Culinary mash-ups are nothing new in the Chicago dining scene, but here’s a fresh one: Japanese and Nordic. The two cultures intertwine at Atsumeru, the tasting-menu restaurant that Devin Denzer opened in September in West Town. “Both [regions] are surrounded by cold water and are seafood-heavy cuisines,” the chef explains. “And there’s simplicity in both, whether that’s the way something looks on the plate or the way something is prepared.”
At Atsumeru, that translates to lightly cooked seafood (on my visit, that meant dishes like steamed sablefish, adorned with cucumber and herbs, and chawanmushi featuring ocean trout and prawns) and stripped-down protein preparations. Many tasting menus feature wagyu, but Denzer’s take, served with sunchoke purée, crispy shiso leaf, and fried corn silk, feels unique. “The wagyu is cooked in soy sauce; there’s nothing else added,” he says. “There’s a lot of flavor in it, but it’s a very simple thing.” Sure, but that soy sauce isn’t your run-of-the-mill version; Denzer sources one aged in Japanese whiskey barrels from a local purveyor, Fortune Fish & Gourmet.
The Minnesota native began to tap into this culinary combination while working with chef Jim Christiansen at Heyday in Minneapolis. “A lot of the stuff that we did was inspired by his work at Noma [in Copenhagen],” Denzer recalls. “To me, it was a whole new side of cooking. In culinary school, we didn’t learn about fermentation and pickling and how that can change the flavor of something.” That covers the Nordic side, but how about the Japanese influence? Says Denzer: “It’s my favorite kind of food to eat.”
Atsumeru’s pieces began to fall into place once Denzer moved here in 2019. “I always liked big cities and knew I wanted to be around Michelin restaurants,” he says. He started a pop-up called Loon, which he ran for four years. “That’s really when I feel like I found the voice in the style of cooking that has become what we do at Atsumeru.” He decided to open his own restaurant, working at Schwa while he found a location.
The Atsumeru space formerly housed Temporis, which closed in 2024 after a fire. Rebuilding from that allowed Denzer to put his stamp on the design. “The basement was just for prep and storage before,” says Denzer, who put in a kitchen with a counter and lounge seating.
The dining experience begins there, with a welcome drink and three bites, before you head upstairs for the remainder of the meal. (When I visited, that drink was nonalcoholic, but the restaurant is awaiting a liquor license.) While the downstairs snacks are single bites, like a choux pastry stuffed with sweet Gjetost cheese, caramelized onions, and powdered malt vinegar, the upstairs dishes are larger, like a Hokkaido scallop cooked in chicken fat and accented with chicken skin and dried scallop.
The restaurant’s name ties it all together. “It means ‘to collect,’ but I take it in a broad sense as ‘to come together,’ ” Denzer says. “When you’re dining, it’s people coming together and sharing memories.” It’s also a coming together of cultures, in a way that feels special.