Streeterville’s new sleek high-rise restaurant with a whimsical menu and sweeping views of downtown Chicago opens today. WoodWind, a new spot from Matt O’Neill (Craigie on Main, Bar Boulud, Ajax Tavern) of New York-based Craveable Hospitality Group (formerly the David Burke Group) and Cr(eat)e Restaurant Consulting, hopes to lure diners to the window-wrapped 18th floor of the Northwestern Memorial Hospital Lavin Family Pavilion at 259 E. Erie Street.

The WoodWind space was previously home to chef Danny Meyer’s Michelin-starred restaurant and cocktail bar GreenRiver, which shuttered in early 2018 after two-and-a-half years. WoodWind takes a slightly different aesthetic approach than its predecessor, injecting colors such as teal and burnt orange as well as adding live greenery to what was once a minimalist, monochromatic space. Former GreenRiver diners will recognize the layout, which is otherwise unchanged.

A 100-seat dining room, flexible event space, and spacious patio constitute the 20,000 square-foot restaurant that’s wrapped almost entirely by floor-to-ceiling windows. Diners can sit at tables lining long teal banquettes, at low or high-top tables, or a high-top communal chef’s table located between the main bar (there’s one in each section the space’s three sections) and wide-open kitchen. O’Neill will offer drinkers group-sized drinks and seasonal cocktails, as well as two draft and bottled beers and wines by the glass.

WoodWind’s menu, divided into snacks, vegetable dishes, seafood, and meat, is designed to utilize the kitchen team’s fine-dining roots in a way that feels “approachable” for diners, said O’Neill. The result is dishes such as a foie gras “Big Mac” (American cheese, bread and butter pickles, shredded lettuce, onion, house “fancy sauce”) and house-made saffron pasta with king crab and a rich butter crab-head sauce. Vegetable dishes include a salt-roasted sweet potato coated in walnut syrup, and covered in 12 different types of seeds on a Concord grape puree. “It’s only three components but there’s a lot of technique and care behind it,” he said.

Acclaimed Chicago chef Don Young will lead the kitchen day-to-day, Chicago magazine reported. He previously worked as co-executive chef at Michelin-starred Temporis in West Town and left the fine-dining restaurant in June. Young and former Temporis colleague Sam Plotnik were both nominated for the 2018 Jean Banchet Award for Rising Chef of the Year.

After Burke’s acrimonious split from the group that once bore his name (he reportedly requested the change), Craveable Hospitality has overseen a number of shuttered projects in other cities in recent years. These include Revolution Hall, the company’s Twin Cities food hall-style venue which closed in July, New York’s lauded Pan African restaurant Henry at the Life Hotel that shuttered suddenly the same month, and Brooklyn’s Saltbrick Tavern, closed last year. When Craveable’s Colorado restaurant Aspen Kitchen shuttered in 2016 after two-and-a half tumultuous years, the Aspen Times reported local ill-will, lawsuits, and bankruptcy.

WoodWind opens for dinner tonight in Streeterville, and owners plan to add lunch and brunch service soon. Tour the restaurant on the 18th floor in the photographs below.

WoodWind, 259 E. Erie Street, Open 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Monday through Thursday; 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday through Saturday.