Catch 35 Naperville

The Restaurant

Catch 35 Naperville opened on Washington Street in 2003 as the suburban extension of the Chicago Loop original on Wacker Drive that has been operating since 1991. The Naperville room is bigger than the original — a two-floor space with a long marble bar on the entrance level and a dining mezzanine above — and sits a half-block from the Riverwalk's central section. The location turns a routine pre-theatre dinner into a thirty-minute riverside walk between courses if the weather allows.

The seafood is the heart of the menu. The wood-burning grill in the open kitchen handles the daily fish (Hawaiian opah, Hawaiian onaga, Florida grouper, North Atlantic halibut) and the kitchen has a confident Asian-fusion sensibility that distinguishes it from the steakhouse competition on Main Street. The miso-glazed black cod and the macadamia-crusted halibut with passion-fruit beurre blanc have been on the menu for two decades for good reason. There is a steak side of the menu — bone-in ribeye, filet, New York strip — and a raw bar that runs three oyster varieties on most evenings.

The wine programme is the surprise. The list runs about 200 references with serious depth in California Russian River chardonnay (Kistler, Aubert, Marcassin in good vintages) and Oregon pinot noir, plus a respectable selection of Loire whites and German Rieslings that match the fish menu more thoughtfully than most steakhouse-led rooms. Service is professional and crisp. For a business dinner that requires neither steak nor a chain-restaurant predictability, this is downtown Naperville's most balanced answer.