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Amy Cavanaugh: Welcome to Dish From Chicago Magazine. I’m Amy Cavanaugh, Chicago magazine’s dining editor.

John Kessler: And I’m John Kessler, Chicago magazine’s dining critic.

Amy: Today we’re digging into our coverage of our suburban dining feature, which is in the new issue of the magazine. We’re also going to talk about John’s latest review, which is of Cafe Yaya, the new Lincoln Park Cafe from the Galit team. We’re also going to share the best things we’ve eaten lately, which include a refreshing tuna poke at a West Loop favorite.

John: Here is my pitch for why I think you people reading Chicago magazine and listening to this podcast should go out to the suburbs, and that’s because they are there, they are filled with great restaurants. You have a car, you know somebody who has a car. Yes, it’s gonna take 45 minutes to get somewhere, but once you’re there, there is so much good food to discover. And isn’t that like what this is all about?

Amy: Completely agree. I mean, I could stay within Chicago limits and never run out of restaurants to try or eat at, but I find that when I do venture out to the suburbs, I always find something delightful. There’s always something new to try. You know, places I’ve never heard of come up out of nowhere, like I spend time in Highwood and until Peter Sagal wrote about Da Local Boy, a new Hawaiian spot, I hadn’t even heard of it. So that’s on my list for the next time I’m up there. So to kind of kick things off, John, what suburbs do you tend to find yourself eating in?

John: Well, Amy, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m very fond of Asian food. And yeah, actually I am, and because of that, I have done a lot of exploring around Arlington Heights and Schaumburg, Palatine. You know, all those areas up around the airport where there just is so much to try so many good Japanese, Indian, and Korean restaurants. How about you?

Amy: I tend to eat more on the North Shore, Highwood, Highland Park, Lake Forest. I like to go to kind of the more classic old school spots up there. I love Del Rio, which is kind of, it’s a 100-plus-year-old, like Italian-ish supper club. Washington Gardens is, you know, very similar concept. And it’s just started bringing their pizzas into the city. Once Upon a Bagel is very classic, too. And then I also go to Lincolnwood spots like L. Woods and EJ’s Place. So definitely kind of a different sort of suburban dining focus than you. Yeah, definitely, wow. But yeah, why do you think so many of the really great Asian places are opening in the suburbs, or have been there for a while.

John: It’s where the people live. You know, I feel like in cities all around the country, immigrant populations come and there are enclaves within the city limits. You know, places here, like Devon Avenue, with its South Asian population, the kind of Korea Town that existed up in Albany Park area and Japanese in Lake View. But then, as you know, time went on and people did well and sent their kids to school and everything. Then a lot of people moved out to the suburbs, and so that’s kind of where the populations are. And I gotta say, coming from the South, which, you know, Southern cities are just basically nothing but suburbs strung together by highways. And like the Asian restaurants, the immigrant-owned restaurants in the South are just all throughout the cities. And so that becomes a big part of what we like to do when we go and eat is to find the cool, new restaurants that people are eating at.

Amy: So for this feature, you wrote about Japanese food, and you picked three of your favorite spots. Can you tell us about your go-tos?

John: Sure, and let me just preface this by saying, right out of college, I went and lived in Japan for a couple of years. This was, you know, decades ago when Japanese food seemed super weird to a lot of the other Americans living there. I loved it right away. I, you know, had no qualms about eating raw fish, which, believe it or not, like there were people who in my cohort who would go there to, you know, work and live in Japan and were like, No, I don’t eat raw fish. 

Amy: Wow.

John: I know, right? It was a different era, I know. But anyhow, so what I love is the Japanese restaurants that Japanese people go to are all in the suburbs, the ones that just really feel like the good little neighborhood restaurants where you come from. My favorite is Torizen. I go there quite often. I love lunch, where you get these nice teishoku sets, you know, which are basically, you know, your box lunch sets with a little this, little that, and the main course, and then at night, it’s a real-deal izakaya, where it’s beautiful, fun, small plates, interesting food that doesn’t cater to the taste of non-Japanese people. I also really love ramen house Shinchan. There are three of them. I went to the one in Palatine, and I keep going back there. They do different kinds of ramen, including something called bet-con, which is best condition ramen. It’s a Nagoya style that has a lot of roasted garlic cloves in it and a lot of stir-fried vegetables. And it’s supposed to— 

Amy: That sounds delicious. 

John: It is so good, and it is just like a big pile of slurpness, you know. And what else I like? Torino, which a Japanese-American friend introduced me to. It’s a ramen spot in Wilmette, and they’ve expanded in their mini mall from one storefront to the next to the next, and they do sushi and izakaya-style cooking, too.

Amy: So very cool. Well, we covered a lot of other things in this package, too. And, you know, similar to Japanese food, there’s a real Middle Eastern food enclave out in Bridgeview, and Titus Ruscitti, who’s one of our great writers, took a little trip out there and picked five favorites of his, which would set anyone up for a really good tour. He talked about dishes like the smoked beef ribs at M’daKhan, which I have been hearing such fantastic things about that restaurant, and it’s like, high on my list of places to go. 

John: Oh yeah.

