Leopold (1450 W. Chicago, 312-348-1028, leopoldchicago.com), a new Belgian-inspired restaurant, opened in West Town on Tuesday. Chef Jeffrey Hedin (Spring, Green Zebra, the Bristol) has a reasonably priced menu of dishes like moules frites, oysters, house-made sausage, and steak tartare, plus some slightly more expensive entrees like pan-roasted dorade or beef short ribs. As you might expect, the beer selection will be focused on Belgians, but in the opening days the restaurant will be BYO while awaiting its liquor license. “If all goes well, they should have it within a week,” says publicist Jennifer Galdes.
Chef Sarah Stegner has announced the formation of the “Sarah Stegner Resolution Club.” From January 17 through 27, she’ll be offering three diet-friendly meals a day at her West Loop restaurant Prairie Fire. “We are not open officially for breakfast but if you want to stop in and sit at the bar for a healthy breakfast you can join me!” she writes. The cost for all ten days is $500, but a la carte meals are also available—for example, day one’s breakfast of an egg-white omelet with River Valley Ranch mushrooms, Capriole Farm goat cheese, and a side of grilled onions ($10).
Le Passage has closed and will be reopening under a different concept, though The Drawing Room—whose mixologist Charles Joly won $100,000 on the reality show On the Rocks in November—remains open and will continue to operate, now as a separate establishment.
Patty’s Diner, the Skokie restaurant that was the Reader‘s pick for Best Diner in 2009, closed on December 31 after 20 years—and months of announcing its closure, which was originally going to take place in May. According to a November 28 post on LTHForum, however, owner Patty Tunk may not be out of the business for good: “I have it on good authority (that is, Patty herself) that after a period of R&R our favorite “female grill cook” 😉 plans to look for a new place, perhaps a smaller one, in a better location than the current Patty’s Diner. Let’s hope she finds just the right spot!”
Also closed: Opera, which is reportedly going to reopen as a gastropub; the Wicker Park location of Adobo Grill; Spring; and Eve, which plans to reopen as “something new” in February.