Look up. Above two crystal waterfall chandeliers, the dining room ceiling is in constant flux, alight with digital projections that switch from raindrops to clouds to the Bean in Millennium Park. Look around. Velvet banquettes, frosted glass dividers, mahogany paneling set in Streamline Moderne alcoves, and gliding service carts outfitted with buzz saws to slice bread suggest you’ve walked through a time portal into the Green Mill of a century ago. Now ask for a tour, because you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The Alston
1132 W. Grand Ave.
West Town
Meal for two $150
Tip Beyond its reservation cap, the restaurant often has walk-in tables and bar seats available.
Recommended
Very Good
Excellent
Exceptional
Welcome to the Alston, which stretches an entire city block and is more warren than restaurant, an ever-unfurling maze of open bar seating and secluded dining corners, of wine cellars and secret chambers, of curtains you duck behind and bathrooms you have to search for, of a freakin’ members-only club, and of patios upon patios, some for the members and some for us, the hoi polloi. We can wave to each other. Isn’t life grand?
It certainly is at the Alston, the most batshit display of dining opulence in this city since the Boka Restaurant Group attempted a similar move two years ago with its ill-fated Le Select. The idea is this: How do you take Chicago’s beloved steakhouse experience and zhuzh it up for the new Gilded Age? How do you give big and medium spenders alike that frisson of living large, of ordering that special steak or whatever (lobster! cake! wine!) because we’re worth it?
The Alston succeeds in a way Le Select never could because it goes all in: It’s a three-ring circus. You’ll love parts of it and hate others but eagerly return because it’s so deliciously over the top, so eager to dish up thrills. Chef Jenner Tomaska (who owns the artsy Lincoln Park tasting-menu spot Esmé with his wife) has a vision of what steakhouses mean in the Midwest and why we go. A skilled technician and student of fine dining, this former chef de cuisine at Grant Achatz’s Next shows off highly finessed and showstopping moves, like a signature pressed duck whose tableside preparation involves whooping flames and an ancient hand-crank device. The menu is too ambitious for its own good; the kitchen’s execution lets Tomaska — and thus us — down more than it should. Still, what fun.
I was recognized as a dining critic and felt obliged to turn down the tempting gift that must be offered to many a VIP: a caviar bump spooned from a Frisbee-size tin onto your fist. No matter: To get things started, there’s a section of the menu devoted to “table snacks,” such as the tiny fried savory pies from Monaco called barbajuan (delish) and pommes purée frites, two-foot-long spears of fried mashed potatoes (fun, but no one ever finishes them). You may add upmarket deviled eggs, shrimp cocktail by the piece, or razor clams dotted with enough herbs and pickled rhubarb to commandeer a course at Esmé.
Pommes purée frites
I wish the bread cart wouldn’t arrive immediately, steakhouse-style, because it steals the thunder from those starters. The cocktails take a beat too long to appear, and some arrive in ludicrously tall martini glasses that look right from the Krystle Carrington collection of ’80s ooh-là-là.
The staff needs to fine-tune the timing of these early proceedings because all the potential courses and tableside flourishes over the length of the meal can make for a long evening. The menu never ends, every section featuring another luxury seduction. Three kinds of caviar, seared foie gras, lobster bisque, steak tartare. Nothing is simple. Braised leeks arrive with pears, fennel, chicken skin, and walnut butter, and they slap. Baked scallops nestled in their shells with spinach in a moat of glazed whipped potato are simply terrible: rubbery and cold. Oh well, there’s more to try. So much more.
If you pay attention to other tables, you’ll spy two duck presses making the rounds. What a show. The rare breast comes off the carcass, which goes into the press with the organs until bloody juice runs out. The product of this then goes into the pan with wine, cognac (whoosh!), and stock. The sliced meat is crisp-skinned and succulent, a joy. The legs? Supposedly confit but still quite tough.
I want to return to try the French classics Tomaska resurrects — Dover sole with sauce Véronique (the white one with peeled grapes that used to be all the rage) and turbot on the bone with pommes soufflées — and to savor again the lobster tourte, a millionaire’s pot pie with a flaky butter crust, tender chunks of meat, and a big ol’ carapace launching from the center.
Bone-in rib eye
We haven’t even talked steak yet. I had the bone-in rib eye, seared and rested to a killer medium-rare. I would like more blue cheese funk from this steak’s 30-day dry age, but Tomaska rightly points out that most people don’t share my taste.
The Fifty/50 Group (Roots Pizza, Kindling) operates the Alston, and though it has hired a good team, they aren’t providing the level of service a premium restaurant demands. While the wood-paneled wine cellar looks smashing, the by-the-glass program feels thin. At Tre Dita, another stratospheric steakhouse, the stewards present the bottles, pour a taste, and talk about the producers. Here, it’s more, “We’ve got a nice Côtes du Rhône.” The Maison Ogier Artésis is nice; it’s also marked up 350 percent.
There are bargains if you know where to look. For instance: happy hour caviar! Get to the bar, lounge, or terrace before 5:30 and you can order an ounce of Russian roe with waffles for only $65, a relative bargain. The banana caramel and peanut butter garnishes make the caviar secondary, and that’s just fine. The Alston may be weird, but it’s fun. And it sure knows the art of the splurge.