The Last Supper

LIGHT POURED INTO THE AIRY, CREAM-TONED room, bathing a well-heeled crowd in a warm golden hue. The air smelled of lobster and privilege. Everyone was drinking wine, taking selfies, laughing. One table was full of women cocktailing their way through the early evening; another had a picture-perfect family with young twins plugged into their iPads over Caesar salads. With the sun reflecting off the terrace and the Chicago River glittering just beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, it felt like a cruise ship.

Then there was us. My ragged family of five, untucked, irritable, awkward, craving hospitality but desperately afraid of it. As we shifted in our white leather seats to give ourselves some space at the round table, it hit me: This was the closest I’d ever come to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Roughly three hours after Governor J.B. Pritzker ordered all restaurants in Illinois closed for dine-in service by the following day, I was slated to review RPM Seafood, the glitzy new spot from Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. At best, the timing — at the beginning of a storm in which each of us represents a potential funnel cloud capable of unimaginable damage. None of us had the slightest idea what the landscape would look like when this is over.