Smyth names Conor Dalton head chef in Chicago
Chicago's only three-Michelin-starred kitchen brings in a British chef from Manchester's Skof to work alongside John Shields.
Smyth, the only restaurant in Chicago with three Michelin stars, has named British chef Conor Dalton as its new head chef. Dalton joins from Skof in Manchester and takes over the pass at 177 N Ada Street starting this autumn.
Dalton has spent more than twenty years in fine dining kitchens. Before Skof, he worked at Five Fields in London, a one-Michelin-starred restaurant known for its produce-driven tasting menus. Smyth said his appointment follows a search that looked across the UK and US fine-dining scene.
He will not run the kitchen alone. Dalton reports to chef-owner John Shields and works alongside executive pastry chef Karen Urie Shields, who co-founded Smyth with her husband in 2016. Both remain the restaurant's public face and final word on the menu.
Three stars are a standard to defend, not a trophy to keep on a shelf.
A third star to defend
Smyth earned its third Michelin star in November 2023, becoming the only Chicago restaurant to hold the guide's top rank. Holding three stars means holding a standard: the inspectors return without notice, and a single off night can cost a restaurant its rank at the next cycle.
Restaurant management called Dalton's arrival the start of "an ambitious new era" for the kitchen, without detailing what will change on the plate. Shields, who built Smyth's reputation on Midwest ingredients cooked over an open hearth, is expected to keep that focus.
The move fits a wider pattern in US fine dining, where three-star kitchens increasingly recruit head chefs from Europe's tasting-menu circuit rather than promote from within. Shields and Urie Shields opened Smyth in Chicago’s West Loop in 2016, a few blocks from where Black Briar opened this autumn,, inside the same building as their more casual sibling restaurant, The Loyalist.
Why the timing matters
The Michelin Guide’s Chicago selection is due for its next update within the year, and any change in a three-star kitchen draws inspectors' attention. A new head chef arriving mid-cycle is a calculated risk: enough time to settle in before judgment, not so much that continuity is guaranteed.
Dalton's first tasting menu under his own direction is expected before the end of the year. Whether Chicago's only three-star kitchen tastes different by then is the question Smyth's regulars will be asking first.
