Hooligan from Chef Christian Hunter Announces Logan Square Restaurant Opening Fall 2026

This fall, Chef Christian Hunter will open his first solo restaurant at 2528 North California Avenue in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood, bringing the previously announced concept to life for the first time as a standalone restaurant.

Hooligan was first introduced last year as part of Time Out Market Chicago, where Hunter planned to debut the concept following his departure from Atelier. Those plans were cut short when the market abruptly closed before Hooligan could open. Now, Hunter is realizing the restaurant on his own terms, taking shape in a new way, in a permanent, 50-seat, 2,000-square-foot home in Logan Square. Joining him is general manager and partner Tyrone Redic Jr., a longtime fixture in Chicago hospitality whose career includes Charlie Trotter’s, serving on the opening team at Grace and later leading operations at Celeste.

Hunter refers to the concept as “Third Coast Contemporary,” describing the new iteration of Hooligan as a neo-Midwestern bistro where classical French technique meets the foodways of the Great Lakes region. While the format is more relaxed and entirely à la carte, the cooking reflects the same level of technique Hunter has brought to tasting menus throughout his fine-dining career.

“There’s a mix of high brow and low brow here,” Hunter said. “It’s exactly the restaurant I’ve been chasing.”

Raised in Lexington, Kentucky, Hunter’s cooking has long been shaped by the outdoors, from foraging to cooking over wood fires. That connection to place followed him through a career that took him from the Adirondacks and Hudson Valley to coastal Rhode Island, Charleston and rural Connecticut, where he was named a James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef: Northeast while serving as executive chef of Community Table. He eventually landed in Chicago, where he opened and led Lincoln Square’s Atelier to a MICHELIN star within its first year and received the 2023 MICHELIN Young Chef Award.

At Hooligan, that background takes shape in dishes that pair classical French technique with ingredients close to home. Great Lakes perch is served with gribiche, while petite ravioli filled with pike quenelle arrives in a traditional Nantua sauce, pairing a regional freshwater fish with one of French cooking’s most exacting preparations. Hot water cornbread comes with pimento cheese and a chicken liver parfait, while radish paper dumplings are served in carrot bisque with horseradish.

Much of the menu is built around Hunter’s relationships with Midwest growers and purveyors, including Janie’s Mill and Nichols Farm. Hooligan’s signature caviar service takes the restaurant’s high-low approach even further, pairing crispy potato and house-made dip with paddlefish caviar sourced from a producer near Hunter’s Kentucky hometown.

“We work with incredible producers, like the woman raising paddlefish between Kentucky and Ohio near my hometown and turning it into some of the best caviar in the country,” Hunter said. “It’s Midwestern as hell, and it’s a perfect example of who we are.”

That same sensibility carries through to the end of the meal, where every table will receive a nightly treat such as cookies and milk.

“The technique is French, and the ingredients are Midwestern,” Hunter said. “But the hospitality and the feel of the restaurant? That’s Kentucky. It’s where I’m from, and it’s in how we take care of people the moment they walk through the door.”

Hooligan will initially open for dinner, with an entirely à la carte menu served alongside a dedicated dinner-for-two option that includes oysters to start, a small plate and large plate to share, followed by dessert.