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Can One Of Chicago's Most Maligned Restaurants Be Saved By A New Concept?

By Anthony Todd in Food on May 5, 2016 2:12PM

CChicagoSardines.jpg
Grilled Sardines at the now-departed C Chicago. Photo via C Chicago's Facebook.

It's been a rough ride for the restaurant (now) formerly known as C Chicago. When it first opened, it was just another fancy seafood restaurant from a restaurant group that knew the business pretty well. Now on its second re-concept and second name, we'll see if it can rebound.

To recap: C Chicago was the restaurant that Chicago Mag critic Jeff Ruby called "Everything wrong with humanity". He blasted the food, the service, the clientele, and gave it probably the worst review we've seen in a year. We heard similarly bad things from friends and colleagues.

So, they tried again. They announced they were "evolving" the menu, hired a new chef, Dean Zanella, and lowered the prices fairly significantly. Apparently it didn't work, or at least it didn't work well enough, because the restaurant now has a new name, Ocean Cut (which is closer to Chicago Cut, the more popular restaurant in the group), a new chef, Dirk Flanigan, and a new menu. A representative of the restaurant told us that the re-concepting was expected to be complete by Thursday.

The Tribune has a few details: the new spot will have "a more casual seafood menu" and "lower prices," and Flanigan is creating a seafood-based charcuterie menu. There are still expensive ($36-60) whole fish on the menu, but it seems that the focus on $75 black bass with a $10 side of peas is gone.