On Thursday, Dec. 3, 2026, Ox Bar & Hearth marks one year in the old Golden Ox building by welcoming a mentor back into the kitchen. Chef John Asbaty and restaurateur Alain Uy host Grant Achatz for an eight-course anniversary dinner at 1578 N Clybourn Ave in Lincoln Park, the final collaboration in the restaurant’s 2026 Chef Series.
The restaurant announced the night on Instagram and said tickets were coming soon. The dinner is not listed on the Happenings page at oxbarchicago.com or on the restaurant’s public OpenTable Experiences list.
A full-circle night with the chef who trained them
Asbaty and Uy first cooked together in 2003 at Trio in Evanston, in the kitchen Grant Achatz was then running with Curtis Duffy. That room is where their friendship started, and it is the origin story they tell for HAVE Hospitality, the company behind Ox Bar & Hearth. They later reunited in 2015 to open the 3 Arts Club Café at RH Chicago, then spent a decade talking about a restaurant of their own.
Ox Bar & Hearth opened on Dec. 3, 2025, a live-fire Midwestern restaurant built around a wood-burning hearth. For the first anniversary, they are bringing Achatz in as friend and mentor for a special eight-course dinner. The individual courses have not been published. The public announcement does not yet include a start time or a ticket price.
The pairing has a clear line through it. Achatz is the cook Asbaty and Uy trained under before they had a restaurant of their own, and the anniversary dinner puts that history back on the same line for one night. The restaurant called it a full-circle celebration, a night of cuisine, friendship and hospitality, and the final collaboration of the year. What guests will actually eat will be set closer to Dec. 3, as the other Chef Series menus have been, by what the farms and the hearth can do that week.
The last Chef Series dinner of 2026
The anniversary night closes a monthly Chef Series that started in September. Paul Virant, the preservation-minded cook behind Vistro Prime and Gaijin, opened the run. John Manion, the 2026 Jean Banchet Chef of the Year and the force behind El Che, Brasero and the coming Palomino, shared the hearth in October. Jason Hammel of Lula Cafe cooks a five-course late-fall harvest dinner on Thursday, Nov. 19, 2026, a reception at 5:30 p.m. and dinner at 6:30 p.m., with tickets at $125 and a $65 wine pairing on OpenTable. Achatz is the fourth and final guest of the year.
Each of those earlier dinners followed the same easy rhythm: a welcome cocktail, passed bites around the hearth, then a seated tasting cooked with Asbaty. Hammel’s Nov. 19 night is still the ticket that is actually on sale, prepaid on OpenTable, with tax and gratuity extra and tickets becoming nonrefundable within one week of the dinner. The anniversary seating is the one that closes the series, and it is the one the restaurant has not yet put on a public booking page.
The hearth in the old Golden Ox
The building on Clybourn is about 125 years old, and for 80 years it housed the Golden Ox, the German restaurant that fed the neighborhood until 2001. Asbaty and Uy kept the exposed brick and the name’s history, then built the room around an open kitchen and the hearth, with warm lighting, dark wood and about 118 seats across the dining room, a bar and lounge, a private room and a patio. The address sits at North and Clybourn, a short walk from Steppenwolf Theatre, in Lincoln Park.
On a regular night the menu follows the farms and the fire: smoked whitefish dip with radishes and seeded rye, pork collar with rutabaga mostarda, hearth vegetables, and a pavlova with raspberry sorbet and sage cream. The bar pours Midwestern bottles and house cocktails such as the Stone Sour, a rye drink with hazelnut, citrus and a frothy egg-white cap. The dining room books on OpenTable. Bar and lounge seats are walk-in.
The regular menu changes with the market. Recent plates have included a beet salad with blueberries, mizuna and fennel pecans; peak-season corn pushed toward a sweet, familiar comfort; and grilled pork shoulder finished with a bright, acidic counterpoint to the char. Sunday brunch, from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., brings brioche French toast with raspberries, crème fraîche and maple, plus savory hearth dishes and morning cocktails. Half-off wine bottles show up on Wednesdays, a quieter midweek habit in a room that otherwise books for celebrations.
The restaurant sits down the street from Steppenwolf and not far from Alinea and Boka, in a corner of Lincoln Park that already knows Achatz’s cooking. Ox Bar & Hearth is after a different register: a neighborhood live-fire room with 118 seats, a first-come bar, and a patio that takes happy hour when the weather allows. Architectural firm Knauer and interior designer Gil Melott helped turn the old German dining room into that warmer, wood-lined space, and the first year has been a run of chef dinners, Sunday brunch and a patio that opened to the block.
