Chicago - April 15, 2005

For Butter or for Worse

Butter Restaurant Opens

Time for a pop quiz, old-school SNL style: If Linda Richman took Barbra Streisand for dinner in Chicago, where would they go?

Talk amongst yourselves.

No silly, not The Bagel. The correct answer (ding! ding! ding!) is Butter, a sleek new restaurant that opens today in the West Loop. Chef Ryan Poli (previously of French Laundry and Le Francais) cranks out impressive New American cuisine like wood-grilled Atlantic salmon with caramelized fennel, confit tomatoes, and white-bean ragout or roasted and braised pork tenderloin with caramelized apples, endive marmalade, and apple gastrique. If small bites are more your speed, relax with a cocktail and flash-fried shrimp “lollipops” in the polka-dot lounge upstairs.

After dinner you can continue your coffee talk (or, more likely, your cocktail talk) over oysters from the raw bar — which stays open even after the kitchen closes. No matter where you choose to nibble, nosh, or laze about, the glass-tiled bar and wine-colored walls create a spot that’s smooth, rich, and to die for.

Kind of like buttah.

Butter, 130 South Green Street, between Adams and Monroe Streets (312-666-9813).