No Reservations

CHICAGO'S SHOWMAN RESTAURATEUR JERRY TOOK AN ANYTHING-GOES APPROACH WHEN HE TP"U

FORMER INDUSTRIAL GARAGE INTO

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RARE FINDS. YOU SIMPLY MUST STAY FOR DINNER BY STEVE GARBARINO

mg zeDrawooa aining iaDie in tne "Dallroom" of the Jerry Kleiner residence wa custom built for the space. The dramatic skylight ceiling rises to 35 feet; the building originally housed a shoi where hydraulic lifts were repaired. The home's many antique Persian rugs are handwoven.

ot many restaurateurs would consider stuffing an Amish chicken with Maine lobster, but it makes perfect sense in the diamond-in-the-rough world of Jerry Kleiner.

Chicago's undisputed ringmaster of downtown restaurants is famous for infusing an embarrassment of riches into ragtag spaces and neighbor­hoods. Over the past two decades Kleiner (pictured opposite page, with putter) has transformed the most humble of places—no-man's-lands, a fisheries building, a power plant, a truck repair shop—into settings of spectacle, color, taste and pure gusta­tory theater. His eight-ring circus now includes the Randolph Street Mar­ket district's Marche (rustic French), the West Loop's Vivo (Italian) and Fulton Market's high-flying Carnivale (Latino), as well as the South Loop's vaulted Opera (Chinese). His bustling new 33 Club bistro, a mezzanined rush of mahogany, stained glass and vintage glam photography, appeared this summer in Old Town.

The 53-year-old Polish immigrant prefers to sculpt a space to his liking, leaving a building's bones intact as evi­dence of what it once was. So it figures his own home—an 8.000-square-foot former 1920s industrial garage situated in the working-class neighborhood of West Town—is the ultimate barn turned castle, equal parts Fellini whim and Case Study minimalism. Kleiner gutted the old garage (see the original build­ing on the next page and the gutted interior above) in 1998. He has his own metal shop and did much of the work himself. Simultaneously cluttered and airy, with a 35-foot-high glass ceiling that cranks open to the clouds, the two-story compound is arranged like a series of theatrical stages. The house is the ultimate entertaining space, Kleiner's piece de resistance among his many Herculean efforts.

The dining table is large and dramatic enough to accommodate the starting lineup of the White Sox and then some. (It seats 12.) A walled-in putt-putt green off the dining hall is used more for sunning than golfing. Jeff Koons would be in thrall of Kleiner's stuffed dragons, as well as the pachyderm-themed upstairs playroom for his two

lucky children. It's a Mad Hatter's tea party, with chefs often audition­ing for jobs in the black-and-white checkerboard-floored industrial kitchen. "One visiting French chef got out of a cab in front of my house," says Kleiner, "and exclaimed. 'What kind of hotel is this?'"

The space is the spectacle. A visitor sees this when he ventures through the custom-designed pressed-copper gates and passes a street-leaning sculpture that looks like a giant espresso cup. Kleiner often travels the world and has collected silken fabrics in bursting colors—hallucinogenic turquoise, grapefruit pink, kiwi lime. They're stitched into chairs and settees and shroud gargantuan chandeliers. The antique Persian rugs were hand-picked by the perfectionist himself. The overall design is influenced by the grand hotels of Portofino and Capri in Italy.

Along with Marisa Molinaro, his girlfriend of 10 years, Kleiner curates their showplace's exotic finds, culled mostly from antique, glass and fab­ric shops in Capri, Murano and Ven­ice. It's a rotating show, a movable feast for the eyes. "Our lives are a production," says Molinaro, a strik­ing classical violinist and onetime Hanes underwear model. "Every­thing we like winds up in the res­taurants," says Kleiner with a trace of Polish accent remaining.

From his house to his bistros, Kleiner's affinity for turning ugly ducklings into swans is anything but cavalier. It's rare that an upbringing and a personal vision come together

so literally. When the restaurateur was seven, he and his parents—both Holo­caust survivors—moved from Europe to a tenement in Chicago, living on virtually nothing. His parents were accomplished custom tailors, however, and they made sure their son was dressed to the nines.

"Appearances were always impor­tant," says Kleiner, whose own effort­lessly put-together look could be called Euro prep, like a Bond villain's. "We had custom clothing but never any food," he adds, driving in his jet-black BMW. Kleiner has spent his life re-creating himself. "You carve your life into what you want to make it," he says. Of his restaurants he says, "You treat a building like a canvas, a sculpture, a character sketch, and translate it into a living, breathing art piece, a three-dimensional environment."

And if you're Jerry Kleiner, who has seen the best and worst of times, you don't share the canvas with other art­ists; you're fine doing it on your own. "It's about layering, like Picasso paint­ing a picture. You don't say, 'Hey, buddy, can you help me with this?'" Except, perhaps, when you're trying to fit a crustacean into a chicken.