The other day, I saw a tweet someone sent up for Chicago's first Gastro-Lounge.  I suppose I should be happy they used a hyphen, since most restaurants seem to hate hyphens.  But really, I nearly threw my coffee cup against the wall in frustration.

You see, I have been in a lot of whackadoo conversations lately about restaurant concepts.  Everyone, it seems, has an intense desire to do two things:  shun what is interesting and unique about themselves because they think it "too limiting," or cover up the fact that they are so shockingly uninteresting with some mutated form of an idea.

Rather than rail against the misguided, I want to share with you a fascinatingly interesting restaurant group that can't seem to miss, and why I believe, ten years in, they can't seem to miss.

This restaurant group is about to open a bar*. The first thing they do when they are about to start a project is crack open the history books. That's right, instead of spending hours drinking bad liquor trying to think up some fancy new marketing spin, the group understands that there are no completely original ideas. There are just great ideas that they can improve upon.

A fine dining restaurant that isn't dusty and moldy.  A wine bar with acutally good food. A DJ lounge with actually good acoustics.  A lounge with good drinks, that isn't crowded and loud. An 18th Century beer hall with 21st Century culinary standards. Next: Whiskey in clean glasses, tables and chairs with a design aesthetic, tacos with fresh quality ingredients.

The result is authenticity.  It is an authenticity anyone can feel when they enter their establishments.  An authenticity that renders their projects timeless.  An authenticity people really crave.

So the next time you are about to start a project, stop trying to contort yourself into your likely misguided idea of what people want and concentrate on two things:

1.  What you are. If you are authentically German, Greek, Polish, Dutch-Irish with that culinary understanding of the world, just freaking be that.

2.  What already succeeded in history and how you can improve on elements of that.  And please note, I said improve on, not reinvent for the love of all things holy.

*To the journos who read this: No there is no name. It isn't that there is some secret I am not telling you. Seriously, it hasn't been decided.