Kinzie Chophouse

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

A Chicago Institution with a Mediterranean Heartbeat

Kinzie Chophouse opened on North Wells Street in River North in 1991, and more than three decades later it remains one of Chicago's most enduring independent restaurants. What sets it apart from the city's other steakhouses is a quality that's harder to manufacture than a great prime cut: genuine warmth. The restaurant describes its ethos as rooted in filoxenia — the Greek concept of extending generosity to strangers — and that spirit runs through the room from the first greeting to the last course.

Since 2019, the restaurant has been guided by husband and wife co-owners Nicole Flevaris and Andreas Tsakonas, who assumed stewardship of Kinzie's woman-owned legacy while bringing new energy to the space. Andreas works closely with the kitchen on culinary direction; Nicole oversees finance, marketing, and guest relations. Together, they've kept the place unmistakably itself while sharpening every edge.

Prime Cuts and Mediterranean Influence

The menu is a confident blend of classic American steakhouse and Mediterranean cooking — a combination that feels less like a concept and more like a natural inheritance. On the protein side, Kinzie has sourced exclusively from Meats by Linz for over thirty years, one of the country's most respected names in Prime beef. Cuts arrive both wet- and dry-aged, hand-selected, and presented tableside in the tradition the restaurant has maintained since its earliest years.

Beyond the steaks, the menu moves fluidly through grilled octopus with fish roe cream and chimichurri, a seafood squid ink linguini in white wine saffron sauce, grilled sea bass with basil oil, and a raw bar offering East and West Coast oysters alongside beef and tuna tartares. The Mediterranean influence is woven through the salads, the pastas, and the kitchen's preference for olive oil, citrus, and herbs.

For those who want the full arc of the kitchen's ambitions, the Odyssey Tasting Menu — offered on weekends — presents eight courses that move from a grilled oyster with hollandaise through a leek and potato velouté, a grilled tiger prawn, and then into the heart of the meal: a wet-aged New York strip with asparagus and béarnaise, and a Rossini filet with fresh truffle, foie gras, and port wine sauce. The meal closes through aged Gruyère with honeycomb and a milk chocolate mousse with macadamia and salted caramel.

Recognition and the People Behind It

The wine program earned a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence in 2022 — a recognition that reflects the depth and curation of a cellar built to complement serious steakhouse dining. It's the kind of accolade that confirms what regulars have long known.

The human fabric of Kinzie is just as telling. Rafael Trinidad, one of the dining room's longest-serving team members, has been with the restaurant for more than twenty years — starting as a busser in 2002 and working his way into a service lead role. Guests ask for him by name. His presence, and that of others like him, is part of what gives Kinzie its steady, familiar rhythm: a place where regulars return and newcomers feel, quickly, at home.