Esquire

Beef before the room is open

Beef anchors the identity before anything else is settled. Esquire in Chicago is a luxury steakhouse announced for the former Esquire Theater on Oak Street in the Gold Coast, and as of 2026 the concept is still being introduced rather than served. No kitchen leadership has been named in public, which leaves the concept language as the only honest way to read the room: exceptionally sourced product, premium beef, and a service culture that extends into beverage-led luxury through a Champagne Room. Oak Street raises the stakes. A luxury retail corridor brings a see-and-be-seen table that judges a room before the first course arrives, and a 1930s theatre shell that has already carried several restaurant lives sets a standard of its own. The question is not whether the space can hold a dining room. It is whether a new one can occupy it with present discipline rather than borrowed atmosphere.

Steakhouse form, Japanese inflection, French base

The announced program for Esquire gives the kitchen a broad frame: a luxury steakhouse with Japanese inspiration and a French foundation. The house has described à la carte service, a shellfish menu and sushi, with the identity still anchored by premium beef rather than a fixed tasting-menu format. That combination matters because it sets several disciplines beside one another. Steakhouse work asks for sourcing, fire, resting and sauce. Shellfish asks for cold handling and restraint. Sushi asks for knife work, rice, temperature and sequence. French technique gives the format its base notes, especially in stocks, sauces and the logic of service. The restaurant is planned for the former Esquire Theater at 58 East Oak Street, with reports describing the project as a flagship from M Street Collective and placing the room in the range of 265 to 270 seats. Those figures make the operation less like a small counter and more like a full machine: pass, bar, cellar, dining room and private-room rhythm moving at once.

The old theater as the room

The room carries its own pressure before a plate lands. The former Esquire Theater is a 1930s-era building in Chicago’s Gold Coast, a visible Oak Street address that has already moved through several restaurant lives. Reports on the project note that this will be the third restaurant in less than 15 years to reshape the sprawling space, which gives the new house both an inheritance and a test. A steakhouse in that shell cannot rely on scale alone. The counter, the pass and the room have to make the building feel occupied by a present discipline, not preserved as a backdrop. The Champagne Room reference points toward a beverage-led kind of luxury, but the named cellar team and list structure have not been made public. For now, the most concrete thing is the frame: beef, shellfish, sushi and Champagne under the Esquire name at 58 East Oak Street.