Despite its upcoming opening, Black Briar has been in the works since 2009. That’s when Jimmy Papadopoulos, then a sous chef at a hotel in the ’burbs, put together a detailed business plan for the restaurant he hoped to open one day. He dreamed of Black Briar when he was
the chef at Bohemian House, where his riffs on Central European dishes earned fans and even an 2015 Eater Award for Best Chef. He continued to think about his future restaurant when he was executive chef at Boka Restaurant Group’s Bellemore, and especially after it closed, a causality of the pandemic.
“That name sounded cool to me, so I carried it with me for years and years,” says Papadopoulos. “I was like, That’s going to be my first restaurant.”
On Saturday, September 26, Papadopoulos, along with co-owner Tim Anderson, finally gets to see his restaurant come to fruition when Black Briar opens in the West Loop.
In an elevator pitch, Black Briar could be summed up as a gutsy gastropub that’s filtered through an American lens. But in reality, it’s much more — from the open kitchen filled with high-end equipment and the expansive basement prep area packed with even more to the layered interior design that combines repurposed and luxurious pieces with touches of whimsy.
Then there’s the menu. Divided into five straightforward sections — Raw & Chilled, Starters & Snacks, Salads & Vegetables, Pastas & Grains, Meat & Fish, and Dessert — you’d be hard pressed to find a word that needs a culinary dictionary for clarification. There’s a short kids’ menu, too. (Papadopoulos has four kids, so including options for children made sense. “I’m a family man,” he says.)
Despite the seeming simplicity of the menu, Black Briar’s dishes come with surprises. Take, for instance, the snail toast from the Starters & Snacks section whose description simply reads “grilled sourdough, black magic jus.” Wild Burgundy snails are braised in garlic, butter, shallots, and lemon. The “magic jus,” a bordelaise sauce of sorts, includes shio kombu, fermented garlic paste, truffle paste, and dried porcinis. The sourdough is made in-house from a 30-year-old starter dubbed Jane Dough that counts the French Laundry as a former residence. A slice of that bread gets dipped in the jus like an Italian beef and then is topped with the braised snails and pickled garlic slices.
Homemade Hawaiian rolls serve as pillowy vehicles for slices of Lady Edison country ham (an American prosciutto, if you will) along with French butter infused with juice from pineapples roasted in the coals of Black Briar’s Josper grill. Oysters are dressed with a fermented tomato and dashi jus and topped with horseradish-spiked shaved ice, while the hamachi crudo, from fish butchered in-house, sits in a chilled green apple and celery juice broth, garnished with toasted buckwheat and radish slices. Grilled green and lima beans from Nichols Farm and Orchard are paired with creamy whipped ricotta and dressed with a Caesar-style vinaigrette with anchovies and warm guanciale, upping the umami factor.
Jane Dough returns in the homemade sourdough cavatelli that’s paired with toasted black pepper, Parmigiano, and a pecorino and Tuscan olive oil-whipped mousse. “It’s cacio pepe at heart,” says Papadopoulos, “but it’s our way of doing it.” On the heartier side, there’s the pork short rib, a cut that’s available only at Black Briar, says Papadopoulos. It’s first brined and then smoked, followed by a sous-vide bath and a visit to those coals. It’s lacquered with a reduced apple cider glaze. Coal-roasted sweet potatoes and German knockwurst reminiscent of Bohemian House are plate partners along with a tangy mustard-milk jam.
“I want to create dishes that form a symphony of texture, acid, salt, and fat,” says Papadopoulos. “Every single thing has a journey as you eat through it.”
Anderson oversees Black Briar’s beverage program, which looks to the kitchen and the seasonal ingredients coming out of it for direction. The location of the raw bar and hot line next to the 20-seat U-shaped bar speaks to that philosophy. “The back of the house leads, and we follow,” says Anderson.
American spirits often take the lead in cocktails, like in the Good Ole Days. A riff on an Old Fashioned it uses Koval barrel bourbon and demerara sugar steeped in pu-erh chocolate tea from Rare Tea Cellar. The Ashton Martin utilizes coals from the grill that have been coated in fat from the items roasting above and infuses them into vodka along with coal-oil olives for a martini-like drink.
The 80-bottle-deep wine list will feature a variety of winemakers from across the country along with a smattering of Old World producers. Price will be top of mind. “We don’t want bottles to get dusty downstairs,” says Anderson. “We want to pop corks here.” There will be 15 by-the-glass pours along with rotating pours for early-bird guests.
Studio K Creative’s Karen Herold designed the 110-seat restaurant, formerly home to Bar Takito. “Karen has been a friend of mine since Bellemore,” says Papadopoulos. “She has the ability to capture the essence of a person and bring it to life.”
At Black Briar, that meant embracing Papadopoulos and Anderson’s love of eating at the bar by making it the centerpiece of the space with tan leather stools surrounding it. The open high-ceilinged room features tavern-style seating with large U-shaped booths on one side and a more lounge-like area on the other with high-top tables. On one wall, floor-to-ceiling open shelving features knickknacks, along with jarred foodstuffs like preserved lemons and pickled delicata squash that will eventually make their way into Black Briar dishes.
Repurposed elements can be found throughout, including a large piece at the front crafted from an antique butcher block from Argentina that subs in for a host stand. Brass chandeliers add to the classic English pub vibe. On the walls, music-themed art nods to Papadopoulos’s love of classic rock, while accessories like the six-point antler he found while morel hunting further anchor the restaurant to those behind it. “We wanted this to feel lived in,” says Anderson. “Our main goal is to have an iconic Chicago restaurant that’s going to be here for generations.”
Papadopoulos designed the open kitchen’s counters a few inches higher than standard to ease chefs having to hunch over their workstations. “I really wanted to design a kitchen that I would have wanted when I was on the line cooking,” he says. “We’re able to do better food and have a much more efficient operation, but also to create culture and a restaurant that young cooks want to be in.”
Herold isn’t the only enduring relationship that came out of Bellemore. That’s where Papadopoulos and Anderson first met. “He was the very first person we hired,” says Papadopoulos. After Bellemore closed, Papadopoulos considered leaving the restaurant industry. “It was really tough,” he says. He dabbled in private chef work.
Six years later, when he found the space that would become Black Briar, he reached out to Anderson, who was the food and beverage director at Bian, a luxe wellness club. Anderson, too, thought he was done with restaurants, but he went to see the location anyway. “We walked the space, and I saw his eyes light up,” says Papadopoulos. Once Anderson’s wife gave the green light, they signed the letter of intent in November 2024, and by January they had executed the lease.
“Building Black Briar together is a culmination of over 40 years of our combined experience in the industry,” says Papadopoulos. “We took bits and pieces of things we’ve loved from all our experiences and put that in one place and built something unique. It’s really a full circle moment.”
Black Briar is located at 201 N Morgan Street; open 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. daily; reservations on OpenTable.
