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Inside Much-Buzzed Won Fun Chinese, 2Fun Chinese Opening In West Loop

By Stephanie Lulay | November 29, 2016 3:03pm
 The bar at 2Fun Chinese, opening Wednesday in the West Loop.
The bar at 2Fun Chinese, opening Wednesday in the West Loop.
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DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay

WEST LOOP — A much-buzzed bi-level Chinese restaurant and bar opens this week in the West Loop. 

Austin Baker, owner of Humboldt Park’s Bar Marta, will officially open Won Fun Chinese and 2Fun Chinese in J.P. Graziano's old wholesale warehouse at 905 W. Randolph St., on Wednesday.

The restaurant and bar, located next to West Loop mainstay J.P. Graziano Grocery Company, focuses on Sichuan-inspired Chinese fare and will offer dim sum-style snacks.

Reservations for seating at Won Fun Chinese are available online now. 2Fun Chinese is first come, first served.

Opening an Asian restaurant was a longtime dream for Baker, a veteran of the Chicago restaurant industry who spent part of his career cooking in the Himalayan Mountains in Bhutan. At Hogsalt Hospitality, Baker helped restaurateur Brendan Sodikoff open nearly a half-dozen concepts before striking out on his own to open Bar Marta in November 2015. The Fun restaurant and bar will be his second solo venture, he said Monday. 

"This is a concept I've always wanted to do," he said. "There's good Chinese food in Chicago, but you have to travel to Chinatown to get it." 

A spread at Won Fun Chinese, opening Wednesday in the West Loop. [Won Fun Chinese]

Won Fun Chinese, the first-floor, 60-seat restaurant, will serve up family-style Chinese feasts, including a Beijing-style duck dinner for six, out of an open kitchen. The restaurant's full menu is below. Baker and Chef Ben Ruiz developed the menu — featuring small eats, Sichuan classics, noodles, vegetables and fried rice — during a recent trip to China.

And despite the menu's Sichuan influence, not everything on the menu is spicy. While Sichuan dishes are often known in the Western world for the Sichuan peppercorn, with a spicy, numbing bite, there is so much more to the cuisine, Baker said.  

"One of the misnomers about Sichuan food is that it is all very spicy. And it's not," he said. "There definitely is that flavor profile, but that's one of seven. We explored all of it and [developed] a more rounded menu that would appeal to more people." 

Located on the second floor, 2Fun Chinese, a 160-seat lively bar and lounge will offer up cheeky cocktails, dim sum-style snacks, karaoke and DJs. Baker has tapped Chicago mixologist Remy Walle to oversee the bar's cocktail program, which will include the Oolong Island Iced Tea with four different liquors infused with oolong tea and popping boba, frozen cocktails, 24 local and Chinese beers on tap and a selection of Asian whiskeys, rums, and wine. 

The upstairs bar aims to be "a party," said Baker, 32. 

"It's more of a bar/lounge/hangout space, and I think the West Loop really need that," he said. 

The frozen drink machine at 2Fun Chinese, opening Wednesday in the West Loop. [2Fun Chinese]

A sign at 2Fun Chinese. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]

Overhauling the old warehouse, Won Fun Chinese and 2Fun Chinese is decorated with 280 handmade Chinese silk lanterns and a custom centerpiece macramé by Chicago artist Christalena Hughmanick.

Won Fun Chinese and 2Fun Chinese officially open at 905 W. Randolph St. in the West Loop Wednesday. [Won Fun Chinese]

Won Fun Chinese and 2Fun Chinese will be open 5 p.m.-2 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Lunch will launch at a later date, a representative for the restaurant said. 

Also inspired by travels to China, Chef Stephanie Izard opened Duck Duck Goat on Fulton Market in March.

 

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