November opening for Tortoise Club

September 26, 2012 – The upscale restaurant being built on the east side of Marina City by the former CEO of Flat Top Grill will open in November, according to a news release promoting the restaurant’s new menu.

Tortoise Club will be open every day, serving lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and dinner from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. On Fridays and Saturdays, dinner will be served until midnight.

An exact opening date has not been announced.

(Left) Dinner menu (click on images to view larger versions).

(Right) Lunch menu.

The menus (above), offered by executive chef Gray McNally, will include a variety of high-end, “fresh American fare,” such as Lobster Thermidor and Dover Sole. The lunch menu will include a cheeseburger and a club sandwich. The house specialty cocktail will be the “Tipsy Tortoise.”

“We’re not looking to reinvent the wheel,” said McNally in a news release last Wednesday, “but by using classic, impeccable cooking techniques on the freshest ingredients from local producers and farmers, we’re striving to ensure everything on the menu is executed at the highest standard.”

The interior will have a Chicago theme through paintings, sketches, and artifacts that include an antique ballot box and 300 leather-bound books from The Newberry Library, a privately owned library on the Near North Side.

Though reluctant to allow photographs just yet, Tortoise Club’s owner, Keene Addington, showed off his space last week. A wall had gone up dividing in half the ground floor space on the east side of Hotel Sax, behind which a former fitness facility was indeed being transformed into an upscale restaurant. The floor plan by Northworks Architects shows 5,562 square feet of space divided into a piano bar in front, a large main dining room, a private dining area, and kitchen in the northwest corner of the space.

An area in back that will be used by restaurant employees is where Marina City’s swimming pool used to be located.

Update: Tortoise Club will officially open on November 19, its owner, Keene Addington, confirmed on October 2.