Restaurant Preview: Nobu Hotel
This past summer, the grand Nobu Hotel opened its doors in the West Loop. With 115 luxury rooms and a rooftop bar offering postcard-worthy views of the city, everything was in place for Nobu to make its great Chicago debut. Well, everything but one glaring absence: the hotel’s namesake sushi restaurant that is world-renowned. However, on Thursday, October 1, all will be right again with the hotel’s signature restaurant’s debut.
With a focus on Japanese cuisine with a Peruvian angle, Nobu’s restaurant will deliver the goods for sushi lovers throughout the Chicagoland area as they have in their Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, and Milan locations.
The menu, spearheaded by chef Nobu Matsuhisa, is a feast for the eyes of Chicagoans craving high-quality seafood. Cold dish highlights include the toro tartare with caviar, new style sashimi, lobster ceviche on limestone lettuce, and the tuna tataki with tosazu, to name a few.
For those looking for some warmth, you can’t go wrong with hot dishes like the black cod with miso, lobster wasabi pepper, roasted king crab with yuzu kosho, or prime tenderloin miso ponzu.
Sashimi and nigiri lovers will rejoice at Nobu’s offerings, including Japanese Red Snapper, yellowtail, king crab, and scallop, among many other choices. Prices range between $5 and $15 depending on your choice, but there is a two-piece minimum.
For those who prefer their sushi in bite-sized portions, Nobu’s maki menu is bursting with flavors like spicy tuna, salmon and avocado, baked crab, and Japanese eel and cucumber. An omakase signature tasting menu is available to order for $125.
Nobu’s dining experience will feature a lounge, a 28-foot sushi bar, a dining room, and two private dining rooms all housed within its 10,000 square-foot area located on the hotel’s first floor. This new addition to the West Loop is an ideal spot for a night out, especially before the weather turns cold here in Chicago.
The Nobu Hotel has an interesting background. Founded by chef Matsuhisa alongside legendary actor Robert De Niro and film producer Meir Teper, the hotel chain’s Chicago location was first announced way back in 2014. In 2016, De Niro, alongside then-mayor Rahm Emanuel, broke ground on the Randolph Street location with a planned 2017 opening. Stop and restarts occurred over the ensuing years, and, of course, the pandemic stalled most things of late. But here we are in the fall of 2020, and Hotel Nobu’s long-awaited restaurant is ready to open.
Hotel Nobu is located at 854 West Randolph Street in the West Loop. The restaurant will be open for dinner service Sunday through Thursday from 5 pm to 10 pm and Friday and Saturday from 5 pm to 11 pm. Lunch service is offered Friday through Sunday from 11:30 a to 2 pm.
ERIC KAPLAN AND DEAN’S TEAM CHICAGO
