FOOD | Julianne Glatz

When Stephanie Izard, this year’s Hope School Celebrity Chef, became Bravo TV’s 2008 Top Chef – the first and, after nine seasons, still the only woman to do so – Chicago’s food world was buzzing.

Would Izard return to Chicago? If she did, what kind of restaurant would she have? Formal or casual? Small/intimate or big/bustling? (That she would open a restaurant was never in doubt; it’s pretty much a given for Top Chef winners.) Izard is an Evanston native, but spent most of her childhood in Connecticut. Her culinary education and first professional cooking gigs were in the Southwest, but in 2001 she’d returned to the Chicago area, working in highly regarded restaurants before beginning filming the Top Chef competition.

One of the biggest buzzes surrounding Izard’s plans was how she’d make them a reality. The Top Chef grand prize was $100,000 to “kick-start your culinary career.” That amount has since been doubled, but it’s still far short of what’s needed to open a restaurant. Would Izard court private investors? Go it alone, something especially difficult in today’s economic climate?

In the spring of 2009, earlier than many Chicago insiders, I found out via a phone call:

“You’ll never guess who’s sitting two tables away from me,” half-whispered my daughter Ashley, then living in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. “I’m in the coffee shop on the first floor of my apartment building. Kevin Boehm and Rob Katz are talking to Stephanie Izard!!” Oh…. Just knowing that Izard was working with the BOKA Group (a combination of the owners’ last names) provided most of the answers. Her restaurant would be stylish, for sure. It would have a relaxed, casual ambience, however sophisticated the food was. Whether large or small, the restaurant would be bustling. The service would be impeccable: friendly and informative without being either condescending or servile. And every element would be designed to showcase Izard’s food, and her particular style.

“Ask any young chef in town, “Who would you like to work for? And chances are that chef would name Kevin Boehm and Rob Katz, the men behind the hottest restaurant group in Chicago.”

–Chicago Magazine, May 2011