“The final we are very confident will be the most attended women’s rugby match in history, easily surpassing the 66,000 crowd that we saw in Paris 2024. I can confirm today that the final at the Allianz [Twickenham] Stadium will be sold out,” Women’s RWC 2025 chair Gill Whitehead told reporters.
Whitehead, recalling the last time England hosted the event in 2010, when the final was staged at the nearby Twickenham Stoop, the home of London club Harlequins, added: “The last time England hosted the Women’s Rugby World Cup, the girls played [the final] at the Stoop around the corner to a crowd of 13,000.
“I started playing women’s rugby 30 years ago and the prospect of girls running out of the tunnel, playing to the three tiers of the Allianz packed to the rafters is something perhaps I never hoped or thought I would see and it’s certainly what girls’ dreams are made of.”
England’s Red Roses have lost only once in their past 58 matches – a defeat by New Zealand in the Covid-delayed 2022 World Cup final.
Yet they have lost five of the past six World Cup finals to New Zealand, with 2014 – when England beat Canada in the showpiece match – their most recent global 15-a-side title.
Even though New Zealand and England have monopolised the final in recent editions, tournament managing director Sarah Massey said the tournament would be “unmissable” for fans of the sport.
“We’re ready to break records in attendances, viewership and engagement. This is going to be the biggest global celebration of women’s rugby that we have ever seen.
“We’re really pleased today to be able to announce that we’ve now sold 375,000 tickets across all those matches, surpassing all our initial ticket targets and really showing what this tournament is going to bring.
“That’s three times the number of tickets that were sold for the last Women’s Rugby World Cup. Our message to fans is, don’t miss out. This is going to be unmissable.”
Matches will also be held in Brighton, Bristol, Exeter, Northampton, Salford and York.
But the massive renovations (they might as well have burned sage, ridding any sign of LaSalle Power Co.’s existence inside the 16,500-square-foot space) betray any humility. Huw Gott and Will Beckett carry confidence that Chicago, home of steakhouses such as Gibsons and Maple & Ash, will leave their palace of beef enamored; Beckett says Hawksmoor is the steakhouse of choice for fans of Michelin-starred and Beard-winning restaurants, and that matters in Chicago, the home of The Bear and the Beards. Hawksmoor encountered a similar environment when they debuted in New York in 2021. In a piece in February, Eater NY’s Robert Siestema called Hawksmoor “the anti-Peter Luger,” citing the menu’s variety, writing that diners could easily assemble a quality meal by using only starters and sides. Gott expounds on the menu’s variety. They have a vegetarian version of beef Wellington, made with cheese, plus oyster and shitake mushroom duxelles: “We want everyone who comes to be able to eat really well,” Gott says.
Hawksmoor
Hawksmoor
Hawksmoor
The charcoal comes from West Virginia.
Hawksmoor isn’t advertising where their beef is sourced, but it’s dry-aged Gott and Beckett ensure they’re doing the needed work to build relationships with local purveyors; the aforementioned veggie Wellington uses cheese from a Wisconsin dairy farm, for example. The steaks, including a 44-ounce Chateaubriand, are cooked over charcoal. The fries are cooked in tallow. Brunch and lunch service are on their way. Gott even teases that Chicago could experience the English tradition of a Sunday roast eventually.
Downtown restaurant owners are excited about Hawkmoor’s arrival — they’ve pegged Thursday, June 27 as the opening day. Restaurateur Sam Sanchez, known for John Barleycorn and Point & Feather, says it’s time to bring some electricity back downtown, something the pandemic sapped from River North and the Loop. Beckett has been commuting back and forth from England, overseeing the project, and has brought over key personnel from New York and other locations.
Gott and Becket have carved out a niche in the U.K., with some restaurant owners there asking for advice when it comes to international expansion. The friends have known each other since they were six years old and there’s a playful needling between them, reminiscent of a friendlier Statler and Waldorf. It’s apparent when Gott delves into the history of the space as the LaSalle Street Cable Car Powerhouse. He lights up, much to the chagrin of Beckett who bides his time before labeling him as a nerd: “I’ve got transit geek sides of my personality… my dad’s a train man,” Gott admits.
