Boka Will Revive a Classic Restaurant That Burned Down Seven Years Ago

It’s not uncommon for TV fans to start campaigns to revive canceled shows. They’ll set up online petitions or binge-watch series on streaming platforms. Studios sometimes take notice and the gears will start moving toward a revival.

Could the same thing happen with restaurants?

In January, Balena, a Lincoln Park restaurant that was run by Boka Restaurant Group and the owners of Formento’s, B. Hospitality, will return for a limited engagement. Balena will pop up from January 19 through January 26 at Boka’s River North private event space, the Wellsley.

Balena burned down in August 2017. The space at 1633 N. Halsted Street, across from the Steppenwolf Theater, has remained vacant for the last seven years. Boka chef Chris Pandel opened the restaurant in 2012. Four years before, he debuted the Bristol in Bucktown with B. Hospitality. Since then, he’s remained with Boka as a partner, opening Swift & Sons and Cira in Fulton Market, as well as Swift Tavern across the street from Wrigley Field. In winter 2019, Swift Tavern hosted an extended Balena pop-up.

The loss of the restaurant cast a giant shadow on Chicago’s culinary scene. Daisies’ chef Joe Frillman opened Balena as its executive sous chef, and diners can taste the restaurant’s influence in Logan Square. They won’t serve Balena’s signature pizza, but dishes like tagliolini nero with crab and sea urchin and orecchiette with lemon, kale, breadcrumbs, and chili are on the menu. Boka COO Ian Goldberg says Balena’s rustic approach to Italian food, which ventured away from red sauce and was built around wood-fired elements, distinguished the restaurant from others.

“Obviously, the fire forced our hand to close, which was a huge bummer, we still think about the restaurant all the time,” Goldberg says.

With Pandel still at Boka, bringing Balena back wasn’t too challenging with the recipes readily available — they’ve got software that stores that kind of stuff. It’s also a no-brainer to hold a pop-up in January when TV news is leaning hard into snowstorm coverage, encouraging diners to stay indoors. The conditions are rarely as dangerous as meteorologists say they are, which drives Chicago restaurant owners crazy when they deal with a flurry of cancellations. A pop-up will only last for a limited time, so if diners elect to cancel, they will miss out.

As Boka figures out how to optimize the use of the Wellsley, it was formerly French restaurant Le Select before the conversion to a private events venue, Goldberg says they’ve been in talks with other chefs from outside of Chicago. A pop-up series could be in the works in the future.

What put Boka over the top to bring back Balena was a recent piece in Time Out Chicago that listed closed businesses that its staff wanted to see revived. Time Out Chicago editor Jeffy Mai, a former Eater Chicago contributor, says he misses Balena.

“Balena was one of my most beloved restaurants, and after seeing the response from readers, it seems that many Chicagoans share that sentiment,” he writes to Eater. “I’m ecstatic that Boka Restaurant Group has heard our cries and is bringing the Italian concept back for another helping of tagliolini nero.”

While the response from diners has been great, Goldberg says there aren’t any plans to revive Balena. Then again, TV fans have heard those types of comments before. And now we have Fuller House. You just never know.

Balena pop-up at the Wellsley, 504 N. Wells Street, from January 19 through January 26, reservations via OpenTable.