![]() ![]() Perhaps most shocking for a restaurant in Logan Square, the tables at The Whale are large and generously spaced from each other. To reinforce the Vegas vibe, black and white photos of The Rat Pack litter the walls, along with portraits of showgirls in various states of dress. ![]() Plush booths line up in front of you and polished blue tile gleams on the walls. A glimmering chandelier greets you upon entry. The Whale looks like some swanky downtown hot spot, making it stick out from the much more modest restaurants in Logan Square. If I feel like I’m really being pampered, I occasionally love to splurge. And I’m guessing you, dear reader, probably don’t have tens of millions to throw around on a random weekend.īut what’s wrong with a little pretend? I may not swim in pools of money, Scrooge McDuck-style, but I’m all for sipping costly cocktails in luxurious hotel bars where I’m not a guest and devouring dry-aged beef at stylish River North steakhouses. Obviously, this excludes me, considering the most I’ve ever bet is $100, which I quickly lost at Caesars Palace in 2013. Here’s how the restaurant defines the term on its website: “Whales typically have a budget (front money or a credit line) ranging anywhere from $1M to $20M and in a weekend could easily be up or down millions.” As The Whale makes abundantly clear, it is not named after the sea-dwelling mammal, but the term casinos use for an obscenely wealthy gambler. It didn’t do it by being a nautically themed restaurant. ![]() So how did The Whale successfully break into one of Chicago's hottest and most crowded dining neighborhoods? It also has a sterling Yelp rating of 4 ½ stars with over 200 reviews, a number that trounces the totals of such acclaimed new restaurants as Wherewithall (30 reviews as of publication) and Kumiko (47 reviews). Whenever I go by, I’m impressed by the number of people jammed into the space, which has room for over 200. Sadly, I had to use my own iPhone shots for this review.)īut that hasn’t stopped the restaurant from pulling in massive crowds. “I am extremely protective of my brand,” says Marks, “so I rarely do press on our projects.” (This may explain why Marks was reluctant on the phone about allowing us to send a photographer, and didn’t respond over email. Marks, the owner and operator of Legacy Hospitality, which also runs The Vig in Old Town, that was by design. The Whale opened in Logan Square with almost no media exposure back in early July. And it’s also one of the most popular new restaurants in Chicago. It’s a racing spoiler attached to a beat-up 2005 Honda Civic. It’s a cubic zirconia peddled as a diamond. ![]()
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