Another Highland Park Restaurant Closes

Only a few months after opening, Royce Restaurant in Highland Park has closed, according to an email from chef John des Rosiers sent on Monday.

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Rosiers helmed the restaurant, which began as a chef-driven Italian restaurant called Moderno last year. The space closed at the end of 2012 and reopened in January of this year as a classic American restaurant that focused on locally grown organic and sustainable ingredients.

"We built a really good restaurant with Moderno, and we were really proud of it," des Rosiers said, "but it wasn't the right thing for Highland Park."

It seems like Royce wasn't right, either. The restaurant got solid praise during it's short run, however. It was lauded by publications like Time Out Chicago during, which praised Royce's hamburgers.

In the same email where he said Royce has closed, des Rosiers also explained that his involvement with Royce ended three months ago. He cites a change in direction as the reason for his departure.

"I felt as though it was moving away from the concept that I had originally envisioned," he writes. "This change in direction is why I made the recent decision to remove myself from active involvement in Royce Restaurant."

As Patch has reported before, Royce was not the only restaurant looking to reinvent itself. Stashs tried something similar last year, and ended up shuttering as well. Carlos' reopened in 2012 as a more casual restaurant called Nieto's, however, and that place is still open. 

Soon, Benjamin Restaurant will reopen as Benjamin Tapas.

Editor's note: Stay tuned for more coverage on this. I have scheduled an interview with des Rosiers later this week.

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