Table for 16?

As a student, Shreena Amin ’04 and her friends hosted an annual brunch on the morning of Dillo Day, Northwestern’s longstanding spring music festival. Hundreds of students would pour into Amin’s off-campus house in Evanston to eat made-to-order omelets. 

Shreena Amin. Credit: Landry Hudman

In the years since, Amin has worked as an investment banker, a startup co-founder, a tech executive — and now, fittingly, a restaurateur. 

Amin is co-founder and CEO of Class Act + Nightcap, a fine-dining restaurant and speakeasy in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood. 

Launched in July 2025, the 16-seat restaurant features a single communal table. Amin and her co-founder, chef Nicolai Mlodinow, want guests to connect with people they haven’t met, especially after years of social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

“We spend more time alone than ever before and more time than ever on our digital devices. There are fewer reasons and spaces to interact with strangers,” Amin says. “Yet when it happens, it’s almost always a life-enriching experience. Historically, people have bonded at tables and over food. We wanted to create that experience for a world that so severely lacks it.” 

Amin works closely with Mlodinow to curate Class Act’s 13-course dinner menu, which changes every few months. The dishes on the inaugural menu elevated Mlodinow’s childhood favorites: three-cheese quesadillas made with tarragon tortillas alongside horchata crema and caviar, for instance. 

There are two dinner seatings each night, at 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. After the meal, guests move to the bar, Nightcap, for bespoke cocktails like the “TV [Thomas Volney] Munson,” which combines champagne, a French cognac and a Texas whiskey.  

One of the dishes at Class Act. Credit: Landry Hudman

Amin traces her love of food back to her childhood growing up in Chicago’s northwest suburbs, with cherished family dinners and Thanksgiving meals featuring a blend of Indian and American dishes. While at Northwestern, she explored culinary offerings in Evanston and Chicago. 

“I found a group of students who loved to eat and imbibe as much as I did,” Amin says. “We would venture down to the city for Indian or Mexican food. And over those meals we forged our friendships.” 

Members of Amin’s Northwestern network have come out in support of her new venture, both as investors and patrons. One college friend, Kathy Lai ’04 ’10 MBA, flew into Chicago for opening night, and another, Moon Javaid ’04, hosted his birthday party at the restaurant, Amin says. 

And “every weekend, we have at least a handful of guests who are Northwestern folks,” she says.