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Parent company Oxford Hotels & Resorts has announced plans to rebrand the Gold Coast’s Hotel Indigo into Claridge House. Currently undergoing a $9 million facelift, when the property debuts late May, it will house a new restaurant and bar: Juniper Spirits & Oysters.
Oxford executive chef Nathaniel Cayer will oversee Juniper’s seafood-centered menu, and property reps tease “a wide selection of fresh oysters, flatbreads, sandwiches, and classic martinis,” in addition to herbal-accented libations named after notable Chicagoans. With room for 48 in the dining room, 45 in the lobby lounge, and 24 on a Dearborn Street-adjacent patio, Juniper stands in for Hotel Indigo’s 1244 Bistro and Bar.
As for aesthetics, Oxford has brought on Chicago-based hotel design and development firm The Gettys Group, and the team is scheming a modern look that honors the building’s almost century-old past. Built in 1923, 1244 N. Dearborn Pkwy. has lived as a hotel in various iterations, and until 2005 was named Claridge Hotel. Oxford Hotels will reattribute the past moniker.
