Amalie Drury

The sprawling restaurant Tavernita, set to open in the old Martini Park space (151 W. Erie St.) in September with three separate bars inside, has been raising eyebrows for weeks. First came the news that the chef Ryan Poli would be leaving Perennial to head up this Latin concept from the group behind the nearby New York import Mercadito and its basement cocktail lounge, Double A... Read more

As I walked up yesterday afternoon, a man on a ladder was changing out the plastic letters on a marquee outside the River North bar LaSalle Power Co., spelling the words that will grace the sign from now until the end of October: THUNDER FROM DOWN UNDER... Read more

Thunder rumbled last night as I waited to feed a parking box on Taylor Street, where I’d gone in search of what the proprietors of Three Aces are calling the “largest patio in Little Italy.” The storm was still a few miles off, so my pal Jenny and I waltzed up to the festive-looking expanse of picnic tables newly installed outside the eight-month-old gastropub and took our seats among a group of friends... Read more

Smith may be the most common surname in America, but a certain bar in New York is determined to keep it the least common bar name.
Shortly after my post went up about plans for a new Logan Square wine bar and restaurant brought to us by the owners of The Bluebird and Webster’s Wine Bar, that team was contacted by another team—of lawyers... Read more

You’ve seen the Windy. It’s that many-masted vessel docked at Navy Pier that looks like a playground for fanny-pack wearing families from Iowa hoping to live out their Pirates of the Caribbean fantasies.
Or at least that’s what I was thinking yesterday as my sister Liv and I prepared to venture aboard a skyline cocktail cruise on the Red Witch, a smaller boat operated by the same company... Read more

Last night my glancing interest in all things Paris Hilton (I know, so 2003) landed me at the new River North nightclub Board Room, located in the old RiNo space. Paris was in no way expected, but two costars from her show The World According to Paris on Oxygen—“L.A.’s hottest party girl” Allison Melnick and July 1999 Playmate of the Month Jennifer Rovero—were listed as hosts for the Svedka vodka–sponsored party... Read more

My guard was up last night from the moment I drove onto a particular block of River North, where the nightclubs Crescendo, Y, Sound-Bar, and now Tzar Ultra Lounge are all clustered. Parking my car around the corner on Franklin Street, I spotted a trio of teetering, sequined young women who had just alighted from an early model Rav4 bearing a suburban dealership logo and who nervously clutched pink Victoria’s Secret shopping bags as they read the instructions on the meter box... Read more