Visitors will see curved ceilings reminiscent of train cars, a green and white color scheme honoring old CTA branding, and light fixtures that bring back vintage times. Beckett calls his partner obsessive, taking days to research what could appear as minutiae to commoners. But those touches help elevate the dynamics of their dining rooms.
But to Hawksmoor’s credit, they backed away from building their restaurant around the history of the city’s stockyards. That’s low-hanging fruit to lean in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Hawkmoor is a fully realized concept that’s seen success in England, New York, Dublin, and Edinburgh. Gott talks about the history of Beefsteak Clubs, male-dominated groups that surfaced in the 19th century. The words “Beef and Liberty ‘’ hang above the second-floor bar, a 76-seat dining room that can also be rented out for private events — including “beefsteaks” — a reference to a kind of secret society that would gather, and — you guessed it — nosh on steak. Beef and Liberty was a slogan that dates back to the 1700s. That nod to history doesn’t mean that Hawksmoor is interested in recreating the era. Beckett proudly admits that the customers who fill their seats aren’t just white guys posting steak videos on social media. They’re embracing a come-as-you-are environment and hope the first floor attracts happy hour revelers, though Beckett concedes “happy hour” has a different meaning in England where there are better drink specials. It just means post-work drinks in America, and that’s in part to local lawmakers.
This is the second-floor dining room.Hawksmoor
Note the ceiling with curves to look like a transit car.Hawksmoor
There are other differences. The dessert menu will be called just that (it’s referred to as a pudding menu in England). Hawksmoor is proud of their cocktails and for the Chicago crowd, they’re serving up a negroni-inspired beverage made with Jeppson’s Malört.
Entering the restaurant space that once offered macaroni and cheese allegedly based on a recipe from Jordan’s wife at the time, the Gott found a way to pay homage. The third floor features two private event rooms. One of those, a 22-seat space, is called the Big Mike. Plainly, it’s a reference to a champion-winning cattle cow. But basketball superfans can embrace the name as the reason the city held annual summer parties in Grant Park in the ‘90s.
Chicago has already influenced the chain. Beckett says they’re serving an Italian beef sandwich at locations in the U.K. When asked if it would be authentic, with the proper giardiniera and sliced thin, he smiles.
“The best thing, you see, you won’t know,” Beckett says with a wink.
However, starting next week, Chicagoans won’t need to board a plane to visit Hawksmoor. Then they’ll have tangible proof of whether the British steakhouse is worthy of No. 23 or if it needs a jolt of electricity.
Hawksmoor, 500 N. LaSalle Drive, opening, Thursday, June 27, reservations via OpenTable.
Since late April, Next Restaurant, run by the Alinea Group, has celebrated Bobby Flay’s first restaurant and channeled the ‘90s spirit that made Mesa Grill a hit in New York City. The restaurant opened in 1991 when Flay was 25.
Alinea Chef Grant Achatz has touted Flay as one of his influences. Mesa Grill was where Achatz first dined during a maiden trip to Manhattan. A Las Vegas location would open in 2004 inside the Caesars Palace casino; it closed in 2020. Achatz hails Flay as one of the first chefs, along with Brendan Walsh, the chef at New York’s Arizona 206, to bring Southwestern cuisine to the masses.
“Looking back now, nearly 30 years later, it is easy to see the similarities of approach our food at The Alinea Group has with that out-of-the-box, risk-taking, new style that chef Flay (helped) introduce to the American culinary scene,” Achatz writes to Eater.
Achatz adds: “Pre-Internet and culinary globalization, most Americans had never been exposed to the ingredients and techniques featured in his dishes, as French was still the dominating cuisine in American fine dining. The deeply flavored layering of chilies, blue corn, tamales, empanadas, mole — and even margaritas — were still not common.”
Flay dined at Next earlier in May and enjoyed the trip down memory lane. 2024 is the year of the tribute for Next, which honored Julia Child in January. Chicago’s own Charlie Trotter will be featured from September through the end of the year. Next will embrace the Mesa Grill motif until September 1. The common thread for the trio is TV and food.
