Sable Kitchen & Bar
505 North State Street
Chicago, Illinois
Tel: 312-755-9704
Designer: Puccini Group

Chicago mobsters, burlesque clubs, and cocktails aplenty—the good times of the 1930s inspired the restaurant at recently opened Hotel Palomar. “We fell in love with the period,” said Robert Polacek, chief creative officer for designer Puccini Group. “It had the sense of masculinity, greed, and money, but in a stylish way.” Learning that the 158-seat restaurant’s name was Sable, the designers envisioned a femme fatale in sable fur, hence the sultry theme for the 6,400-square-foot space. Framing the bar are two stylized portraits—one of the “mistress” and one of the “wife,” in good gangster fashion—while oversized oxblood leather booths, a floor of black ebonized wood, and antique mirrors round out the throwback aesthetic. References to chemical attraction give the space a modern twist, including a glowing chandelier designed by Brooklyn artist Lindsey Adelman that resembles molecular structures. As Polacek noted, a successful restaurant is built around a story. The name Sable, however, turned out to be based on a different story entirely: As the designers later discovered, it was initially selected to honor the Haitian colonist Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, the so-called Father of Chicago.