Hi, I'm Hermene Hartmann with N'digo Studio.

Welcome.

Did you know that Conday Nash said that Chicago was the best city in America?

Nine years straight.

And I know why.

We're having a culinary renaissance right here in Chicago.

Transforming it into quite the restaurant town.

We've got fine dining in the South Loop.

We've got soul food in Lincoln Park.

We've got food all over.

And we're going to talk today to the new chefs who offer global cuisines, southern cooking and our innovators and innovators in restaurants.

And we've got new critics.

We got social media food critics who can make a restaurant soar.

And you don't always know that they're coming.

So we got a new language.

We got a new community.

We got new food.

We got creativity, and we got new critics.

And we're going to tell you all about it.

N'digo Studio, N'digo Studio Funding for this program has been provided by Illinois Student Assistance Commission, Community Trust.

CineCity Studios, Lamborghinis Chicago, Gold Coast and Downers Grove.

Commonwealth Edison Broadway Chicago and Illinois Health Plan get covered.

N'digo Studio Chef Royce, she is the proprietor and the executive chef of Soul Prime in Lincoln Park.

Your business was struggling and you got a critic review.

You got a tick tock review and the Keith Lee effect, and it changed your business.

Tell us about that.

It did.

Thank you so much for having me.

Herman, it's a pleasure.

Having Keith Lee come in to Seoul Prime.

At the at the at the moment that, we needed a change.

We needed a boost.

We needed, to be lifted.

Was absolutely extraordinary.

Amazing.

I did not know the effect that Keith Lee had.

I did not know anything about the Keith Lee effect.

But God is is purposeful.

And he he does things his own timing.

So when Keith came to Seoul Prime, I kind of made Keith Lee history because I understood that I was the first owner that he's ever met, while doing his full review.

So he was eating in his car because of social anxiety that he suffers.

And he actually came in and met me while doing the, his review.

So that was extraordinary in itself.

While he was there, I had customers tell me, girl, it's going to change your life.

There's going to be people standing beside what they did.

He's, you know, there's going to be people standing outside, around the corners.

but we did have people standing outside calling, and we have an intimate dining space, and I can say that, the very next day, everyone was there.

And, Tiffany, you had a similar experience, but it wasn't with a restaurant critic.

All right, so here's Tiffany Burrell, and you have two restaurants, the Soul Food Lounge.

Yes.

And here you are.

Found some time off and you went to the comedy club.

And Gary Owens posted on social media, not quite a review, but a kind of little interview with you about your restaurants and about what you do.

And it too, went viral.

Tell me about that.

Right.

Well, I of course, I had some time off.

So me and one of my actually well, actually one of my employees at the time I took her or she took me, we went to the concert together and it made it so special because I really, really adore Gary Owens and all of his comedy.

So when we were there, it was time to check out and I was actually tipping the server.

See, that tip works.

Exactly.

I was actually tipping the server and then he said, is she a good tipper?

And so then I said, well, of course I am, because I own a restaurant.

And then we have the video and then, So the Soul Food lounge.

Well, and she got all excited.

Girl, your grits.

I love your shrimp and grits.

You like the soulful sounds?

Green dress?

Yes.

I love red.

Where's it at?

Last night, after all, we have to.

Wear on Sunday.

3804.

But it's in Beverly Hills and down north.

Is the heard.

You got food serving soul food in here.

Come on.

Let me in.

Let me.

Let me dress something here in.

Hi.

Hey, Chicago.

Yeah.

Come on down to the soul food land.

Speak with.

Over now.

Here we look.

Look at all these happy customers.

At the soul food.

Now.

"Laughing" I had a lot of people in the audience that knew of my restaurant, the Soul Pool Lounge.

So that gave it an extra push with Gary.

So they kept saying, oh my God, we know it, and clapping and applauding.

So that gave him that extra push that he needed to make a viral video.

And now the Soap Lounge is a household name.

That video with over 4 or 5 million views.

And like Chef Royce, we have people coming in every day saying, Gary sent me.

So that was so amazing and was extra special because like I said again, I really, really enjoy his comedy and I'm always at his comedy show.

