In hindsight, Tuesday morning’s news that Milk Bar would finally arrive in Chicago shouldn’t be a surprise. A release blasted the news nationwide, an announcement befitting of Tosi’s stature. Milk Bar will take over the corner cafe in the Hoxton Chicago lobby at 200 N. Green Street sometime this winter.
For years, superstar baker Christina Tosi has teased Chicagoans as her crew at Milk Bar searched for a space. Milk Bar held pop-ups featuring the confection formerly known as Crack Pie — renamed in 2019 to the more pleasant Milk Bar Pie. As the furor over expansion cooled during the pandemic with the restaurant industry battling for survival, Milk Bar quietly set up a ghost bakery in Chicago where locals could order baked goods for delivery.
In a competitive market, Milk Bar protected its brand. They sued the owners of a River North venue in 2019, JoJo’s Milk Bar arguing the name confused customers into thinking the two were associated. JoJo’s ultimately rebranded to JoJo’s Shake Bar to avoid trademark infringement.
Milk Bar’s official arrival comes in the form of a partnership with Boka Restaurant Group, which manages Hoxton’s food and beverage operations. Boka has two restaurants in the hotel, Chris Pandel’s Cira on the first floor and Stephanie Izard’s Cabra on the rooftop, with a basement bar, Lazy Bird.
Cookies, cakes, pies, and truffles are some of Milk Bar’s offerings.Milk Bar
Milk Bar’s soft-serve ice cream is also available.Milk Bar
The Milk Bar menu will include cookies in flavors like cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow, confetti, and blueberry and cream. Look for cake truffles, and whole cakes and pies also available in slices. Soft-serve ice cream, like the popular cereal milk, milkshakes, and Milk Bar breads are also planned.
Founded in 2008, the chain counts 12 locations in Boston, LA, Las Vegas, New York, and Washington, D.C. Tosi is from Cleveland, and Chicago marks Milk Bar’s first shop in the Midwest. They’ve opened in hotels before including at the Ace in New York.
Milk Bar will also pander to locals; the release teases a Chicago-style hot dog iteration of their stuffed bagel specialty, called a Bagel Bomb. There’s also an upcoming cookie collaboration with a mysterious Chicago institution.
Boka and Tosi make for a powerful duo, one capable of opening opportunities not available to most. Chicago has no shortage of bakeries. Good Ambler, the bakery cafe run by the owners of Thalia Hall, is a few doors north of the Hoxton. Another national favorite, Levain — a New York-based chain known for its chunky cookies — debuted in Chicago in 2022 around the corner on Randolph Restaurant Row. Meanwhile, the space that once housed another bakery, Sugargoat, the sweet emporium from Boka partner Izard, remains vacant. At the Hoxton, Milk Bar will take advantage of hotel guests, which might limit competition and the surrounding impact. Milk Bar will also team with third-party delivery services.
The expansion is reminiscent of another national brand, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams — which has a nearby location on Randolph. Like Tosi, Jeni Britton Bauer is from Ohio (Columbus). Both Jeni’s and Milk Bar routinely draw long lines outside their stores. The two are also James Beard Award winners. Tosi has a pair of medallions, winning Rising Chef of The Year in 2012 and Oustanding Pastry Chef in 2015 while working for Momofuku in New York.
Milk Bar at the Hoxton, 200 N. Green Street, planned for a winter opening.
Measures in Springfield that would ban hemp-derived cannabis beverages in Illinois — a move that the state’s breweries say would have dealt a big blow to operations — did not go forward. That includes legislation that would have begun regulating delta-8 and other forms.
All parties involved, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker, say the issue will come up again during the next session — the growing industry needs rules, they argue. In the meantime, the summer should provide some data in terms of how popular THC-infused drinks can be in Illinois. Observers believe the state could generate larger sales — and tax dollars — compared to Minnesota. Minnesota, whose lawmakers have embraced the drinks, has become
THC drinks have been a lifeline for struggling breweries aiming to diversify revenue streams. Breweries say they were caught off guard by bills that were introduced to regulate the THC industry — actions they say they support — and then altered to crush their business. There’s the belief that no one wants the drinks truly banned, but larger players want to weed out smaller competitors that were first to market before introducing their own brands.
