Chef Danny Grant, who took Chicago's Ria to two Michelin stars in 2011 and 2012 and was named a Food & Wine Best New Chef in 2012, opened Maple & Ash in the Gold Coast with partner Jim Lasky in 2015. The format reads as a steakhouse rewired: a multilevel room of deep-set leather couches and clubby music, set to the glow of a semi-open kitchen where a wood-fired hearth turns out dry-aged cuts and a tableside seafood tower of lobster, scallops, king crab, and clams in garlic butter and chili oil. The wine program runs to thousands of bottles and a list often cited among the country's most serious. Listed in the MICHELIN Guide, though it holds no star of its own. For Chicago's loudest, most maximal steakhouse, where the scene is part of the order.