Ambassador Hotel makes a wholesale change
Starting Tuesday, customers can see what the ambitious new restaurant and lounge at the Ambassador Hotel, the Fitz and Gin Rickey, are about.
Dinner service begins that night; breakfast and lunch at the restaurant start Wednesday.
Everything about the dining room and bar, previously known as the Envoy, is different, said chef Jason Gorman, also culinary director for the hotel at 2308 W. Wisconsin Ave.
The rooms are redecorated, new music geared to each space has been selected, greater emphasis is placed on the craft of cocktails and the selection of wines (the hotel has two sommeliers, Jason Wedner, formerly of Rare, and Erik Mulberry, formerly of Hotel Madrid) and Gorman has changed the menus entirely, spanning breakfast, lunch and dinner.
At dinner, the menu takes a new look at standards — the kitchen makes Chinese-style sausages and puts them in bao-style buns for a play on pigs in blankets, for instance.
Crab Louis salad is hidden inside a miniature head of iceberg lettuce; duck breast is cured with hibiscus tea and served with green curry duck confit dumplings.
Classics have a place on the menu, like Porterhouse steak served with cheese-potato puree, or roasted fish with scallion rice.
Dinner entrées are $14 to $39.
The same menu is available in the bar, with extra items geared toward a lounge, such as chicken wings and venison meatballs with blackberry chutney.
In the dining room, dinner will include bread service and a complimentary bite before and after the meal, and the ambiance and style of service will differ from the lounge.
Pastry chef Jennifer Gorman is revisiting some classic desserts, like a version of coffee crunch cake from San Francisco’s Blum’s Bakery.
From the bar, the 100-bottle wine list explores a number of small producers at mostly moderate prices. Cocktails will be from the pre-Prohibition era, matching the era of the hotel.
The first Deco after Dark, a no-cover jazz club with cheese, chocolate and wines by the glass in the Cafe Deco area, will be June 30.
Hours will be 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday in the Fitz; 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday to Thursday and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday and Saturday in Gin Rickey; and 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily at Deco.
Reservations can be made at (414) 345-5000 and thefitzmke.com.