And this time now you're always at his comedy show, at his comedy show.

So it was very, very special.

And of course, all the restaurants, we need that extra push because word of mouth is how we basically do business, because as a small business owner, we do not have a larger platform.

So social media is it.

And that gave us the push we needed as well.

And Nicole, Chef Imani, here you are.

Just having the time of your life as a private chef with celebrities, in, Hollywood, no less.

And you decided to come back home and do what you're calling elevated comfort food for breakfast and for brunch.

Tell me about brulée.

So thank you for having me.

It's a pleasure.

Well, I started at the Brulé bra Used you work.

For.

Tell us some of your time.

So.

Oh, okay.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So going back, I, started my culinary journey cooking for Tyrese Gibson in Atlanta.

I was his private chef for about a year while I was in culinary school, so that was a pretty, a pretty it was a pretty good experience.

Definitely for my first gig.

A lot of experience, but a lot of people cooked for Kiki Palmer.

John Singleton, rest in peace to him.

And just a lot of people.

And then I got a call to go on tour with new addition, and do their tours.

Their six, six, six month tour.

And then I got a call to cook for, Monique in Melbourne.

Rodriguez, the owner of my organic.

So they kind of started.

So I'm their private chef currently.

I cook for them six days a week, three times a day.

Yeah.

So, this is restaurant.

So this is the.

I started out.

So Monique found me, to do a brunch for her.

And I always love to cook brunch like I have since I was a kid.

Breakfast.

Brunch food.

And then, she called me to do brunch and that was just.

It just became a thing for me.

Everybody called me to do branch, and I was like, I have to open up a breakfast spot.

Like, I can't be.

I'm one person, so I can't be, you know, in five different places at once.

So that's how the first, restaurant came about.

And I was just like, let's do a brush bar.

And we searched for a spot for three years, and I said, not yet.

And this year he did.

So we found Brulé actually in February.

And our, you know, we've been playing it for the past six months to open.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Okay, chef Xavier, you have got the prettiest restaurant restaurant in town in the South Loop with a dress code.

Yes, and I love that because when I heard you had a dress code, I was like, I'm going to get me.

Yeah, right.

Why?

So I can go to the rescue.

How long did it take you?

Because I watched you.

I watched you every day because you right there.

I was quite a journey.

Yes, it was quite a journey.

It took us about two and a half, three years to build out the restaurant.

Prior to that, I own a catering company called Vance Events for ten years.

So I always knew that I wanted to own a restaurant.

It was just about the right timing.

And then Covid hit and all of my corporate clients were at home.

So I started doing a lot of home catering, just similar to you, like a lot of home catering.

And, I ran into my partner Troy, and I'm like, maybe this is a great time for us to open a restaurant.

We found a location and we went in the first day.

It was previously a dog room, a salon, did a lot of work.

We did not.

And two dogs out.

Oh, my God, it was called, I believe World puppies.

And we went in the first day.

I did the walkthrough and we laid out the entire restaurant and like 30.

Minutes it is.

Yes.

And we're going to we're going to look at your opening night.

Yes, which was a black and was phenomenal.

We did the black tie grand opening on Juneteenth, and we had so many days that we were shooting the open.

It just wasn't right.

And we finally had got a great, solid team.

And we were like, we want to do the grand opening on Juneteenth.

And it was absolutely extraordinary.

Here's a question, and this is a question to all of you.

Okay.

So you all are chefs.

So cooking is your thing.

That's what you do.

How do you choose the menu.

How do you choose what goes on the menu?

I would say for us, we really wanted to make sure that we were hitting our, target, which is a Southern American steakhouse.

So we really built our menu off of fine dining from that point, with, adding in those southern staples like braised collard greens and jalapeno cornbread skillet.

And then from that point, we listened to the community a lot to see exactly what people wanted because we started off originally as a breakfast and brunch restaurant, primarily.

Yeah.

And it was like we were going to go in the morning, have our weekends, are we?

And the rest of the.

Day literally just, you know.

No, the neighborhood was like, absolutely, we need a rest.

Yeah.

We need a for fine dining.

And then we just kind of went from there.

