Inside La Pomme Rouge

Five years ago Jerry Suqi opened Sugar, a futuristic, candy-colored utopia in River North. The over-the-top dessert bar closed two years ago but Suqi still had designs on the space. Hence, La Pomme Rouge. Walk into the lounge/restaurant and you’ll think you’ve stumbled into a middling aristocrat’s overfurnished 19th-century mansion. Again, the décor is all over the place, but now it’s with Victorian, neo-Baroque, and art nouveau claptrap supposedly evoking La Belle Époque salons. Chef Jeffrey Mauro’s creations are seductive, though they seem beside the point. His caviar napoleon of house-made English muffin, scrambled eggs, potato-bacon foam, and caviar evokes lame Egg McMuffin jokes—but also happens to be delicious.

108 W. Kinzie St.; 312-245-9555.


Photograph: Thomas Chadwick