Shreena Amin (Weinberg ’04) has worked in investment banking, on former President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and at various start-ups. Now, she’s pivoting careers once again to co-found a restaurant in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood this summer.
Class Act will be a fine dining restaurant centered on a 16-person communal table concept. Amin is collaborating with local chef Nicolai Mlodinow to curate a 13-course menu. She spoke to The Daily about her journey to becoming a restaurateur and her plans for Class Act.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
The Daily: I read the April 4 press release describing the plans for Class Act. It mentioned that your parents inspired your passion for food and beverage — could you elaborate on that?
Shreena Amin: I grew up in an Indian immigrant household, and both my parents were what I call food-obsessed, and my dad was probably a foodie before that label existed or was appropriate. He loved to cook. We were always hosting people at our house for parties around food.
We also traveled a lot growing up. On those trips, it was all about where we were gonna eat more than what we were going to see or what we were going to do. … My dad was always very interested in seeking that out, and me and my brother and sister learned to love food, and it became a part of our lives.
The Daily: What made you choose this path, and what has having such a varied career taught you?
Amin: All of those places that I’ve worked, what I’m eating is really important to me. Even when I worked on the Obama campaign — I have a letter of recommendation from Obama, and it talks about how I was always pushing for ordering pizza for everyone on a weekly basis to build that camaraderie and connection.
More recently, for the last 10-15 years, I’ve been in the tech startup space. I’ve had my own tech startups. I’ve advised and invested in early-stage tech startups. There’s a ton that has been transferable into entrepreneurship. This is a startup, a hospitality startup. It’s very similar in terms of how you go about and raise money, how do you have a solid business plan.
In tech, what I did for the last 10 years was focused on building product experiences, so I come from a human-centered design perspective, and I’m trying to bring that to the restaurant space. We’re looking at every single touch point in the physical experience. What is the guest thinking? What is the guest feeling? How can we better deliver through designing what is a very artful and tasteful experience?
The Daily: How did you decide that you wanted to actually start a restaurant, and then what was the timeline of getting Class Act up and going?
Amin: I went to a pop-up dinner that one of my Northwestern friends invited me to, and I had a super stressful day at work, so I was running late. It was in 2022, so the world was just starting to open up again. I got there late, and it was just Chef (Nicolai Mlodinow) working by himself. He was a one-man shop, no front of house, no servers, so lots of kinks to work out, but the food was really good.
The dinner started at seven, and at 1 a.m., a bunch of people were still there. It was BYOB, so the wine was flowing, the chef made late night tacos and it was just such a fun and boisterous experience. When I got the next invite to the next dinner, I told my friends about it, and then I told them my family about it, and my friends and family just started going regularly.
I stayed in touch with Chef, and we discovered a shared passion for food, so we would go out to dinner together or get drinks together. I was always interested in opening a restaurant, and Chef was thinking about where this would go, so that naturally led to conversations about what if we did this together and what it would look like.
We officially incorporated last year, and then we started raising money and bought a building in April 2024, so it’ll be just a little bit over a year from when we really formally started to open next month.
The Daily: I read that Class Act will have a big communal table and an open kitchen. What was the process behind this concept?
Amin: The mission is to bring people together and cultivate a sense of connection, community (and) belonging. That’s something that Chef and I really bonded on from the moment we met. … I feel that especially in the current world, especially post-pandemic after we were all isolated for years, there’s just something so special about going into a physical space and breaking bread with other people. … We recognize that there’s gonna be a tinge of discomfort coming into this experience, but we think that there’s just so much to gain from meeting new people, sparking new conversations and genuinely making new friends. The food is gonna be incredible. Being able to share that with other people is what’s really gonna make it special and magical.
The Daily: What do you want prospective restaurant-goers to know about Class Act?
Amin: To come with an open mind and have really high expectations, but really just be open — open to trying new types of food, new combinations you might have not had, new techniques, open to meeting new people.
Email: [email protected]
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