The Kendall College Dining Room may not be a Michelin-starred restaurant but the quality of its food and service definitely deserves some stars. The Dining Room is a living classroom for the next generation of chefs—and it’s also a prime location where you can enjoy an excellent fine dining experience at a moderate cost. Located on Michigan Avenue, the restaurant looks east on Millennium Park. We dined there on the night of this week's storm, so we had dramatic views of dark clouds moving across the sky and becoming a raucous thunderstorm, accompanied by wind, lightning flashes and a downpour of rain.
Kendall College is a culinary arts and hospitality management college, founded in 1934; it became part of National Louis University in 2018. Formerly located on Goose Island, near the intersection of Halsted Street and Chicago Avenue, Kendall College is now at 18 S. Michigan Ave. Its seventh-floor dining room provides prime views of Millennium Park and Lake Michigan.
When we arrived, we were greeted at the bar with a taste of the drink of the day, a coconut-infused mojito, created by one of the student chefs. The bartender provided tiny sips of the drink, which we could order in full size. The Dining Room has an extensive wine list as well as beer, alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails and bottled waters.
My party of five was seated and greeted by the dining room host and our server, who was friendly and well-informed. Most of the students who work as cooks and servers in the dining room are in their final year of culinary training and ready for an internship, the next stage in their culinary careers.
I asked one of the servers if he and his colleagues watched The Bear, the FX/Hulu series set in a Chicago restaurant. “Oh, about 90 percent of us watch The Bear,” he said. In season 2, the Kendall College Dining Room made several appearances on The Bear as two characters (Ebraheim and Tina) enrolled in Kendall College courses to enhance their culinary skills.
Prix Fixe Menu
The menu, which is vegetarian friendly, with vegan and GF options, offers a prix fixe three-course menu for $45 or the same menu with a wine pairing for each course for $65. You can also just order a cocktail or a glass of wine.
Four choices are offered for each course. Each dish is perfectly prepared and meticulously plated.
Appetizer choices on our menu included a Florentine saffron bisque, a charred zucchini salad (with arugula and other vegetables), a duck tamal; a listed scallop dish was replaced by a haddock roll because of product unavailability.
Entrée choices were grilled chicken and steak frites with a beef filet; the fish entrée was black cod and a vegetarian mushroom entrée rounded out the selection. Each entrée included interesting and sometimes unusual vegetables and sauces. (The frites on the steak frites plate were cassava fries, not potato fries. Cassava is a starchy vegetable similar to manioc or yuca.)
Desserts on the current menu are four unique creations, each featuring different fruits and sauces with sweet ingredients such as chocolate, flan, caramel or gelato in different forms.
You can check out the seasonal menu here before you go. The Dining Room also serves breakfasts on several dates during each term.
Portions are a moderate size and appropriate for an adult with an average appetite. I probably won’t take my visiting family to the Kendall College Dining Room, because my 16-year-old grandson always eats two entrees and everyone’s leftovers. And 30 minutes later, he’s getting a snack from the fridge.
Kendall College Training
The dining room servers and bartenders are supervised by Philip Pessin, the dining room manager, a professor of culinary arts and hospitality management. He teaches all front-of-house positions including the servers, server assistants, back waiter and expo (expeditor) as well the bartenders and host.
Jeff Crittenden, the head chef, is also professor and back-of-house instructor and dining room chef. He creates the menus based on the availability of product and the progress of students, In the kitchen, the students do all the prep for their stations, supervised by Crittenden.
Students in the Dining Room have three full days of training and 17 days of service. All students will work for five weeks in back of house and five weeks in front of house. All of the students are baking and pastry students or culinary art students. Most have been at Kendall for about a year and half before this class and will be headed to internship right after this class.
Restaurant Info
When you are presented with the bill for your meal, you have a tip option. All tips go to the student scholarship fund, so tip generously! You can also donate directly to the TIPS Scholarship.
Reservations are strongly recommended as hours in the Dining Room may vary by school term and recent limited space to reduce capacity and uphold current city indoor dining ordinances.
The Kendall College Dining Room, located at 18 S. Michigan Ave., is usually open for dinner reservations Monday through Friday. Check the schedule because the Dining Room is closed during term breaks. Read more about Kendall College’s programs here.
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