While Child may have pioneered the role of TV chef, Flay’s presence shows an evolution with the birth of Food Network. He’s brought Next a different sort of attention — Flay’s fans flying into Chicago from across the country for another taste of Mesa Grill. Achatz mentions Flay’s role in “educating and influencing so many home cooks at a critical time in American eating.”
The Alinea Group’s co-founder Nick Kokonas tells Eater that Flay was flattered and graciously gave them his blessing. They considered titling their effort “Next: Mesa Grill” but weren’t sure if most Americans make the connection to the celebrity chef without Flay’s name in the title.
“We emailed him and had a conversation about Mesa Grill and the fact that it was hugely impactful for the industry, but a bit lost to history because of all of the TV work he has done,” Kokonas writes. “He said he was honored that we wanted to focus on his cuisine and he’d let us do the menu without any strings attached — and he’s been very generous with his time, opinions, and historical documentation of the Mesa Grill recipes and ideas.”
Achatz says Flay encouraged the staff at Next to “take some liberties” with their menu: “It was important to both of us that we show some of TAG’s fingerprints within the foundation of his food,” Achatz says. “We were very careful to make sure the flavor profiles and backbone of all the dishes represented on the menu had all the touchstones of the originals.”
The menu provides opportunities for fans to enjoy nostalgia while giving younger diners a chance to see what made chefs like Flay household names.
“I would say that all food and travel-related TV programs raise awareness, education, and create passion within the viewers for food and beverage,” Achatz writes. “This creates and continually builds the group of people that make traveling to dine out a hobby, thereby making our restaurants busier.”
“Getting people curious, educated, comfortable and excited to experience restaurants through TV is a fantastic commercial for all hospitality regardless of the specific theme of the show.”
A South Side icon is taking up residence a few doors west from a shuttered Foxtrot in Wicker Park. The Original Rainbow Cone, the parlor known for sliced — not scooped — ice cream is opening a North Side location.
The opening date is Tuesday, May 21 at 1750 W. Division Street. Rainbow Cone displaced Wicker Park’s coffee shop Caffe Streets, which had been in operation for 13 years. The interiors have been painted over pink and the sidewalk patio has been revamped. With Kurimu and VinnyD’s (the latter could reopen in June), there are plenty of options for frosty treats in the area.
The South Side’s iconic Rainbow Cone is opening in Wicker Park.Ashok Selvam/Eater Chicago
The thought of the South Side staple, one that’s been around for 98 years, opening on the North Side was unthinkable until 2019 when Rainbow Cone partnered with Buona, the famous Chicago street food chain that specializes in Italian beef. The goal was to expand throughout Chicago and the country. The company opened a few locations in the suburbs after teasing customers by having an ice cream truck parked and ready to serve outside selected Buona locations. Long lines formed and ownership saw there was a demand.
A second location opened in 2016 at Navy Pier. In March, the partnership announced plans to open 10 locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. There are also plans for Michigan, Florida, and California.
The Rainbow is not only extending throughout the country, but it’s adding new flavors. For the first time in the parlor’s nearly 100 years, ownership is added to the menu. Look for four new options, according to a news release: Chocolate Obsession, Cosmic Birthday, Minty City, and Orange Dream. These flavors join the core orange sherbet, pistachio, Palmer House, strawberry, and chocolate. Together, like the glow from the Care Bear Stare or the rings from Captain Planet’s Planeteers, these five flavors form a rainbow.
The Lunar Calendar may read that this is the Year of the Dragon, but so far in Chicago it looks like theYearoftheRat…Hole.
Even though a squirrel may have left the indentation, this story has provided viral gold to news organizations all around town and beyond. We at Eater are simultaneously champing and chomping at the bit for a food-related angle to show itself. But will it? Or will we yet again stand around lonely, fumbling our thumbs and watching another story of the century pass us by? We vowed Chance the Snapper wouldn’t happen to us ever again, yet here we are. Sure, locals might be sick of the rat hole, but the rest of the country is hungry for rat hole content. To sate them, here are 28 completely untrue restaurant world headlines related to Chicago’s rat hole.
