Naia Chicago restaurant opens Monday, June 1 at 300 N. LaSalle Street, and it belongs on your reservation list if waterfront dining with genuine culinary ambition matters to you.
DineAmic cofounders Luke Stoioff and David Rekhson have converted a basement cafeteria that sat dormant since the pandemic into a 12,000-square-foot Greek-Levantine dining room with 150 feet of direct Chicago River frontage, 400 seats across indoor and patio, and a menu developed by Chef Athinagoras Kostakos, a Top Chef: Greece winner who also owns Nōema on Mykonos.
This is not a tourist-trap riverfront concept. It is the most ambitious waterfront opening Chicago has seen in years.
What Is Naia Chicago and Why the River Location Matters
The space at 300 N. LaSalle Street spent years as a basement cafeteria serving office workers in the 60-story skyscraper above, the same building that houses Chicago Cut Steakhouse. When the pandemic shuttered it, the cafeteria never came back. Stoioff and Rekhson had been watching the site from across the river at Prime & Provisions for years. "We used to look out the window of Prime & Provisions at this space all the time from our dining room and be like, 'Wouldn't it be great to be across the street and actually be on the river?'" said Luke Stoioff.1
A liquor license consultant flagged the space as available for development, and DineAmic moved quickly. The process that followed, starting in 2021, was anything but fast. Post-COVID shifts in River North's tenant base and the engineering complexity of building a river-centric space caused years of delays.
Stoioff has noted that the expensive work is the infrastructure nobody sees: the riverfront engineering, the structural modifications, the systems required to make a below-grade space feel open to the water.
The result spans the full length of the building and extends beyond it, with window-style walls and louvered pergolas designed to keep the space functional year-round, rain or cold included.
Chicago's riverfront dining options are limited at this scale. The Riverwalk offers casual fare, and a handful of hotel restaurants have river views, but a 400-seat destination with a chef-driven menu and direct water access at this address is a different category. The LaSalle and Wells Street bascule bridges flank the patio on either side. The Riverwalk and the downtown skyline sit directly across the water. The site is as good as Chicago gets for this format.
The Naia Chicago Menu: Greek-Levantine Cooking With Top Chef Credentials
Chef Athinagoras Kostakos developed the menu as a DineAmic partner, he already works with the group on La Serre, Lyra, and Violí. His Mykonos restaurant Nōema has built a following on the island. The brief for Naia was not to duplicate Lyra's Greek menu but to pull the lens wider across the Eastern Mediterranean. "We're tapping into that whole Levantine region and pulling in some of those spices and flavor profiles that you get from the Eastern Mediterranean as well but with Greece as still the main driver," said David Rekhson.2
The menu translates that philosophy into specific dishes. Turkish manti dumplings are reworked in a cacio e pepe style: a light potato filling, a creamy Parmesan and urfa biber sauce (urfa biber is a smoky Turkish chile), and a Parmesan tuile for texture. The raw bar runs crispy rice with crab, spicy tuna, or wagyu, dressed with a Greek lemon-soy vinaigrette and capers. Tuna sashimi comes as a sampler of chutoro, otoro, and akami. Oysters round out the raw bar section.
The tableside hummus cart is the format detail that separates Naia from a standard mezze menu: a heating element keeps fresh pita warm while the server builds the hummus to order in a recessed bowl, with roasted garlic and spice options for customization. Mezze, flatbreads, seasonal salads, spreads, housemade pasta, and grilled meats and seafood fill out the menu. Dessert includes soft-serve Greek yogurt with crispy kataifi, almonds, and lemon zest. The wine list covers the full Mediterranean with what Rekhson describes as some lesser-known picks from the Eastern Mediterranean. Cocktails draw on fresh citrus and herbs from the kitchen.
The Greek-Levantine format is well-timed for Chicago. The city's appetite for Eastern Mediterranean cooking has grown steadily, and Naia arrives with more square footage, more seats, and more culinary credibility than anything currently occupying that niche on the river. For comparison: Lyra, DineAmic's existing Greek concept, operates without the waterfront component. Naia is the group's first serious play at combining the cuisine with a destination location.
Inside the 12,000-Square-Foot Space: Design, Bars, and Waterfront Access
Katherine Ingrassia and Ryan Nester of Barker Nester handled the interior design, working with the challenge of a below-grade former cafeteria and turning it into something that reads as open and river-facing. The approach leans on muted earth tones, natural fibers, twisted rope used as a see-through room divider, and clay pottery throughout. The palette is consistent from patio to dining room.
Arriving via the LaSalle staircase, guests first reach the 150-seat patio: a mix of standard tables and large circular tan leather booths facing the river, with dark wood accents and greenery throughout. The indoor section begins with a rectangular bar anchoring the front, flanked by high-top tables and the raw bar station. A short hallway leads to the main dining room, which seats up to 250. To ensure river sightlines from every position, the dining room uses multiple floor elevations, with rear seats arranged in a stadium-style configuration so the water remains visible from the back of the room.
On the far wall of the dining room, a 50-foot hand-carved stone sculpture depicts the restaurant's namesake. Naia means "water nymph" or "flowing" in Greek, and the name ties the design concept to the location without feeling forced. At the east end of the space, a separate event area has its own bar and the same river views as the main room.
Two practical details set Naia apart from comparable waterfront venues. First, the restaurant offers an in-building dining delivery service for office tenants in the skyscraper above. Second, the restaurant is accessible by boat. Guests arriving by water can dock and be seated directly. As Rekhson put it: you could be a dock-in instead of a walk-in.
Practical Details: Hours, Reservations, and What to Expect Opening Week
Naia opens Monday, June 1. Hours are 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday and 4 p.m. to midnight Saturday and Sunday. Reservations are available on OpenTable now. The address is 300 N. LaSalle Street, below Chicago Cut Steakhouse, accessible via the LaSalle staircase.
Opening week at a 400-seat restaurant with this much pre-opening attention will be busy. Patio seats along the river will be the highest-demand positions in summer, and Chicago's riverfront season runs roughly June through September. If you want a patio table with a direct water view, book as soon as reservations open and aim for a weeknight in the first few weeks before the space settles into its rhythm. The indoor dining room at 250 seats gives more flexibility, and the bar area offers walk-in access for those who want to try the raw bar and cocktails without committing to a full dinner.
For groups, the east-end event space with its own bar is worth a direct inquiry. For boat owners, the dock-in option is a genuine differentiator with no obvious equivalent at this address.
DineAmic's track record gives Naia a credible operational foundation: Prime & Provisions has held its position as a serious downtown steakhouse for years, and the group's Greek concepts have built a loyal following across La Serre, Lyra, and Violí. The open question is whether Kostakos's menu translates the ambition of the concept into consistent execution at this scale. A 400-seat waterfront restaurant in its first summer is a stress test. Watch for how the kitchen handles volume once the patio fills on a Saturday in July, that will tell you whether Naia is a one-season story or a permanent fixture on Chicago's river.
