Batter & Berries Owner Opens New Gold Coast Restaurant & Bar With Waffle Flights

The Gold Coast restaurant with food from the chef/owner of Batter & Berries opens today. Derek Rylon is calling his new restaurant—his third—Palette, and he’ll dish out a variety of waffle flights, the same way he does with French toast at his crowded Lincoln Park restaurant, according to the Tribune. Today, the restaurant only serve drinks from their bar menu starting at 3 p.m. Dinner service will launch next week inside the former Tip Top Inn at 1204 N. State St. Brunch service will start at 9 a.m. on tomorrow (Saturday).

Signage for Tip Top Inn remains at the restaurant, with only paper signs pasted to the window telling passers-by that Palette should open soon. One of the working names for the restaurant was Rylon’s On Easy Street, but that’s been tossed aside. It’ll eventually serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Rylon takes a sports bar space and adds house-made pastas, lobster, steak, and more. Palette will also have bar items including chicken wings and sandwiches in addition breakfast and brunch items including the waffle flights. He’s still finalizing the menu.

The Tip Top Inn also housed a secluded bar space upstairs, The Black Kat Club, that opened in October. That’ll continue to operate inside Palette. The speakeasy spot was open only Friday, Saturday, and Sunday when it launched last year. It’ll soon offer small plates and desserts from Rylon on the third floor. They’re gearing up for another launch in mid-April, and in June they hope to be open seven days a week, according to proprietor Dino Vulpitta. He also owns Brando’s Speakeasy in the South Loop.

Palette is owned by the same team behind Tip Top Inn, and luring Rylon may invigorate the former P.J. Clarke’s space, which Rosebud founder Alex Dana had taken over. Dana’s name remains on the sidewalk patio permit posted on the window. However, Palette is not a Rosebud-affiliated restaurant.

Rylon doesn’t want to be a one-trick pony, but that stretch of Gold Coast is devoid of quality morning and brunch options, save Bistro Zinc. The tagline on Palette’s sign reads “Batter and Berries and more,” which will lead to comparisons to the long waits over at B&B on Lincoln Avenue. The waffle flights at Palette will include blueberry, strawberry, chocolate-raspberry, and sweet potato. A Bloody Mary buffet and unlimited mimosas will make brunch boozier.

Palette brings Rylon’s brunch skills, and a lot more, to the Gold Coast starting at 3 p.m. today.

Palette, 1204 N. State St., (312) 877-5900, open 3 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily; 9 a.m. 3 p.m. on weekends for brunch