This Restaurant Will Have A New Chef And Concept Every Three Months

Do you want the chance to sample the food of promising new chefs before they even get the chance to open their own restaurant? Intro is an entirely new restaurant concept starting in Chicago next month that will bring you a new chef, menu, and design/concept every three or four months. Lettuce Entertain You's Rich Melman and chef / partner Matthew Kirkley, will be bringing in up and coming chefs to have complete control over the restaurant for an entrepreneurship opportunity. Tickets to eat at Intro will be sold via Tock, Nick Kokonas' ticketing system that began at Alinea. 

The first chef at Intro will be chef CJ Jacobson, a Top Chef contestant who will be bringing a five-course, "rustic-refined," California-inspired menu to the restaurant on February 4. Lettuce Entertain You and Intro founder/partner Rich Melman explained to us how Intro will work. First of all, he said, they have been hiring a team of front–of-house and back-of-house chefs, servers, and hosts, who will all have to give Intro a yearlong commitment to working with the chef entrepreneurs.

"We will introduce the chefs to our methodologies of running a successful restaurant," said Melman. "We will also be introducing them to our team, as well as prospective financial backers. We will provide free-of-charge consulting to those who go through this program. They will be our partners. This is supposed to mimic how a regular restaurant is operated."

To apply, said Melman, please email ajohnson@leye.com. If you are considered for the position, the Intro team will even fly you out to Chicago.