Enhance Your Experience: Lyric Takes Dining to a New Level

The start of the new season at Lyric September 23 signals a fresh and exciting start for Lyric's restaurants and its hospitality services for patrons.

"A new and elevated experience awaits operagoers at Lyric this season, thanks to our enhanced hospitality offerings," says Rich Regan, vice president & general manager for presentations and events at Lyric. "We are pleased to partner with Jewell Events Catering to offer new menus in our restaurants, including featured-chef specials, which will be developed by the guest chefs and executed by Jewell Events Catering exclusively for diners in The Sarah and Peer Pedersen Room.

"And we are delighted to collaborate for the first time with Alpana Singh in developing new wine lists for our restaurants" Regan says. "Lyric patrons will be surprised and pleased with these developments. We want the Lyric Opera House to be a destination location for a revelatory dining and entertainment experience."

Here are some of the ways that you can enhance your experience at Lyric this season:

• The Sarah and Peer Pedersen Room and the Florian Opera Bistro provide attractive on-site dining options. Each offers time-efficient convenience with delicious and sophisticated new menu items, enhanced wine selections, and seated service in conversation-friendly settings to complete the Lyric experience. Both restaurants are open on performance dates only and are available only to same-date ticket holders.

• Master Sommelier Alpana Singh has curated new wine lists for The Pedersen Room and the Florian Opera Bistro. "Wine holds a revered place in the hearts of many opera enthusiasts and it's an incredible honor to be trusted with the mission to help craft the new wine list for Lyric Opera patrons," says Singh. "We have taken great care to offer boutique wines from around the world that are sure to please the discerning palates of this venerable, world-renowned institution." Singh is well known as a restaurateur (The Boarding House, Seven Lions, Terra & Vine) and as the longtime host of the Emmy Award-winning show Check, Please! on Chicago's PBS station. She became a Master Sommelier at age 26, the youngest woman ever to do so.

• The Pedersen Room restaurant features new décor and a sophisticated new menu by Jewell Events Catering. Reservations are required for this elegant street-level restaurant, and are available only to performance ticket holders. Service is prix fixe ($39), which includes a choice of soup or salad, choice of appetizer, and choice of entrée, with an array of breads and spreads also included. A selection of desserts is available à la carte.

There are two seatings before each performance in the 70-seat restaurant, with beverage and dessert service during intermissions and for an hour post-performance.The Pedersen Room will open at 11:30am and 12:45pm for matinee performances*, 4:45pm and 6:15pm for evening performances, and will remain open for an hour after the performance. *To accommodate Die Walküre 's earlier start times,The Pedersen Room will open at 11:30am for matinees and at 4pm for evening performances, with one seating for Die Walküre performances.

• Lyric introduces a Featured Chef program in The Pedersen Room this season, inviting top Chicago chefs and restaurateurs to create signature featured entrées for each opera. Chef AaRon Browning of Tortoise Supper Club will create a featured entrée option for Orphée et Eurydice and Chef-owner Tony Priolo of Piccolo Sogno will create a featured entrée option for Rigoletto. (Additional chefs will be announced at a later date.) Diners will have the option of ordering the prix-fixe dinner or the featured chef's entrée with sides, garnish, and accoutrements ($39).

"My passion has always been creating experiences, not just serving food," says Greg Jenkins, president of Jewell Events Catering. "The longstanding partnerships we have had with Chicago's dining scene will make this program unlike anything we've done."

The featured chef or restaurateur will be on hand to greet diners in The Pedersen Room on one performance date during each opera's run (as their schedules permit). For the opening night of Lyric's 63rd season on Saturday, September 23, Tortoise Supper Club owners Keene and Megan Addington will welcome diners, much as Keene does nightly at their River North restaurant. "Chef Aaron, Megan and I are honored to be partnering with Lyric Opera in the Featured Chef's Program," says Addington. "We as Chicagoans are truly fortunate to have this world-class institution in our wonderful city."

