Kitty’s Cosmopolitan Club is a basement bar with the character of something several storeys higher. The new Chicago cocktail lounge from Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants and partner-beverage director Kevin Beary sits beneath Crying Tiger at 51 W Hubbard Street, reached by way of a host station at the foot of the stairs, where a backlit glass-brick wall gives the first clue that River North’s latest watering hole is not interested in understatement.
Wallpaper* drinks at Kitty’s Cosmopolitan Club, Chicago
The mood: emerald after-dark
Designed by David Collins Studio, which also worked on Crying Tiger, the basement has been arranged with the clipped symmetry of a supper club and the atmosphere of a private cabaret. Emerald green drapery falls from the ceiling and gathers behind the bar, edging the room towards something tented and theatrical. Metallic bronze crackle-finish tiles wrap the columns; dark-stained timber walkways frame an abstract animal-print rug; plush banquettes sit against softly illuminated glass brick. The effect is a lush intoxication of green velvet, smoked mirror, polished nickel and low amber light.
There are plenty of details to linger over. Pierre Paulin bar stools, upholstered in red and metallic abstract animal print, line the bar. Handwoven emerald macramé leather screens divide the room. Behind the bottles hangs Circus Romance, a 1978 painting by Robert Kushner, while sculptural tiger table lamps and waiters in green velvet dinner jackets extend the room’s ritzy after-dark mood.
The drinks: classics, sharpened
Beary’s cocktail programme is divided into four categories – From the Bar, From the Cold Room, From the Trolley, Low and No – with drinks built around classic references but made with modern techniques and sharper spirit selections. A Kitty’s Gin Martini is stirred tableside with Old Raj 55° Dry Gin and a house vermouth blend; a Japanese Whisky Old Fashioned uses Yamazaki 12 Year Old Whisky; and the bar’s dedicated -16°F walk-in freezer station, billed as a Chicago first, gives the colder drinks their own ritual. Food follows the same indulgent maximalism: caviar chips and dip, chilled shellfish, warm Cinco Jotas Ibérico ham, dim sum and chocolate truffles.
Kitty’s Cosmopolitan Club is located at 51 W Hubbard St Ste 200, Chicago, IL 60654, United States