OLD TOWN — The Kennison opens Thursday in the space previously occupied by Perennial Virant on the ground floor of the Hotel Lincoln.
Co-owner Ryan See said during a preview last week that the restaurant aims to be "more neighborhoody" and inviting, with an expanded bar and a new entrance at 1800 N. Lincoln Ave. that leads directly to a hostess station mimicking a hotel reception desk.
See and his 90/94 Restaurant Group partner, Dan Warren, were brought in by the Boka Restaurant Group to replace Perennial Virant following its closing immediately after New Year's Eve. Boka co-owner Rob Katz said at the time they were were expected to provide the restaurant with a "new direction."
See emphasized that Perennial Virant, chef Paul Virant's farm-to-table restaurant, had been a success. He granted that the pressure was on to replace it with something more open and less forbidding but just as successful, if not more so.
"We're going to deliver, no doubt about that," See said.
The new, more welcoming hostess station, then, is a symbolic shift, as are the bright, wide windows with a view of Lincoln Park on one side and down the Lincoln Avenue diagonal on the other. The bar has been extended and a raw bar added.
The Kennison has wide, open windows with a view of Lincoln Park. [DNAinfo/Ted Cox]
See and Warren also elevated chef Bill Walker to his first lead post in bringing him over from Green Zebra, the West Town vegetarian restaurant.
See said the menu is more typical of the standard Chicago restaurant and bar than at Perennial Virant and that they're not reinventing the wheel, but Walker brings a distinct touch to almost everything on it, including crab beignets and a veggie pastrami on rye that appropriates the tastes of the sandwich without any meat ingredients.
"That's the Green Zebra in him," See said.
It also has the obligatory array of signature cocktails, led by the Kennison, an old-fashioned made with Old Forrester bourbon and softened with a root beer and vanilla syrup.
The space also has but a single television above the bar — for special occasions such as the Cubs being in the World Series, See said — while one wall in the seating area has been decorated with tassled room keys from the old days at the Hotel Lincoln.
The Kennison will be open daily from 4:30-10 p.m., until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