"It is exciting to have Piccolo Sogno included to cook for Lyric patrons and truly an honor to be a part of this great series," says Priolo.

• The Florian Opera Bistro introduces a new menu by Jewell Events Catering this season. Service is à la carte in this casual-chic bistro on the third-floor/Dress Circle level of the opera house. An appealing array of substantial entrée salads, savory tarts, sophisticated sandwiches, and elegant desserts ($7.50 - $31), along with full beverage service, is available to ticket holders before performances and during intermissions.

Reservations are available for matinees and for second seatings for evening performances in the 146-seat bistro. For matinee performances*, the Bistro will be open beginning at 12p.m. and for an hour after the performance ends. For evening performances, the Bistro will have reservations available for 4:45pm and 6:15pm seatings.*To accommodate Die Walküre's earlier start times, the Bistro will open at 11:30am for matinees and at 4pm for evening performances.

• Cheers! Champagne Bar debuts this season, directly across the Rice Grand Foyer from the grand staircase, between Aisles 3 and 4 on the main floor. Cheers! will be open for all performance dates and will serve an exclusive assortment of French Champagnes, international and domestic sparkling wines curated by Alpana Singh, plus Bellinis, mimosas, and other sparkling cocktails.

• Lyric's Sushi Bar will be open at 6:30pm for Friday evening performances throughout the season (starting Oct. 6), and at 4:30pm for all evening performances of Die Walküre, with Chef Tom Osaki in a new location between Aisles 5 and 6 on the main floor.

• Lyric's Foyer and Lobby Bars will continue to offer full beverage service. Ticketholders can skip the intermission lines by pre-ordering before performances. Beverages may also be brought into the theater with attractive, reusable Lyric Cups ($3 plus price of beverage).

Cheers! and all Foyer & Lobby Bars will be open when the opera-house doors open an hour before each performance through the end of intermission -- 6:30pm on regular performance nights, 1pm on regular matinee afternoons, 5:30pm on the season's Sept. 23 opening night, 4:30pm for Walküre evening performances, and noon for the Walküre matinee.

Restaurant reservations opened to Lyric subscribers Sept. 5, and will open to all other ticket holders Sept. 25. For reservations and more information about The Pedersen Room and the Florian Opera Bistro, go to https://www.lyricopera.org/yourvisit/dining.

The refined members-only restaurant overseen by the Women's Board of Lyric Opera may be found on the second floor of the Lyric Opera House. The William B. and Catherine Graham Room offers an additional on-site dining option for donors to Lyric at the Premium Benefactor level ($7,500) and higher, who receive Graham Room membership, along with several other benefits,including complimentary valet parking with a separate and exclusive valet parking station and a private cloakroom and washrooms.

The Graham Room offers fresh farm-to-table seasonal menus by Calihan Catering for opera-night dinners and matinee luncheons, along with world-class wines, sophisticated opera-themed cocktails, and full bar service. Three-course prix fixe is $69 and two-course prix-fixe is $58. Reservations are required. For more information, please call 312-827-3557 or email grahamroom@lyricopera.org.

About Lyric Opera of Chicago

Lyric Opera of Chicago's mission is to express and promote the life-changing, transformational, revelatory power of great opera. Lyric exists to provide a broad, deep, and relevant cultural service to Chicago and the nation, and to advance the development of the art form.

Founded in 1954, Lyric is dedicated to producing and performing consistently thrilling, entertaining, and thought-provoking opera with a balanced repertoire of core classics, lesser-known masterpieces, and new works; to creating an innovative and wide-ranging program of community engagement and educational activities; and to developing exceptional emerging operatic talent.

Under the leadership of general director Anthony Freud, music director Sir Andrew Davis, and creative consultant Renée Fleming, Lyric strives to become The Great North American Opera Company for the 21st century: a globally significant arts organization embodying the core values of excellence, relevance, and fiscal responsibility.

To learn more about Lyric's new season, go to lyricopera.org. You can also join the conversation with @LyricOpera on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. #Lyric1718 #LongLivePassion.

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