Security patrols backed by Boka, LEYE, and One Off start in West Loop
It’s been a year since news that some of Chicago’s major restaurant groups — Boka, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, and One Off Hospitality Group — were organizing to deploy private security patrols in West Loop and Fulton Market. The owners of restaurants including the Publican, Aba, and Girl & the Goat, have gotten their wish. Block Club Chicago reports P4 Security Solutions is working with the groups and patrol SUVs have been spotted outside the restaurants in those neighborhoods.
The restaurants are part of the Fulton Market District Improvement Association, and the patrols are “entirely funded by contributions from businesses and organizations.” Security guards carry handcuffs and are armed. Their shifts extend to 3 a.m., according to Block Club. Chicago police have launched nightlife or “entertainment patrols” in areas like Wicker Park and the Near West Side. P4 is supposed to augment that and serves Bucktown and Lincoln Park. Greektown is another area that has its own patrols.
Springfield keeps the tipped minimum wage
Observers who witnessed One Fair Wage’s efforts in Chicago to abolish the tipped minimum wage could see this building. Lawmakers in Springfield did not move forward with the measure to abolish the tipped minimum wage statewide, but the campaign is still going national. The National Restaurant Association, which earlier in May hosted its annual show in Chicago, is gearing up its opposition to the effort. After lawmakers finished their session in Springfield ended, the association sent a statement to Eater defending the tip credit (a government subsidiary fills in the gap, and allows restaurants to pay workers below the minimum wage) as a “win-win-win for tipped restaurant workers, restaurant operators, and customers.”
“This win for Illinois restaurants will help keep menu prices down and will protect the jobs and high-earning potential of tipped workers in vibrant Illinois restaurant communities,” a statement from NRA Executive Vice President for Public Affairs Sean Kennedy reads.
North Center diner closed after a Thursday fire
Irene’s Finer Diner in North Center is closed indefinitely after a fire on Thursday at 2012 W. Irving Park Road. The owners announced the news on Friday morning: “We’re deeply saddened to share that due to a recent fire, we are forced to close for further notice. We are very grateful that no one was harmed. We’ve put a lot of heart and sweat into this diner, and will keep you posted on when we can welcome you once again for breakfast.”
5419 N Sheridan Rd, Chicago, IL 60640 (773) 878-7340
A six-table restaurant in Seaside, Florida, named Lazy Daze Cafe is to blame. The 1991 restaurant opening was the first from Kevin Boehm, who 12 years later would, along with Rob Katz, go on to establish Boka Restaurant Group. Boehm, then a University of Illinois student, was encouraged to drop out to pursue his dreams by his future famous writer roommate, Dave Eggers.
“It was a two-person operation: myself and my girlfriend at the time, Theresa. Small menu, small wine list, centered around fresh fish from the gulf, a few pastas, sandwiches, and salads at lunch,” says Boehm. I’ve always thought of it as my bachelor’s and master’s education in restaurants, as every responsibility rested on both our shoulders.”
Boehm went on to open other spots, including Indigo in Springfield, before meeting Katz, a Vancouver, British Columbia, native who moved to Chicago to work in the trading pits. Katz became a nightlife impresario, opening up places like the Elbo Room in Lakeview.
Katz wanted to leave nightclubs and Boehm wanted an in to the Chicago restaurant market. The two met through mutual friends in 2002 in Old Town. “We sat for coffee at Nookies, and the meeting was supposed to be 15 minutes. We sat for four hours. We just clicked instantly, felt the same way about hospitality and food, and were both big believers that design was a huge part of the puzzle. We basically shrugged our shoulders and said, ‘Let’s do one. What’s the worst that could happen?’” says Boehm.