Grant Achatz, a few blocks from home
Achatz is the chef behind Alinea and Next, and this dinner keeps him close to Lincoln Park. ChiVibe has already written about his Fashion menu at Next and about the Alinea Group’s Charlie Trotter’s tribute dinners on Armitage. The Ox Bar & Hearth anniversary is a different kind of appearance: a one-night return to a kitchen run by two cooks who started under him more than two decades ago.
How to plan for Dec. 3
The anniversary dinner is Thursday, Dec. 3, 2026, at Ox Bar & Hearth, 1578 N Clybourn Ave, Chicago, IL 60642. The restaurant described it as an eight-course night and the final Chef Series of 2026, and said tickets were coming soon. It has not yet posted a public booking link on its Happenings page or its public OpenTable Experiences list.
Regular hours are Wednesday and Thursday 5 to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5 to 10 p.m., and Sunday brunch 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. with dinner 5 to 9 p.m. The restaurant is closed Monday and Tuesday. Happy hour runs Wednesday through Sunday, 5 to 6 p.m., in the bar, lounge and patio. The house is cashless, and valet is available out front.
Ox Bar & Hearth Chicago at a glance
- Address: 1578 N Clybourn Ave, Chicago, IL 60642 (Lincoln Park, at North and Clybourn, near Steppenwolf Theatre)
- Anniversary dinner: Thursday, Dec. 3, 2026; eight-course first-anniversary collaboration with Grant Achatz, the final Chef Series of 2026
- Tickets: announced as coming soon; not yet listed on the Happenings page or the public OpenTable Experiences list
- Chef and owner: John Asbaty; restaurateur Alain Uy (HAVE Hospitality)
- Regular hours: Wednesday and Thursday 5 to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 5 to 10 p.m.; Sunday brunch 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and dinner 5 to 9 p.m.; closed Monday and Tuesday
- Happy hour: Wednesday to Sunday, 5 to 6 p.m., bar, lounge and patio
- Reservations: dining room on OpenTable; bar and lounge walk-in
- Good to know: cashless; valet available
- Website: oxbarchicago.com
Ox Bar & Hearth Chicago FAQ
When is the Grant Achatz dinner at Ox Bar & Hearth Chicago?
The Grant Achatz dinner at Ox Bar & Hearth Chicago is Thursday, Dec. 3, 2026, at 1578 N Clybourn Ave in Lincoln Park. It is an eight-course first-anniversary dinner with chef John Asbaty and restaurateur Alain Uy, and the final Chef Series of 2026. A public start time has not been posted.
How much is the Ox Bar & Hearth Chicago anniversary dinner with Grant Achatz?
Ox Bar & Hearth has not posted a public ticket price for the Grant Achatz anniversary dinner on Dec. 3, 2026. The restaurant’s Instagram announcement said tickets were coming soon, and the dinner is not yet listed on the Happenings page or the public OpenTable Experiences list.
How do I book the Grant Achatz dinner at Ox Bar & Hearth Chicago?
A public booking link for the Grant Achatz dinner at Ox Bar & Hearth Chicago has not been posted. The restaurant announced the Thursday, Dec. 3, 2026, eight-course anniversary night on Instagram and said tickets were coming soon. The Happenings page still lists the Nov. 19 Jason Hammel dinner as the current Chef Series ticket.
Where is Ox Bar & Hearth Chicago?
Ox Bar & Hearth Chicago is at 1578 N Clybourn Ave, Chicago, IL 60642, in Lincoln Park at North and Clybourn, near Steppenwolf Theatre. The live-fire restaurant occupies the old Golden Ox building. The Grant Achatz anniversary dinner is Thursday, Dec. 3, 2026.
Who is cooking the Ox Bar & Hearth anniversary dinner?
Chef John Asbaty and restaurateur Alain Uy host Grant Achatz at Ox Bar & Hearth Chicago on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2026, for an eight-course first-anniversary dinner. Asbaty and Uy first cooked together at Trio in Evanston in 2003, in the kitchen Achatz was then running, and opened Ox Bar & Hearth on Dec. 3, 2025.
What is the Ox Bar & Hearth Chef Series?
The Ox Bar & Hearth Chef Series is a monthly run of one-night collaborative dinners at the Lincoln Park restaurant. Paul Virant, John Manion and Jason Hammel have already been guests in 2026, and the Grant Achatz anniversary dinner on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2026, is the final collaboration of the year.
Further reading
- Ox Bar & Hearth official site
- Ox Bar & Hearth Happenings
- Ox Bar & Hearth’s Instagram anniversary announcement
- Ox Bar & Hearth on OpenTable
- Eater Chicago on the opening of Ox Bar & Hearth
- HAVE Hospitality
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