Kindling Downtown Cookout & Cocktails has just opened inside one of Chicago’s most popular attractions, the Willis Tower, a place usually tourists go. Jonathon Sawyer, a James Beard award-winning chef teamed up with the Fifty/50 Restaurant Group and made this a place locals will absolutely love. Sawyer recently left the Four Seasons Hotel’s Adorn restaurant & Bar. At Kindling he specializes in using live fire and global flavors. The full-service restaurant covers two floors and is 17,000 square feet in total. Seating up to 500 guests.
Kindling has an international appeal that will bring in diners from across the globe who are checking out the views from Willis Tower’s SkyDeck. Sawyer told us he incorporates his travels to his food. The menu was spectacular with something for everyone. Some of our favorite dishes were the trout, lamp chops, Cesar salad and the roasted cauliflower. Everything has a charred taste that’s extremely flavorful. And make sure to try their gin & tonic made with The botanist gin, q tonic, ginger turmeric tukmeria, taragon, nasturtium & oxilis. Not only is it beautiful looking it tastes great. We are happy that we teamed up with this amazing group to do their uniforms. It has an industrial but luxurious feel with all the greenery and amazing chandeliers that are in the shape of a dandelion. Kindling is located at 202 S. Franklin.
“Live fire is universal,” the chef says. “It doesn’t matter where you come from in the world.”