak Brook, 630-472-1900).
Takashi Yagihashi: The James Beard Award–winning chef whose background includes Ambria and acclaimed Detroit-area restaurant Tribute has opened a noodle stand on the seventh floor of Macy's (111 N. State St., 312-781-4483), in good company with nearby Frontera and La Brea Bakery feeding stations. Yagihashi's long-range plan is to open fine-dining Restaurant Takashi later this year.
Having closed for its annual "hibernation" and cleaning on New Year's Day, Bruce Sherman's New American reopens on January 18th for its ninth year of service.
Runs its annual crabfest all month long at both locations (Chicago, 312-527-2722; Schaumburg, 847-517-2722), with specials including a family-style crab dinner of New England clam chowder, Dungeness crab, Alaska king crab and Maryland-style crab cakes with sides and Key lime pie ($39.95 per person). There's also a two-pound Dungeness dinner with sides ($29.95 per person).
Souk
The original Market District branch (1240 W. Randolph St.) of this Middle Eastern eatery is reopening this month.
Post-holiday blahs got you down? Live dangerously by dining on fugu – blowfish that is potentially lethal if not prepared properly. Through the end of February, this Lincoln Park Japanese is serving fugu sashimi ($29.95), fugu nabe casserole ($22.50) and fugu sake ($10), a piece of dried blowfish that's torched in hot sake. With two Japanese-licensed fugu chefs, Tsuki is the only restaurant that serves this kind of fish in the Midwest, according to New York's Tora Fugu Buyer Association.