What’s the most deeply uncool place you could be forced to hang out in in these wild times? Is it a private elephant ranch operated by the NRA? Nope. Is it a serial masturbators’ support group? You’re wrong. Is it a white supremacist drum circle? Close. It’s Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s private golf club in Palm Beach, Florida. Given the inordinate amount of time President Circus Peanut has spent there and at other golf clubs during his term to date, country clubs carry such a stigma that I wouldn’t bank on them if I were a restaurateur looking to open a fresh concept in a big blue city—and that’s even before you ponder the long history of private clubs that practiced exclusivity based not just on socioecomic disparity but on race and religion too.
The chef has described breakfast, lunch, and dinner at these new digs, unpoetically, as “food people like to eat.” While that leaves a lot to the imagination, you’ll see that it amounts to the usual broad array of dishes appealing to a wide range of eaters and typically found at hotel restaurants: the flatbread, the salmon, the goddamn cheeseburger. Still, the menu does manage to reflect a number of trends habitual Chicago restaurantgoers have gotten used to seeing lately: the crudite plate, the charred vegetables, the squid-ink pasta with seafood. Most importantly, the flavors on the plate manifest themselves with the same engaging and intuitive grace as they do at Boka.
A large-format family-style entree marks a return, in a way, to the dish Wolen made his name on. It’s not exactly the dramatic whole roasted chicken from his Lobby days, but it’s close enough: a whole bronzed disarticulated bird, its crispy skin jacketing a layer of stuffing with roasted garlic and chicken sausage that in turn protects the tender, juicy meat below. Served with a side of polenta and charred delicata squash rounds, this fowl returns the chef to the ranks of the best chicken slingers in town.
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