Team Behind Hyde Park’s Virtue Opening Restaurant In West Loop

WEST LOOP — The team behind the popular Hyde Park restaurant Virtue plans to open a new restaurant in the West Loop early next year.

The yet-to-be-named restaurant at 219 N. Elizabeth St. will be led by James Beard Award-winning chef and former “Top Chef” contestant Damarr Brown. It will be part of chef Erick Williams’ Virtue Hospitality Group and will be the first solo concept for Brown, according to a news release.

The restaurant will offer what the group described as “a deeply personal take on soul food,” drawing inspiration from the memories, flavors and experiences that shaped Brown’s upbringing. Dishes will be prepared over a live hearth fire, according to the release.

Brown was born in Germany and grew up in south suburban Harvey, where he was raised on his grandmother’s Southern cooking, according to a Hyde Park Herald profile after he won the 2023 James Beard Award for Emerging Chef.

After culinary school in Chicago, Brown joined the kitchen at now-closed River North restaurant mk alongside Williams, who would become his mentor, according to the Hyde Park Herald.

Brown has been chef de cuisine at Virtue since 2018.

The new restaurant will reflect Virtue Hospitality Group’s broader mission of honoring culture through food and hospitality. Its name, menu and opening date will be announced in the coming months.

The project will be Williams’ fourth restaurant and his first outside of Hyde Park. He opened Virtue in 2018, Daisy’s Po-Boy and Tavern in 2022 and Cantina Rosa in 2024. Williams won the James Beard Award for Best Chef Great Lakes in 2022, the same year Daisy’s opened.

Top This Mac and Cheese, a delivery-only restaurant, and Mustard Seed Kitchen were temporary concepts launched by William’s hospitality group during the pandemic, but they’re no longer in operation.