A big experiment in Chicago hospitality is about to be unveiled when The Hand & The Eye opens on Saturday. The $50 million, 35,000 square foot magic venue will include multiple theaters, two dining rooms, eight bars, a rooftop space, and a members only club — and if that sounds like a lot to take in, it’s because it is. Let’s explore this new vision for the historic McCormick Mansion.

“A lot of people think this is dinner with magic. That’s not what it is,” explains Bre Smith, the EVP of Operations for the venue. This is not some cheesy dinner show; this is a fully immersive experience, beginning from the moment guests walk in the door. When you arrive, you’ll receive a hand-illustrated map of the venue and an itinerary for your evening, guiding you from space to space — perhaps a cocktail first, then your first magic show, then dinner, then another show or a stop for another drink. “We wanted this to feel like a space you could get lost in,” says Smith. With an over-the-top design by famed designer David Rockwell, wandering should be a lot of fun.

Levy Restaurants, which serves millions guests at venues as diverse as the United Center and Michael Jordan’s Steakhouse, is running the food and beverage operations. The company obviously knows food, but that’s not the only reason it joined this project — the Levy CEO Andy Lansing also happens to be a big magic geek. “I don’t mean I like magic, I’ve been obsessed with magic since my grandfather pulled a coin out of my ear at 5 years old,” laughs Lansing. Part of Lansing’s personal collection of historic magical artifacts will be on display at the venue. So, as you can imagine, he took a very hands-on approach to the food and beverage options at the venue.

Let’s talk about the main restaurant. It has 35 tables and a menu that’s designed to be broadly appealing without being “event” food. “There’s an assumption you’re here for the entertainment and by the way, you can dine,” says Lansing. We all know what he’s talking about — “dinner theater” rubber chicken breast comes to mind. Here, they’ve taken the opposite approach, working to create a space where guests really want to dine. Part of that was deciding exactly what to shoot for, and Lansing’s vision drove that. “Classic. Chicago. Retro,” he says. “In my mind I had a word picture of the Pump Room in its heyday.”

What does that mean for the menu? Classics like shrimp cocktail and a relish plate cozy up with burrata, beef carpaccio, and tuna crudo. If you’re a fan of the Chicago classic chicken Vesuvio, you’re in luck, and there’s also pan-seared halibut with cured cherry tomatoes and olives, salmon with crispy capers and brown butter and, of course, steaks. Will this food blow your mind? Probably not, but it will appeal to a wide audience and be a menu that can be executed on a timeline as folks move from place to place.

Each bar will feature a core menu of four cocktails (named for the four suits in a deck of cards), and will also feature one unique specialty drink, which means guests can do a bar crawl of sorts through the space. Smith explains that each cocktail is tied to Chicago and its history. With a background in luxury hotels, Smith wanted to create an environment akin to the best classic hotel bars. “When you go to New York, you go to Bemelman’s Bar. We wanted to create that in Chicago.”

This is not going to be a casual outing; the space has a dress code and there are no walk-ins — every guest must purchase an advance ticket, which will run about $225 (it includes a $75 food and drink credit). However, given all that the space has to offer, the price is not unreasonable.

Even with all of this work, spending $50 million on a magic theater is quite a decision. Why magic? “We’re all born with this sense of wonder, and when we grow up, we lose it,” Lansing says. “The gift the magician gives us is he or she reawakens that sense of wonder we don’t get to feel as adults, and you remember how it felt when you didn’t know everything.”

The Hand and The Eye opens on April 18 at 100 East Ontario Street, Near North.