The Rat Hole now shows up on Google Maps.Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
Will ‘The Bear’ Feature the Rat Hole in Season 3?
Grant Achatz’s New Alinea Menu Pays Tribute to the Rat Hole
Lou Malnati’s Rat Hole-Shaped Deep-Dish Pizza Wins Over ‘Emily in Paris’
Swedish Bakery Returns for Fat Tuesday With Rat Hole Paczkis
Lettuce Entertain You Rebrands RPM Italian, Swaps ‘Rancics’ For ‘Rat Hole’
CH Distillery Finally Takes Malört Too Far With New Rat Hole Infusion
Kroger Discards Jewel and Mariano’s Brands for Rat Hole Finer Foods
Hogsalt to Open Sexy New French West Loop Spot, Randolph’s Rat Hole
Disney Threatens to Sue Hogsalt Over ‘Ratatouille’-Themed French Restaurant
Harold’s Chicken to Sell Mild Sauce in Rat Hole-Shaped Bottles
Rat Hole Enrages Rick Bayless Even Though He Hasn’t Seen It In Person
Stephanie Izard Reinvents Herself With This Little Rat Hole Diner
I Drank Jeppson’s Malört Out of the Rat Hole and Lived to Tell the Tale
Goose Island Launches Rat Hole County Stout Aged in Rat Holes Made From 3D Printers
Inside the Rat Hole, A Not-So-Family-Friendly Affair in Roscoe Village
Rat Hole Pops Up in Hyde Park; It’s as Far South as It Will Go
JP Graziano Announces Limited Edition Rat Hole Giardiniera Collab With Old Style
What to Serve and Wear at a Rat Hole-Inspired Party
Rat Hole 2.0 to Open in Avondale With More Seating, Expanded Menu
Wieners Circle Staffer Yells ‘You Look Like a Rat Hole, Bitch’ at Tearful Customer
Vandal Fills Rat Hole With Ketchup, Discovers a Use for the Hated Condiment
The St. Louis Department of Provel Claims It Discovered the Rat Hole First
Jean Banchet Committee to Honor Rat Hole With Its Lifetime Achievement Award Presented by Jones BBQ and Foot Massage
Ten Speed Press to Release ‘Cookery Fit For a Rat Hole’ With Forward by Paul Kahan
DoorDash Unveils DJ Khaled’s Rat Hole, a New Virtual Restaurant
Foxtrot Debuts Rat Hole At-Home Meal Kits
The Rat Hole Is Eater Chicago’s Restaurant of the Year
Readers Ask Eater to Stop Writing About the Rat Hole — Go Back to Covering ‘The Bear’
While Rockstar hasn’t given the next GTA game a proper name yet, it’s almost assuredly going to be titled Grand Theft Auto 6 (or Grand Theft Auto VI). And we know some details about GTA 6, after an unprecedented leak of the game in 2022. But thanks to Rockstar’s secrecy and the enormous task of following up one of the biggest games of all time, much about GTA 6 is still shrouded in mystery.
Here’s everything we do know about Grand Theft Auto 6 so far.
When does GTA 6 come out?
Rockstar hasn’t announced a release date yet for GTA 6, but parent company Take-Two Interactive might have revealed a release window for the next Grand Theft Auto game. In August, Take-Two told investors the company plans to see a “significant inflection point” during its 2025 fiscal year, which has been interpreted by analysts to mean that GTA 6 will be released sometime between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025. Obviously, that’s a pretty big window, but it could point to a 2024 release for GTA 6.
While GTA 6 may be targeting a 2024 launch, Rockstar is famous for delaying its biggest games in the name of polish. Its last major release, Red Dead Redemption 2, was publicly delayedthree times. And back in 2013, Grand Theft Auto 5 saw a significant delay, slipping from its original spring release date to its ultimate September 2013 launch.
In other words, even if Rockstar gives us a release date or window by the end of 2023, history tells us that nothing is set in stone.
When does the GTA 6 trailer come out?
Rockstar co-founder and president Sam Houser has only confirmed an “early December” release for the first GTA 6 trailer. It may or may not coincide with The Game Awards 2023, which streams live on Dec. 7. It’s more likely that Rockstar will release the trailer on its own schedule, without competing with a bunch of other game announcements.