But the menu selection, it was it was quite, quite simple.

Tori and I were very, very, big on exactly what we wanted.

We did years of traveling, the world to really pull our menu together.

Exactly what we wanted.

So it was easy for us.

For me, how I chose the items to go on our menu is, pretty simple.

It's our culture.

It's our background is who we are.

We are soul food.

This is what we know.

So I wanted to particularly wanted to introduce my culture to Lincoln Park.

So Lincoln Park in in Chicago, Illinois, is is the wealthiest community in Chicago?

We don't have very many black and brown businesses represented there.

So who doesn't like amazing fried chicken?

And some make macaroni and cheese and grab me.

We don't need to know.

Harriet.

Night.

So I wanted, the community, because we have, you know, diversity back there.

Like we needed more diversity at it because we did not have soul food restaurants in Lincoln Park.

So, for me is really simple.

It was my culture, who we are and to, to showcase us.

What about you?

Well, with us, with the South Pole Lounge, we're more of a global fusion than a traditional soul food place.

Global fusion.

Now, what does that mean?

So basically every culture has their own type of so Italian restaurant.

Righiso you have Italian, you have Asian.

All of these different cultures have their comfort food.

So we just decided and I rely heavily on my partner.

Chef love to curate the menu as well because he has decades of experience.

So but we were trying to do was just say, okay, let's if we were in Italy, what is that feels like if we make it so?

And that's why we did our own variation that twist on it.

And we came up with, with me, you fit is our global fusion.

So we limited it because we have a grand tasting.

So we have a sampler that you can taste a little bit of all the cultures of grand taste, grand tasting, and that's what we're known for.

We try to make it a global fusion, so we just go to all the different cultures, and then we create a menu like that.

I felt that Chicago was missing brunch.

You know, I'm a brunch.

I'm a brunch here.

I go out to eat.

What time is brunch?

Brunch is about 11 or 11.

11 ish is the earliest, and I would say till about 3:00 and I. Finish to.

311 ish to three.

You know, you get those people that probably don't want to get up early.

You know what?

Yeah.

But they still want some breakfast.

Yeah.

So I think Chicago is definitely missing that brunch scene.

And me being down south, I lived in Atlanta for seven years and that was big.

And I went down there.

I'm like, chicken and waffles, gumbo, like, you know, shrimp and grits, like, you know, just for brunch.

Yes.

Like just having all those things because brunch is breakfast and lunch.

So you can have a you can have your pancakes, you can have your sandwiches, you can have your salads, you can have airy, you can have pastas, you can have is literally is is a wide range what you can do for brunch.

So I think we were missing a good soul food brunch.

And like they said, just listening to our, neighborhood and saying like, hey, we need this over here.

So it was important to bring that element to the South Loop of Chicago.

As a small business, as an entrepreneur, as new businesses.

What's the challenge?

Was a little over $3 million to build out, but that was the first obstacle.

The next obstacle was finding great town financing.

Is a big challenge.

Staffing, I can certainly echo that is a big challenge.

And then, being creative and innovative, when it comes to keeping our doors open, we got to always we're always thinking of ways to change our menu.

I changed my menu seasonally.

It's all fine.

Innovation also in the talent.

Because that's huge.

Because I always teach my staff.

You have to have you have to teach, treat people the way you want to be treated.

So you have to get them to buy in to what you're selling.

And that's hospitality.

That's creating customer service, creative and the kitchen in the back of the house.

You have to teach them to buy into your dream to make it wonderful for everyone.

An exceptional experience.

But also with that being said, it is also the support of our community.

Yeah, so that's one of the challenges that we have.

And that's one reason why Chef Roy's video made her even more successful than she already was.

My Gary on video made us more successful because we need the support of the community, not just people who look like us, but just the community.

And that's the biggest challenge.

If we're going to stay open, we need support.

We also need to be innovative and give the people something that they desire.

So now, Imani, you're coming out.

Imani, you're coming out, doing private cooking.

I like grits, I like my grits with cheese in them every day.

And now you're going into public, where we got to have a lot of people kind of liking the same thing.

How do you how do you make that transference?