Boka Restaurant Group’s Rob Katz (left) and Kevin Boehm.Boka Restaurant Group/Anthony Tahlier
Boehm and Katz were once very much like the ex-GM of their beloved Chicago Cubs, Theo Epstein. Like with Epstein, who won two World Series championships with the Boston Red Sox and one with the Cubs, Boka’s success came in identifying unknown and undervalued top-level talent like Giuseppe Tentori, Lee Wolen, and Gene Kato. Now Boehm and Katz mostly partner with big-name celebrity chefs like Stephanie Izard, Michael Solomonov, and most recently, although it didn’t work out as planned, Daniel Rose.
The real hidden feather in their cap is partnership with designers like Karen Herold of Studio K Creative, as well as AvroKO, who create interiors that beget immersive experiences. Through this formula, Katz and Boehm have earned reputations as empire builders.
The following is a ranking of the restaurants that make up Katz and Boehm’s Chicago empire, from 2003 to present (though their influence now extends to New York and Los Angeles, with noteworthy spots like Laser Wolf Brooklyn and Girl & the Goat LA). We also stuck to restaurants, thus omitting Lazy Bird, Boka’s cocktail bar in the Hoxton hotel. Whether the contender is one of Boka’s OG stalwarts or its clubbier offerings, the paramount criteria for the rankings below was food quality followed by the level of commitment to experiential design and/or original style.
Deciding which of Boka’s stellar lineup of chefs is the greatest is kind of like asking which Avenger is the best. They’re almost impossible to separate. However, if someone put a Global cleaver to my jugular and made me pick, I’m probably choosing Lee Wolen. Wolen is a student of culinary history and a veteran of Eleven Madison Park. Though he runs a three-star restaurant (by choice) in Boka, many of his plates are four-star prix fixe-level studies in impeccable technique. From chefs Meg Galus to Kim Mok, the pastry program at Boka has also always offered a double threat unmatched by almost any other place in town save Daisies (whose chef Joe Frillman worked at two shuttered Boka restaurants, Perennial Virant in Old Town and Balena in Lincoln Park).
Pairing it with a Top Chef and Iron Chef champion like Izard would make McDonald’s a first-tier restaurant. Adding in Boehm and Katz’s business and service acumen and Herold’s creative interiors made G&TG the real inflection point of Boka’s rise in Chicago, and maybe the launching pad for its current celebrity chef-driven multimarket restaurant domination.
The smoky wood-fired oven, which churns out first-class bread you don’t mind being charged for, and the flame-charred walls make you feel like you’re eating inside a Pappy Van Winkle bourbon barrel. I’ve been to Girl & the Goat many times and it seems like I wait months or years between visits. But every time I return to a platter of wood oven-roasted pig face glistening with red wine and maple syrup, gooey with the remains of a breached sunny side egg, I wonder why I waited. At almost 14 years old, few local spots — save sister restaurant Boka, or Alinea and Avec — have stayed on top of their game for so long.
Generally, after you’re assaulted by the pomp and circumstance of a well-designed restaurant, the luster often wears off. Stick around a while and you start inspecting a dining room, notice the smoke alarms, the exit signs, and the cheap paint. You start to feel like you’re in a fake set piece.
Momotaro, though, is more than a restaurant. It’s a story. It’s not reality per se. Certainly never in history has a Japanese salaryman’s office/sushi bar/ 1960s airport lounge as frequented by Don Draper ever existed. And yet, the attention to detail, the pen stroke graffiti in the bathrooms, the bar menu — a vintage split-flap airport departures/arrivals style display — makes up a world so unique that it feels real.
On my first visits, the hot food was the thing, but on subsequent visits, the sushi execution finally caught up with the vision. Silky lithe scrims of toro blanket plump toothsome grains of rice. Outside the city’s omakase stylings there may be no finer place for raw fish in Chicago. Girl & the Goat may have made the empire, but Momotaro is the spot that put Boehm and Katz on par with the best of the mega-restaurateurs.
