Prominent chefs have restaurant plans for 2 hotels
Celebrated chefs Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand will open restaurants at a Rosemont hotel under construction and at a hotel in Schaumburg next year.
Rosemont is the newest destination for Chicago's celebrated chefs Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand and their foray into the hotel dining experience.
InterContinental Chicago O'Hare will feature the pair's Osteria di Tramonto, the second location of the contemporary Italian-inspired restaurant that debuted last October at Westin Chicago North Shore in Wheeling.
The team behind the internationally acclaimed Tru restaurant in Chicago on Wednesday was part of a photo opportunity on the rooftop of the 12-story hotel off River Road near the Rosemont Theatre as a topping off ceremony. The building won't open for another year.
They also have plans to open a second Tramonto's Steak & Seafood restaurant at the Hyatt near Schaumburg's Woodfield Shopping Center next June. The first opened at the Westin in Wheeling.
"We loved our opportunity and experience out here (in Wheeling). You have so much built-in clientele because of the hotel," Tramonto said. "I think our hours in Rosemont will go a little longer because of the hotel and the theater. As far as menu and concept and spirit, it will be close to what we're doing in Wheeling."
Rosemont's restaurant will seat 250, including about 100 more private dining seats than the Wheeling location.
In Wheeling, the pair opened four restaurants at the hotel late last year. There are plans to close Gale's Coffee Bar, a pastry and coffee shop, to make way for more private dining space for the Osteria di Tramonto.
"It's not a negative. It's a high-class problem. It's a supply and demand project," Tramonto said.
Fine cuisine in the suburbs is something residents want more of, said Tramonto, of Vernon Hills.
"They're starving for it, especially those who work in the city and just dread trekking it down to the city on the weekends," Tramonto said. "It's just refreshing to them."
The 556-room InterContinental, which is expected to open next September, also will feature Capital Grille and McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant. The CopaChicago Theatre to feature entertainer Ron Hawking also will add a unique flourish to the Rosemont hotel.
The hotel is one piece of Rosemont's $500 million entertainment district rising around the proposed casino site, including a multi-screen luxury movie theater set to open later this month.
Tramonto and Gand's Cenitare Restaurants group has more expansion plans on the menu. Possible restaurant sites in Chicago would stand alone, while planned locations in Las Vegas and on South Beach in Miami would be at hotels.