I would say for me, in my private chef journey, personally, I was I had total creative control over my clients.

So you.

Could fix.

Them, fix whatever I want.

They didn't know what they were eating, so they lift up the plate at 6:00.

So, it's about me being creative and just showing the public my creative this and what I have to offer.

So I feel like that they're going to gravitate towards it, you know?

And it's like, I'm not open yet.

So I haven't gotten those customer reviews and, you know, stuff like that right now.

But yeah, I'm just like, hey, this is me.

This is Imani.

This is Imani on the plate.

I hope you love it.

I hope you enjoy it.

Do not say why you are a chef.

when it comes, you know?

And then there's the customers.

You're teaching others the craft.

How do you come up with the creative something.

I mean I'm sure you're constantly thinking of something else.

Yes.

New menu.

New way to fix something old.

Adding another spice that'll make it taste differently.

How do you come up with that.

So I'm really big on flavor and flavor components overall.

And so I create a dish where in the middle of the night It's like literally just get up, I get on, I don't make this.

a really?

Yeah, really.

Literally.

I get up my entire menu.

I selected, even before we opened, but I was like running soon, as soon as I put my hood in and my equipment in, I was running recipes nonstop.

And so soon as I hone in on the flavors, the presentation, I immediately start from the top and think about how easy this would be.

Training my 15 line cooks.

And so I like go.

I take 1 or 2 like my my senior sous chefs.

I take them, I train them first.

And then on that following Monday, we'll train the entire staff and everyone have their own ways of learning new dishes.

And so we kind of make it up on the fly to make them understand how important it is for the customer to enjoy the dish.

The way that we design it, the way that I design it, the way that I design it and make it perfect.

Here's my final question.

How do you because this is important for in restaurants.

So the food is one thing.

And I'm assuming all just wonderful, wonderful cuisine.

What about the atmosphere.

Atmosphere is very important.

How do you create the atmosphere.

So with us we always think about what I want and I just feel like I'm a everyday person.

So is what what I like when I go out and that's how you build your restaurant.

You we have live music.

I want to be able to sit down.

I feel comfortable, cleanliness, I want nice servers and I want excellent cuisine.

So you just trying to build it around there.

And I love sexy environment.

So we just try to cater our restaurants to what we like.

And again, like Amani was saying, if I like it and maybe someone else, they like it as a way.

Of so do you have to go off?

You know you all you have, like if you are a person that goes out to eat.

We've been to all these resources.

Chicago.

You pick out little things that you like and you implement it in your restaurant.

I like this.

I want a photo per people, you know, you you create those and you just put it in your restaurant because those are things you like and other people will gravitate towards it.

What's your favorite dish in your restaurant?

I love my seafood platter is one of my favorites.

It come with a 2 pound Maine lobster.

Oyster Rockefellers, scallops.

One dish.

Oh, okay.

Well, all right, what.

Knew that was the one dish?

All of that is in one dish?

Yes, that is in one dish.

What's your favorite?

What's your favorite?

I will have to go with my stupid grits.

With what?

Shrimp and grits.

Shrimp.

And.

Yes, it comes with smoked smoked Gouda, grits, apple, chicken sausage.

And then you have a Cajun Creole sauce.

And there.

Yeah, it's amazing.

With some cherry tomatoes.

Okay.

What's your favorite dish?

Our Carolina, our Carolina salmon.

Pan polenta.

So polenta?

Yeah.

Fragrance.

And, salmon and shrimp is a tower dish, so it looks beautiful and it tastes so great, and people never know what they're biting into.

That's when I do the pan polenta.

Yeah.

One did.

Yeah.

So we have salmon.

Shrimp.

Okay.

Royce, what do you got at the moment?

Because, I mean, you change is my favorite dish.

My favorite dish, so prime is our, branzino.

And so I, my, my branzino is, pan seared.

And it comes with heirloom tomatoes and an amazing, butter wine cream sauce.

And it is butter wine, butter wine cream sauce.

And it, for fresh garlic.

But it's also paired with our southern creamy grits and our Cajun greens.

No substitutions, but all three of those, if you eat them together, they go perfectly together.

