About
We built the chimney first.
Ember & Oak started as a supper club with one grill and a rule that has not moved since: if it goes on a plate, it goes over fire.
The kitchen
Cooking with fire is a discipline, not a gimmick.
Wood behaves differently every night. Oak burns hot and clean, cherry throws sweetness, and both change with the humidity coming off the lake. There is no dial to turn — you learn to read the coals, or you burn dinner.
That constraint shapes the whole menu. Vegetables get buried in ash until they collapse into themselves. Whole fish go over the bars skin-down and come off once. Shanks sit in smoke overnight and are torn apart at your table with two forks.
It also shapes the room. The hearth is in the middle of the floor rather than hidden behind a wall, so the whole restaurant smells like dinner and everyone can watch the person cooking theirs.
What we hold to
Three things we don't negotiate.
Live fire only
No gas ranges on the line. Everything is grilled, buried, smoked or baked in the wood oven — which is slower, hotter and worth it.
Bought close
Produce from growers within a day's drive, fish from the lakes and coasts we can call directly, and whole animals broken down in-house.
One team, one check
A 4% kitchen equity fee goes straight to the back of house. Everyone who cooks your food shares in the room being full.
How we got here
A short history
- 2014
A grill in a garage
Two cooks running a supper club out of a Pilsen garage, feeding thirty people a night off one kettle.
- 2016
Fulton Market opens
We took a former cold-storage building, cut a hole for a chimney, and built the hearth before we built the bar.
- 2019
The Hearth Counter
Eight stools went in facing the fire. The twelve-course run has been sold out most nights since.
- 2024
Still here
Two stars, a Beard nomination, and the same pork shank we opened with. We're not changing that one.
Press
Said about us
“The best fire cooking in the Midwest”
“A room you don't want to leave”
“Two stars”
“Best New Restaurant, finalist”