Chicago - July 31, 2007

There’s No Place Like Home

Table Fifty-Two Opens

You spilled coffee on your boss’s crotch. Then lost an important file. Popped a button on your top. And had to clutch your chest while hightailing it to the nearest bathroom.

After the typical day from hell, you just want to go home, nuke dinner, and cry.

Or starting tomorrow, you could go to Art Smith’s new restaurant, Table Fifty-Two, make yourself at home, chow down on real food, and forget the bad day ever happened.

Smith can lend a sympathetic ear (he cooks for Oprah, after all) and is no stranger to perking up a room (he spends downtime changing lives with Common Threads). But mostly he’ll stick around the wood-burning oven and cook up Southern comfort specialties in a space as warm and inspiring as your dream kitchen.

Come weekdays for grilled Colorado lamb chops, garden pea risotto, creamed corn, pizza, and twelve-layer chocolate cake. On Sundays, feast on Smith’s childhood favorites, like fried chicken and waffles or shrimp and grits. Look forward to tea and chocolate upstairs in a few months.

Of course you’re feeling better already. Home is where the Art is.

Table Fifty-Two, 52 West Elm Street, at Dearborn Street (312-573-4000 or chefartsmith.net).