Perfectly paired, perfectly paired.

They say that's.

What they say.

Oh, yeah.

I find.

Yeah, yeah I see.

And now that you all have made me hungry.

I want to thank you for being with us today.

Thank you.

Thank you for telling me about your restaurant.

Here's my final question.

What makes Chicago?

I asked it, but I'm.

I ask it again.

What makes Chicago a restaurant town?

I go to New York example and you go into a restaurant no bigger than this and pay $1 million for something.

You go to Italy.

Same thing.

Restaurants.

Not big, very small food, just spectacular.

Just spectacular.

I don't know what the secret is.

I don't know if we just going to do food crazy, atmosphere, Atmosphere, maybe some music with some kind of stupid going on in the restaurant.

But what makes Chicago that restaurant?

We care.

We care because we don't care.

We literally care of that.

My colleagues that I know, we care about our food.

We care about the presentation.

We care about the temperature.

We care about the quality.

We care about, what we're presenting to our guests because we want, those guests to be repeat customers.

And we would like to give our guests the same thing that we, that we would like to make.

The experience, this.

Experience.

It's the skill set from your.

It's the skill set as well.

I feel like we have a lot of skill.

We have talent here.

Oh, yeah.

We have a lot of talent here.

Especially me coming out of culinary school here in Chicago.

I went to school with some amazing people who's doing some amazing things right now.

The skill, the skill set is literally here we tier.

Okay, so here's another final question.

So there is a possibility of a new law in Chicago for dogs to come into a restaurant.

You are familiar with that?

No.

Oh yeah.

You heard about it.

No no no.

This is this in the restaurant?

In the restaurant?

Yeah.

Your thoughts on that?

Would you let dogs in your restaurant?

If it's a law, I guess we have to abide by the law.

But I don't think that, having that experience.

I don't think that dogs belong in a restaurant.

I think they belong in parks and at homes with their families, but not to dine.

I think that's an opportunity for the, the owners and their dogs to be separated, have their own time.

So, no, I don't think if it's a service dog with something that's needed, which I have had before, but on a regular basis.

Absolutely not.

Yes.

Right.

I do not agree with animals being in a restaurant either, just because we have to keep the restaurant clean.

I don't agree with it.

It's already hard enough.

I was in Germany once, you know.

Right.

And we have things.

I was going to say.

Yes, I was in Germany once and I was eating and I looked down.

oh my God, there was this German Shepherd and my appetite.

Everything went because I was like, is he getting ready to, you know, is he going to jump?

Is they going to give him some food or what's going to happen?

But you know, that's the thing.

In the end in New York, they're doing it.

Yeah I will say I wouldn't mind.

Next summer we open up our outdoor patio and outside in the front, and we'll be able to see it 100 people.

I wouldn't mind people bringing their their pets on our outdoor patio.

I know, but you.

Have to make accommodations.

Then it would definitely be a, you know, for sure.

But I am a pet lover.

I have a dog.

And, Milo and I will have have sat at Beatrix and had coffee and coffee cake in the mornings.

But you never know when Milo is okay, but.

You're not going to darken the rest.

No, no, no, you have never seen him.

I'm okay.

No.

All right.

But not inside.

But outside, you know?

Yes.

We already have a home stand outside, so there's no actual contact coming in the inside at all.

So, I don't think I don't I don't see a problem there by the inside.

Absolutely, absolutely.

No.

Thank you so much for being with us.

Congratulations to all of you.

I now have new restaurants to go to.

Yes.

And I will be visiting.

And I'm going to see if those favorite dishes become my favorite dishes.

And I'm going to be a line cook.

I'm coming in, not on.

Come on.

This all.

Come on.

Thank you so much for being with us.

You got to remember Chicago number nine nine years.

The best city in America.

And it's because of our guests.

Today we got the restaurants.

For more information on this program, follow us on social media.

Funding for this program has been provided by Illinois Student Assistance Commission.

Community trust.

CineCity Studios.

Lamborghini Chicago Gold Coast and Downers Grove.

Commonwealth, Edison and Broadway Chicago.

"MUSIC".

NIDGO Studio.