4. Alla Vita, 564 W. Randolph Street, (312) 667-0104
Alla Vita/Anthony Tahlier
There are hundreds of Italian restaurants in Chicago, but most are of the multigenerational-owned, Frank-Sinatra-got-hammered-in-this-very-booth, red-sauce variety. At Alla Vita, Lee Wolen brings a top chef’s eye to the cuisine, elevating beyond fried calamari with pillowy ricotta gnudi dripping in cacio e pepe cream. You also likely won’t find a more beautiful or stylish dining crowd in Chicago, a reflection of the sleek space that features hanging gardens and gauzy undulating lanterns that mimic the blazing energy weaving through the room.
I remember running over as fast as I could when GT Prime’s namesake Giuseppe Tentori took over the kitchen at Boka after he left as chef de cuisine of Charlie Trotter’s. Tentori had spent nine years working for Trotter, which, based on its exacting standards, is like spending 100 years in most other kitchens. Few, except maybe Matthias Merges, had put in that much time at Trotter’s and lived to tell the story with a great second act.
But Tentori dusted off his shoulder and rode his bicycle/pasta machine, aka “The Black Stallion,” to glory at Boka and then at GT Fish & Oyster. Prime, which features the coolest taxidermy in Chicago (the oryx and sable antelope mounted in the front vestibule are nicknamed Chuck and Tenderloin, respectively) is Tentori’s true masterpiece. At Prime, Tentori took the steakhouse to a clientele beyond expense account folks who buy Louis Vuitton trunks by the busload. By curating small cuts of Japanese A5 wagyu and prime strip loin and mixing them in with silky tagliatelle or world-class lasagna, Tentori made a meat emporium a welcoming place for all real food enthusiasts again. As a bonus (ever since his other spot GT Fish & Oyster closed), you might even find its legendary clam chowder as a special here.
6. Cabra at the Hoxton hotel, 200 N. Green Street, (312) 761-1717
Boka Restaurant Group
The first time I ate at chef Izard’s Cabra, I thought it was some kind of time warp from the 1980s. Everyone on staff seemed to be wearing acid-washed mom jeans. The food wasn’t quite of the era, but it was inconsistent relative to Tanta, the superior Peruvian choice in River North. Since then, a tightening of the menu, focusing on mouthwatering ceviche and delightful chorizo queso dip, has created an infusion of new energy that allowed the brand to extend to Los Angeles.
Duck Duck GoatAnthony Tahlier/Boka Restaurant Group
My love for Izard’s mashup of authentic and American Chinese is deep and endless. Were this a roundup of my subjective personal favorite Boka restaurants, it might be ranked higher. But in this ranking I’m looking for a superior mix of food quality, interior design, innovation, influence, and service, and the food quality and consistency at Duck Duck Goat has wavered in recent years, as with the recent receipt of a soggy Chongqing chicken. Still, as a regular diner, I just want to have fun, and DDG’s set-piece decor makes me feel like I’ve been dropped into Spielberg’s Shanghai in Indiana Jones. (No time for love, Dr. Jones!) And that environment still gives me pure delight.
8. Swift & Sons,1000 W. Fulton Market, (312) 733-9420
Swift & SonsBarry Brecheisen/Eater Chicago
This might be the best-designed of all the Boka restaurants. While I love the story of the Japanese salaryman told through Momotaro, I am foremost a Chicagoan — a faithful denizen of this former hog butcher to the world, one who screams “Da Bears!” and all that. Which is to say, my belly is often full of pork and my mind is truly raptured by the stories of the all-time local greats like Algren, Burnham, Sullivan, Wright, and Gustavus Swift.
