May 23--A former chef de cuisine at Grace restaurant has been tapped to be chef de cuisine at Smyth restaurant.
Smyth, along with its casual sibling The Loyalist (both by John and Karen Shields), will debut this summer in Fulton Market at 177 N. Ada St. Romero has worked for several years under chef Curtis Duffy, first at Avenues in the Peninsula hotel and then at Duffy's much-acclaimed Grace.
"It was very organic how chef Shields and I met up," Romero said. "I ran into him in December; I was hanging with Ryan Poli (now executive chef at Catbird Seat in Nashville) at his pop-up at Jam, and he's friends with Shields."
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"I'd kind of known about him for awhile," said John Shields. "I was looking for a chef de cuisine, and people kept recommending him. We talked, and we seemed like two like-minded people, and he has a wealth of experience from working for Curtis."
Smyth will be the more high-end of the two restaurants, offering a tasting menu; The Loyalist will be more a stop-in-anytime, rustic-American place. The Loyalist will open first (the Shields' have their fingers crossed for July 1 or thereabouts), and Smyth will follow four weeks later.
"Eating (at a Shields restaurant) is like coming into John and Karen's home," Romero said. "It's fun, not stressed out. The attitude is, we're going to take care of you with great, tasty food.
"I haven't been this excited about something in a long time."
This article has been corrected to reflect that Romero will be chef de cuisine at Smyth only, not The Loyalist.
Phil Vettel is a Tribune critic.
pvettel@tribpub.com
Twitter @philvettel