Where does GTA 6 take place?
According to a massive leak of early gameplay videos and early reporting on the game, Grand Theft Auto 6 will be set in Vice City, the GTA version of Miami. That location was previously explored in 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and that game’s 2006 prequel Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. Those entries were set during the mid-1980s, but GTA 6 will reportedly tell a modern-day, Bonnie and Clyde-inspired story featuring two leads named Jason and Lucia, based on early gameplay videos. Lucia would be the GTA series’ first female lead playable protagonist in a mainline game.
The videos show robberies, gunplay, open-world driving, a police chase, a crowded nightclub scene, and conversations with full voice acting. The game footage was clearly not intended to be shown publicly, with debug programming elements visible on-screen at the time.
One of the longer videos showed the female player character robbing a diner, as well as threatening staff and customers, who react in fear to having a gun pulled on them. Then she and her male accomplice get in a shootout with police before jumping in the police patrol car and driving off. The game’s graphical treatment is quite realistic, but still consistent with GTA games’ style.
TBD, but PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X are a safe bet. Unlike previous Grand Theft Auto games, which saw staggered releases on consoles versus PC, it seems more likely than ever that Rockstar would release all versions of the game on the same day. But given Rockstar’s track record, the PC version could lag behind PlayStation and Xbox releases.
There’s also another platform coming that could be home to Grand Theft Auto 6: Nintendo’s Switch successor. Rockstar has embraced the Switch with releases like L.A. Noire, Red Dead Redemption, and Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition, so don’t rule out an eventual release of GTA 6 on Switch 2.
How much will GTA 6 cost?
Rockstar and publisher Take-Two haven’t announced a price point, but it seems likely that Grand Theft Auto 6 will carry a $69.99 price point, increasinglythe standardfor AAA video games with big budgets.
Don’t worry about those unfounded rumors that GTA 6 will cost $150, or will be priced per hour, based on misinterpreted comments from Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick. There may be higher-priced premium or collector’s edition versions of GTA 6 that cost more than the industry-standard $69.99, but hold your horses (and your pre-orders) until Rockstar makes it official.
What happens to Grand Theft Auto Online when GTA 6 comes out?
Rockstar hasn’t said, but given the massive popularity of GTA Online, which is also sold as a stand-alone experience, it will likely continue. Rockstar may have more grand ambitions for an online mode for GTA 6, and it may run two versions of the online experience for each game. The future of GTA Online is one of the biggest open questions — not to mention Rockstar’s trickiest needle to thread — when it comes to discussing GTA 6. Rockstar may very well keep those plans under wraps for the foreseeable future.
A couple of significant things happened in the world of online gaming over the first weekend of November. At its BlizzCon convention in California, Blizzard devoted quite a lot of time to World of Warcraft Classic — the nostalgic, retro version of its 19-year-old massively multiplayer game — and revealed surprisingly ambitious plans for Classic’s future. At the same time, Fortnite’s servers were melting under the load of its biggest day ever, which was all down to the launch of Fortnite OG, a special season bringing back the game’s original map and 2018 gameplay.
All of a sudden, in the proudly impermanent world of online gaming — where change is always good, and if it’s not, never mind, because here comes more change — winding back the clock is big business. It’s a kind of paradox: Because online games are always evolving, a sense of scarcity and intense nostalgia forms around the way they used to be. If you can find a way to bring that feeling back, especially for an audience that’s getting jaded, then you’re on to something.
Blizzard initially seemed reluctant to get on board with a growing movement in WoW’s community that wanted to go back to the way things were in 2004-2005. It squashed unofficial “vanilla” servers and prevaricated over creating an official alternative for years. In a way, it’s understandable: If you have spent many years of effort on (in your eyes) modernizing and improving your game, why would you want to indulge this rose-tinted exercise? Isn’t World of Warcraft just better now?
Of course, that’s a value judgment — but what’s undeniable is that WoW is now extremely different from how it used to be. And that’s exactly what makes Classic a viable and interesting, if slightly old-fashioned, alternative. After Classic arrived in 2019, included in a standard WoW subscription, it became a roaring success, partly because of the strong contrast between it and the two unloved expansions (Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands) it launched between.
