Openings

Ex-Japonais Chef Gene Kato To Open Three Floors of Japanese Dining and Drinking

Gene Kato.
Gene Kato.

At the end of this week’s Dish they make a reference to the “never-quite-off-the-ground izakaya trend,” but at the start there’s what seems to be the most determined effort yet to get us to like this kind of Japanese-style drinking and eating. It’s from Gene Kato, former chef-partner at Japonais, and it’s a robata grill place called Sumi Robata Bar, with Kato at the grill turning out meats, seafood and vegetables hot off the coals and chatting with the customers. Or rather, that’s the first part of it: Sumi is just the first floor of a three-floor complex of Japanese concepts, the rest to be announced later. In fact much of it’s up in the air— including the address and the beer program, of which he says only, it’s the first of its kind in Chicago— but Kato hopes to have it open this fall. [Dish]

Ex-Japonais Chef Gene Kato To Open Three Floors of Japanese Dining and Drinking