The vestibule of this place looks like the abandoned offices of Swift, the great meatpacking magnate, and the interior simultaneously conjures the elegance of the Titanic ballroom and the corporate art deco aesthetic of the Coen Brothers’ The Hudsucker Proxy. You can almost smell the aftershave dripping off the leather bench seating. Though it is the most “steakhouse” of all the Boka restaurants, chef Chris Pandel doesn’t just give you a simple baked potato bigger than a T. rex egg. He’s putting out bacon-larded and horseradish cream-spiked potato and ricotta-stuffed pierogies that would make most babcias jealous. There is creamed spinach on offer, but also chile crisp- and gojuchang aioli-spiked roast brussels sprouts, which is to say, just like GT Prime, Swift & Sons is not a Gibsons knockoff.
9. Cira, inside the Hoxton hotel, 200 N. Green Street, (312) 761-1777
Boka Restaurant Group/Galdones Photography
Hotel restaurants demand all-day rigor, and few chefs are up to the challenge like Chris Pandel. The Hoxton hotel has become a coworking and de facto meeting spot for me over the last few years, and while the central location and comfy lobby play a role, it’s mostly because I know Cira’s gonna sate my cravings any time of day. If it’s early morning, there’s a perfect shakshuka waiting to break my fast. If it’s lunchtime, I’m digging into the crisp cumin- and coriander-perfumed falafel. If work is done and a celebration dinner is in order, I’m ordering a bowl of pistachio ravioli roofed with crisp breadcrumbs and gilded with saffron orange butter.
10. Itoko, 3326 N. Southport Avenue, (773) 819-7672
ItokoBoka Restaurant Group
I can count maybe a handful of dishes I still think about months after I visited a restaurant, but Gene Kato’s octopus at Itoko — a carpaccio flayed out like a giant hibiscus blossom and sprinkled with shiso and red onion slivers, then drizzled with the lifting acidity of ponzu — is one of them. If you’re looking for pristine sushi or perfectly toasted nori hand rolls bulging with king crab in an informal setting, Itoko is the spot in Lakeview.
The Izakaya under Momotaro in Fulton Market has that hidden speakeasy vibe. Even though it’s not invite-only like the Aviary’s the Office, or hidden behind a graffiti wall as with the Violet Hour, like both those spots, Izakaya is a windowless lair where time seems to stand still. You can drink and drink and drink with friends, and even better, sop it up with salty snacks like sweet soy-pepper glazed tebasaki wings or a big bowl of chicken curry. The design magic of AvroKO is in full force, as the space feels the kind of place John Wick might stop by to plot his next assassination over shots of sake.
Stroller parent-friendly salads and crispy chicken sandwiches are usually the domain of a Chick-fil-A, not a super chef like Wolen. But add in perfect mahogany-crusted rotisserie chicken and incredible consistency, and this might be one of Boka’s most dependable and delicious spots. The only thing keeping it from ranking higher is its informal nature.
13. Little Goat, 3325 N. Southport Avenue, (773) 819-7673
Little Goat Diner has moved to Lakeview.Boka Restaurant Group/Keni Rosales
In the move from the more spacious OG location on Randolph, Little Goat lost square footage, but gained more character. The new vibe, a kind of retro Fonzie-meets-midcentury modern, is actually more creative than the original. But what it’s gained in design, it’s lost in consistency of service and food quality. Stick to Izard’s classics like the This Little Piggy, a sesame cheddar egg biscuit sandwich stuffed with Sichuan pork sausage, or the okonomiyaki packed with bacon and bonito crunch, and you’ll still be satisfied.
Swift & Sons Tavern is across from Wrigleyville.Swift & Sons Tavern
Except for the nearby Mordecai, this is probably one of the best restaurants in Wrigleyville. Then again, that’s a lot like being the tallest kindergartener: Everything is relative to the competition. Thronged on Cubs game days, service sometimes suffers. Not as serious as its brother, the bigger original Swift, informal eats like fried cheese curds or an Italian beef stuffed with shaved rib-eye are the moves here.
820 W Randolph Street, Chicago, IL 60607 312 888 3455
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