Borrow a Kitchen

Itinerant chefs, caterers and small businesses looking for space to test out new food concepts have multiple of options in Chicago.

Kitchen Chicago has been around for years, but they moved into a new space at 324 N. Leavitt Ave. about a month ago that is both more functional for chefs and more versatile as an event space. Their new kitchen includes two full cookspaces -- one oriented toward pastries -- as well as a climate-controlled chocolate room; there are plans to possibly add a demo kitchen for small cooking classes. Through two sets of double doors is a soaring event space: the building was once a foundry, and this huge room is the upper half of what was once flyspace for massive cauldrons of molten iron. Kitchen Chicago have kept the industrial chic look but finished it with hardwood floors, large cylinder lights and several big, rough-hewn wood tables. There's a loft space at one end that's bigger than many apartments. The room has already been used by Chef Stephanie Izard from one of her Drunken Goat dinners.
Logan Square Kitchen is new on the scene and also offers a private event space and a shared commercial kitchen, both in a small storefront at 2333 N. Milwaukee Ave. The business is dedicated to environmental, economic and social sustainability -- you can ask them what that means in practical terms at their open house this weekend, 10am to 3pm both Saturday and Sunday.

Up in Evanston, Now We're Cookin' offers a shared kitchen for professionals -- as well as a demo space that's been used by Grant Achatz among others. And Splice Kitchen plans to open a 24-hour professional kitchen in the West Loop sometime this year. According to Time Out Chicago, Washburn Culinary Institute runs an incubator kitchen in its South Side campus.

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