After opening two restaurants together over the past five months, the partnership between acclaimed chef Daniel Rose and Boka Restaurant Group is over.
The Chicago-based Boka in a statement said it has “parted ways” with Rose, who opened the restaurants Le Select in Chicago in January and Cafe Basque in Los Angeles in December.
Boka said it has brought in Chris Pandel as executive chef and partner in Le Select, who will collaborate with consulting chef in residence Lee Wolen and Chef de Cuisine Patrick Sheerin to completely refresh the dinner menu over the coming weeks.
“The concept of a brasserie menu was always something that resonated with us, as it speaks to everyday approachable dining,” Boka Co-Founder Rob Katz said in a statement. “We believe in the power of spirited collaboration and know that our experienced chef partners will bring their unique expertise to serve a phenomenal brasserie menu.”
A spokesperson for Rose at Le Coucou, the New York City restaurant Rose opened in partnership with Starr Restaurants, declined to comment on the breakup with Boka.
The opening of Le Select was a coming home of sorts for Rose, who is originally from Chicago. He moved to France to attend college and enrolled in the Institut Bocuse cooking school, apprenticing at top restaurants before opening his own concepts in Paris, Spring and La Bourse et La Vie. His first restaurant in the U.S. was Le Coucou, where he earned a Michelin star and a James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in 2017.
A French brasserie, Le Select opened with a menu of classic dishes, like roast chicken, steak au poivre, paté en croute and desserts like profiteroles and éclairs with coffee cream. It was described by reviewers as Chicago’s biggest opening since the pandemic, “a huge place, a gorgeous place, a place that smells like crisp, fresh money,” wrote Chicago magazine’s John Kessler.
That review, however, was mixed, calling the restaurant “another downtown food factory that’s huge, uneven and expensive.”
Café Basque in Los Angeles, meanwhile, was Rose’s first West Coast concept. It is located in the Hoxton Hotel downtown, where the multiconcept Boka also operates chef Stephanie Izard’s Peruvian concept Cabra.
The all-day-dining Café Basque was described as rustic and more casual, featuring the cuisine of the Basque region of Spain and Southwest France. The Infatuation praised the pintxos but described larger entrees as hit-or-miss.
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