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The Chef at Michael Jordan's Steak House Will Be James O'Donnell

Bull Market

A few months ago, the news broke that Michael Jordan was unretiring his name on the Chicago restaurant scene—the new Michael Jordan’s Steak House (InterContinental Chicago Magnificent Mile, 505 N. Michigan Ave.; 312-321-8823) is scheduled to open in mid-August in the Zest space. This week, the restaurant announced that James O’Donnell, who opened the first location of the chain in Connecticut, would take his talents to Chicago. Here are some highlights from our conversation with O’Donnell.

“I was a terrible eater as a kid. Peanut butter, no jelly. I hated milk with my cereal. I was the worst for my parents. I feel bad now, but my son is paying me back for the years I tortured them. . . . I worked at a Sizzler as an order taker in high school. I really enjoyed it. Six months later, I was a full-time line cook. Back in the mid-eighties, I was cooking 500 to 600 steaks a night in a suburb of San Diego. . . . When you first get to see your steak [at Jordan’s], it will be cooked. . . . [Steak houses] usually have some fairly rich and decadent sides. Having an intensely large dessert is overkill. We do have one giant dessert. It’s a 23-layer chocolate cake. . . . Raw shellfish towers will be available. . . . A few dishes that we did when we opened Connecticut are going to come down [to Chicago]. Our signature garlic bread with a blue cheese fondue. Some grilled corn with a little smoked chili and lime butter. . . . I think a lot of people come in and want to reinvent the steak house, and I think it’s a bunch of baloney. We are here to honor the tradition of the genre and have a little fun. The steak-house formula doesn’t have to be overthought. The twist is not having a twist anymore.”

Quotable

“I don’t even know what the curse is. I thought they were talking about the restaurant [ Girl & the Goat ].” —Mike Quade, the Cubs' manager, in today's Chicago Tribune, in response to Cubs players' “F--- the Goat” pregame warmup T-shirts. The shirts refer to the curse supposedly applied to the team when a goat was not allowed to enter Wrigley Field for the 1945 World Series.