But what’s really fascinating about Classic is where Blizzard is taking it next — because Classic is an online game, and no online game can stand still, even a throwback. It began as a relatively faithful version of the original MMO with smart tweaks: It moved through content patches at an accelerated rate, while locking to a single iteration of game design and balance. Then it bifurcated, with some servers moving forward through classic expansions, while others stayed in the “vanilla” era. This year, it acquired a third track, something completely new that WoW had never had before: a permadeath Hardcore mode, which turned out to be a game-reviving innovation that was quite brilliant in its simplicity.
From its showing at BlizzCon, Blizzard is doubling down on morphing WoW Classic into its own game. The expansion servers are moving on to Cataclysm, which is probably the point at which “classic” becomes a misnomer: Whatever your feelings about this divisive expansion, its sweeping rewrite of the “old world” questing experience is the point at which original WoW died, and is still represented in the game today. Blizzard is going even further than it has before in tweaking and fixing this expansion for Classic, accelerating leveling, adding quality-of-life features, and throwing in new dungeon difficulties and loot.
World of Wacraft Classic’s Season of Discovery seeds the well-explored world of Azeroth with secrets.Image: Blizzard Entertainment
But that isn’t even the headline. Blizzard — drawing inspiration from sister series Diablo, as it did for the Hardcore mode — is also introducing a fourth track to the WoW Classic servers that seasonally remixes the original “vanilla” game. Season of Discovery, which launches on Nov. 30, seeds entirely new content across the original world of Azeroth in the form of Discoveries, which producer Josh Greenfield said at BlizzCon were a way to disrupt the “solved nature” of original WoW and restore a “feeling of adventure and exploration.” It also offers a Rune Engraving system that endows classes with entirely new abilities, even allowing them to switch archetypes (you’ll be able to create a tank Warlock or a healer Mage, to name a couple).
The game is furthermore being broken up into level-banded phases — the initial level cap will be only 25 — and interpolated with all-new endgames, one for each phase. The first of these reworks the classic leveling dungeon Blackfathom Deeps as a 10-player raid, but Blizzard is also teasing adding unfinished or cut content, and even all-new dungeons, to Season of Discovery. It’s not just a new way to think about classic WoW — it’s a new approach to structuring MMOs, borrowing liberally from across the online gaming landscape. It’s pretty exciting.
That Blizzard is going to all this effort shows that WoW Classic is working both for the business and for the WoW community. It also demonstrates that for an online gaming nostalgia mode to succeed in the long term, it needs to evolve away from being an emulation or restoration of a bygone experience, and become a (sort of) fresh game in its own right. (Or, in Classic’s case, four games.)
Tilted Towers has returned in Fortnite OG.Image: Epic Games
Currently, Epic has no plans to keep Fortnite OG going past its current monthlong season, which sprints through six seasons of the game’s Chapter 1 in a matter of weeks instead of months. The branding clearly allows for OG to return and revisit later chapters, but given the enormous surge in interest, Epic would be foolish not to be considering ways to keep some of these new or returning players in the fold permanently.
It’s true that WoW and Fortnite are very different games with, crucially, different business models. Splitting the game’s audience might be more of a worry for Epic than it is for Blizzard, which is presumably happy as long as all those players stay within the one subscription-paying bucket. But WoW has proven that a big online game — especially one with a history — can support a family of sub-communities enjoying different flavors of the same game. Indeed, that might be the healthiest way forward for a game of that sort, certainly one approaching its 20th anniversary.
More importantly, perhaps, what WoW Classic and Fortnite OGdemonstrate is that the history of online games doesn’t have to be consigned to the scrapheap of memory. There’s a genuine hunger from players to turn back the clock, which, when met by an inventive studio that understands what was special about what it created but is willing to take some risks with it, can create something vibrant and sustainable in the long term — a kind of multiverse of paths not taken for your favorite old multiplayer games. What’s next, Vault of Glass in modern Destiny 2? Sign me up.