Jerry Kleiner’s new restaurant Park 52 opened in Harper Court just over a week ago, and it is poised to establish itself as Hyde Park’s one fashionable destination restaurant.

The restaurant is arguably the most expensive in the neighborhood, with the bulk of its entrees over $20, comparable only with La Petite Folie. Its design is just as uniquely high-end. Chant, another recent Hyde Park opening, also broke ground for high-end Hyde Park dining, but Kleiner’s team went leaps and bounds further with their design. Read the rest of this entry »

“What do you want with your vodka?” asked Jerry Kleiner, as I sat down with him and his kids at his South Loop restaurant Room 21. Tempted to ask for vodka with my vodka, I asked for an iced tea instead. Better to stay sober when interviewing the mogul of such heavy-hitting eateries like Giocco, Opera, Marché, Red Light, and now, Park 52, located in Harper Court at 52nd Street, and scheduled to open in early March 2008. Given Kleiner’s characteristic belatedness, April seems like a more plausible opening date. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most conservative neighborhoods in Chicago is in the midst of an insurgency. Hyde Park, traditionally the province of the University of Chicago, bookstores, and a surprisingly long-sustained DIY culture, has recently heard an ever-louder contingent calling for “commercial development” of the storied South Side corridor. The different parties interest the observer not so much because of their disparate stories (and they are surprisingly polarized), but for the ferocious articulation of their views. The recent storm of controversy surrounding the closing of the Co-op Market and, to a lesser extent, the fate of the old Doctors Hospital, has served as the most prominent expression of a heretofore latent tension between a younger generation of UofC affiliates and established residents. The traditionalists, represented by organizations such as the Hyde Park Historical Society and the Hyde Park Herald, are painted as isolationist and unimaginative by their opponents in advocating a particular kind of Hyde Park development that calls for intense community soul-searching. Meanwhile, younger, impatiently forward-looking voices exemplified by Chicago Maroon columnist Alec Brandon and the witty, acid-tongued blog Hyde Park Progress call for swift reform and commercial development, all the while being derided by established residents for being too young, and therefore too fleetingly engaged, to be trusted. All the while, the elephant in the neighborhood, the University of Chicago, casts its shadow over these camps—the two Hyde Parks. Read the rest of this entry »