Michael Mina’s Chicago Debut Will Be Two French Restaurants in The Gold Coast

Celebrity chef Michael Mina’s upcoming Chicago restaurant has a name. Margeaux Brasserie will serve French food inside the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, 11 E. Walton Place. The Gold Coast restaurant is slated to open in early May on the third floor of the hotel. The Mina Group will also operate a French bakery and cafe in the hotel lobby, called Petit Margeaux, which should open in mid April.

Mina Group has also named Brent Balika as executive chef, according to a spokeswoman. A former chef de cuisine at The Dawson in River West, Balika had moved on to Washington, D.C., where he worked at one of Mina’s restaurants, according to the Tribune. Mina described the approach for the 120-seat Margeaux Brasserie as elevated French food using locally-sourced ingredients. As with most hotel restaurants, they’ll serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It appears they won’t stick to traditional French food. The “Heritage Chicken Roti” sounds like they’re adding a taste of South Asia with the flatbread. Other sample items include a cassoulet-influenced dish of suckling pig, Tarbais beans, Toulouse sausage and duck confit.

Mina, an acclaimed chef whose San Francisco flagship has earned a Michelin star, has supposedly been looking to open a restaurant in Chicago for a while. His Bay Area-based restaurant group now includes 30 concepts across the country. Will Mina make a splash in the Midwest? This spring’s openings should answer that question.