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Name That Restaurant

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Stretch Armstrong

Govind Armstrong has set his sights on Chicago. “ Govind who,” you say? Armstrong is the man behind red-hot Table 8 in Los Angeles and Miami, and he is breaking ground at an undisclosed location in River North by the end of January. “I’ve always wanted to do a place in Chicago,” says Armstrong, 38. “It’s got an impeccable dining scene.” Armstrong, an L.A. native who apprenticed at the age of 13 with Wolfgang Puck at Spago, has Costa Rican roots, but describes Table 8 on Melrose Avenue as: “Nothing fancy; warm and inviting, a little gem that you would walk into. It’s not exactly comfort food, but it’s approachable. We’re not reinventing how people should eat, or what they should eat.” (The only dish he’s bringing to his 120-seat restaurant in Chicago that he’d reveal to us was a prime salt-roasted porterhouse.) Armstrong is currently searching for a Chicago chef who is…

My Carrie Moment

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I’ve been likened to the fictional sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw once or twice, but one thing we don’t have in common: the ability to trot in sky-high Manolo Blahniks. I bought my first pair recently on sale at Barneys (open-toe, patent-leather Mary Janes), but I’ve yet to wear them out of the house. Just looking at them in my closet gives me plenty of pleasure, sans pain.

But since I said I would participate in last night’s Service Club of Chicago charity fashion show at Chaise Lounge, I knew I might have to suck it up…

To Market, To Market . . .

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Fox, Obel, and Vulpes?

Vulpes, LLC, a group of locally based investors led by the food retail veteran Bill Bolton, has agreed to purchase Fox & Obel (401 E. Illinois St.; 312-410-7301), Chicago’s leading gourmet food shop. The name will not change, nor will the people involved, but according to Fox & Obel’s president and CEO, Keith Montague, the deal leverages F & O’s longtime plan: expansion. “For a long time we have wanted to build additional stores and go to other areas,” Montague told us. “River North, South Loop, North Shore: all tremendous areas. Naperville, Oak Park. We are a small company and don’t have the luxury of opening sites that won’t be successful, so we want to be careful to do it right.” The deal, whose financial terms were not made public, is scheduled to close…

Geese is the Word

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Poetry in Motion
Steve Schwartz, the owner of Campagnola (815 Chicago Ave., Evanston; 847-475-6100), is almost set to open Wild Geese (1245 Chicago Ave., Evanston), an eclectic restaurant with a huge bar. . “We had a guy come from Vermont who built the wood-burning oven,” Schwartz says. “It’s absolutely beautiful.” Pizzas and small plates will be on the menu, but Schwartz is reluctant to pigeonhole the restaurant, which shares a common performance/party space with a neighboring recording studio. And Wild Geese may sound like a random name for a pizzeria, but it comes from a poem of the same name by Mary Oliver: “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting . . . ”

Out Lao’d
They say you should never open a restaurant in January, and Tony Hu didn’t. He opened two…