For the past month, Loop diners have been packing into Mariela, the bright, beachy seafood spot in the StayPineapple hotel (1 W. Washington St.). The Mariela team is hardly new to Chicago dining — Zubair Mohajir, David Mor, and Rishi Kumar are running the show, and between them, they’ve got their fingers in places like Lilac Tiger, Coach House, Mirra, and other buzzy spots. The space has been totally transformed from the eclectic and hard-to-navigate Atwood Café to a much more luxe, relaxed vibe. “We wanted to make the space feel like a getaway; if we are saying ‘global coastal cuisine,’ people need to feel like they are being transported,” Mor explains. The group had to do a complete flip of the space in just a few months, but the result speaks for itself.
What is “global coastal” cuisine, anyway? Kumar admits that it’s become a bit of a joke for the restaurant group — while the phrase does capture what the seafood-focused spot is trying to do, combining flavors from Mexican, Indian, and South Asian cuisines, it’s also found its way into things like their Wi-Fi passwords. The idea, however, was for these chefs, who have deep experience with their childhood cuisines, to branch out. “We wanted to cook outside our usual realms,” says Kumar. “We wanted a platform not to just showcase our heritage, but also show that we know how to cook pasta. We aren’t one trick ponies, we can weave our flavors into other dishes.”
The menu at Mariela is filled with bold flavors. King crab larb and avocado salad is topped with green papaya slaw and spicy nam pla, while the tom yum aguachile is a layered salad of sliced prawns, coconut, and smoked trout roe that’s topped with garlic serrano achar. If you’re looking for vegetables, the al pastor-style roasted carrots are topped with herbal carrot top chutney. Even the seafood tower is unique. “It isn’t just expensive poached seafood served cold with a cocktail sauce,” Mohajir explains. Instead, diners will get seasonal dishes, including ceviche, oysters with guava habanero salsa, and shrimp with almond and vanilla salsa macha.
One of the best things about Mariela is that the team isn’t trying to please everyone. The restaurant unashamedly celebrates seafood, without the obligatory, simple dishes that most hotel restaurants feel that they need to put on their menu. There isn’t a Caesar salad, pork chop, short rib, or tartare in sight, though if you have a dedicated meat eater, there is one large-format steak to share. The restaurant also offers vegetarian alternative preps for every single dish on the menu. “This is what is selling amongst our clientele; we realized quickly that corporate guys aren’t really turning up here,” Kumar says.
The emphasis on the coast reaches into Mor’s drink program. Vespers are having a moment right now, and the vesper at Mariela is unique — it’s called the Vesper Del Mar (of the sea), and it’s made with gin, vodka, dill aquavit, and manzanilla sherry, and topped with the ultra-salty mineral water Vichy Catalan from Spain. “It has such a high mineral content,” Mor says. “It’s like the ocean.”
Because it’s a hotel restaurant, Mariela is open seven days a week and serves three meals a day, which makes it a great refuge for Loop diners looking for a great dinner on, say, a Monday night. “It’s been a wild experience, opening in the Loop, serving seven days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Mor says. “It’s been fun to learn while we are going.”