Sink|Swim, the Logan Square seafood spot and sister to popular cocktail bar Scofflaw, closed earlier this year for its second revamp in as many years. While ownership at the Scofflaw Group figures out what’s next for the space, it’s getting a new, temporary occupant next week: On August 18, Charles Welch and Andrew Miller, both departing from Honey’s (1111 W. Lake St., Near West Side), will open the pop-up restaurant Good Fortune (3213 W. Armitage Ave., Logan Square) through the end of the year.
Welch, a longtime Chicago-area resident who will serve as executive chef, is himself a sucker for fresh starts. Before starting at Honey’s last summer, he took some time to travel around the U.S. in search of inspiration; now, at Good Fortune, Welch says, “I wanted to get out and do my own thing, get uncomfortable for a while.” Miller, meanwhile, kicked off his culinary career as a busboy at the Providence, Rhode Island, restaurant where the grilled pizza was invented (blasphemy in Chicago, perhaps?) before moving to Spain to run a consulting group, and finally settling in Chicago. He’ll be the creative director.
Good Fortune’s menu, though it’s still being finalized, seems like it’s trending toward anarchic seafood—“no rules,” proclaims Welch—that blends different styles and traditions: Baja bass fish tacos, or, as a riff on ratatouille, a whole roasted branzino with tomatoes, eggplants, and zucchini. “It could be Italian, it could be Asian. We could do a whole snapper as a Thai fish-fry,” says Welch. And apart from the seafood, the space will have a cocktail cart for drinks to be mixed tableside, and a few light desserts—but the focus is on the fish.
As for the Sink|Swim space, its post-pop-up fate is still unclear. But for now, the re-reinvention of the restaurant doesn’t seem like it’ll stop the flood of watery wordplay surrounding its name. Welch seemed to agree. “We were joking around a little bit about doing a pop-up in Sink|Swim,” he said. “We figure we’ll either…sink or swim.”