Amy: And yeah, and we have a stunning photo of that. And then he also mentioned spots like Reef Kabob for the kofta kebabs and Al Manakeesh for the za’atar with cheese flat bread, which sounds great. But it’s not all international food that we covered out in the burbs. Liz Grossman, who’s a new writer to us, has a great story on three big Chicago chefs who have made their made their names of the city, and then headed out to the burbs to open new spots. They include Chris Curren at the Grateful Ordinary, José Sosa at The Greggory, and Todd Stein at Deere Park, which is a new Highwood spot that I’ve been to and I had a really great meal there, and very much looking forward to going back there. They have an excellent martini and I love the roast chicken out there. There’s really a lot that has been happening out in the suburbs. There’s there’s just really so much new stuff. Another spot that I have on my list to get to is Five O Four Kitchen in Glen Ellyn. Have you been there yet?

John: I have not, but I know the chef Cristian Orozco. Is that his name? Yes, I’ve not been there, but I know the chef Cristian Orozco and I tried his food when he was at that great brunch spot in Pilsen, Frida, and he was doing Frida De Noche, and it was an evening kind of tasting menu. And I think he’s really talented.

Amy: Yeah, it sounds like he’s doing something really cool out here, where it’s an $85 create-your-own five-course tasting menu. Definitely feels like it’s worth, worth a visit. And then our cover models are the donuts from Sweet Circle, which is in Elmhurst. And they offer, you know, classic donuts, like classic old fashioned and glazed. But they also offer these really fascinating international donuts, including, like mango lassi, the viral Dubai chocolate that’s everywhere—

John: Oh my god.

Amy: Chocolate and pistachio and phyllo dough, and then a mole donut, which I think sounds really fantastic. Lots of great ideas for where to eat and drink in the suburbs, whether you live out there or you live in the city and are looking for a good summer excursion.

Amy: John, so for this issue, your review is of Cafe Yaya. What’s the story behind this place?

John: So this is the second restaurant from the team behind Galit, which is right next door in Lincoln Park. And they are Zach Engel, the executive chef, and Andrés Clavero, who is the general manager and partner, and Galit is, by our account, and most people’s accounts, one of the best restaurants in Chicago. Galit serves the kind of Levantine cooking that you would find in the Middle East, you know, largely Palestine, Israel. And on that area, Zach had trained at the great Israeli restaurant Shaya in New Orleans. He is the son of a rabbi. He has been to Israel. He knows a lot about that cooking. He’s also a Southern boy who loves Southern food, and so for their second restaurant, it’s kind of the stuff Zach wants to cook. It’s a mixture of Southern favorites, like, you know, baked oysters and collard greens alongside some very interesting dips. But mostly it’s an all day cafe. And what Zach was thinking was just to have a restaurant where you could stop in any time of the day or night. You know, at night it would be a more involved dinner with table service. At breakfast, you could pick up a pastry at the counter, and at lunch, you could order at the counter, and then they’d bring you, like, a nice salad or something like that. He really wanted something that felt like what you would find in Paris or Tel Aviv.

Amy: I can totally see what he’s going for with the concept, which you know very different from what they’re doing at Galit. I know you have visited many times. You had seven meals before? 

John: Yes, I did. 

Amy: Yeah. I think this is a record for the most times you visited before writing a review. But kind of tell me about your your takeaways. What were your what were your thoughts?

John: So my biggest takeaway was: work in progress. Zach’s cooking, I think when I went, they’re feeling their way through this very interesting, eclectic menu. Not everything works. I gave it a good four or five weeks before I had my first meal there. But it keeps changing, and it’s still very early in its life. I will say that I think dinner is very good. There are a lot of hits on the menu. There’s an amazing pork schnitzel. There’s some great pastry and baked goods from Mary Eder-McClure, the Galit pastry chef, which can be absolutely phenomenal, and I like it a lot. I want to keep going. I have not loved everything I had, but it’s the kind of restaurant where it’s not so much you want to go and try everything on the menu and work like hell to get a reservation. It’s the kind of place where you think, Hmm, what do I feel like eating tonight? Well, this will work, and then it will exceed your expectations.

Amy: Yeah, I totally can see that. I’ve been twice myself. I went once for lunch and once for dinner. I think I’d be more inclined to go back for dinner. So for dinner, I really had the fantastic schnitzel. I absolutely love that, super crispy. I love the French Onion labneh dip with malawach, which is a flaky flatbread. And then my lunch was good. I had a chicken shawarma wrap and tried a few pastries, and I was there with a friend who’s gluten free, and so she was kind of struggling a little bit, and midway through our meal, they brought over just a gluten-free tea cake for her, which was just like the most thoughtful thing, and it wound up being one of our favorite things that we had during the meal. So I thought the service was really great at both my lunch and my dinner. And definitely would look forward to going back. I haven’t done breakfast yet, though. Was there anything at breakfast that you would recommend?

John: I mean, for me, I really like the pastries from the pastry case. There’s this Shakshuka bun. They do. You know, shakshukas that eggs, you know, that are like baked in tomato sauce, the North African dip dish that you dip pita bread in, and they take all those components, and they bake it into this kind of crisp bottom challah bun. And it’s really, really good. I tried one of the breakfast sandwiches, and it was just kind of like, a bunch of cold things that didn’t really seem to like each other inside a bun. So I don’t think I got the best version of it. I have a feeling like it was supposed to be hot, and just wasn’t, you know, all there the day I went, but I would definitely go back and, you know, pick up a coffee and a pastry, for sure. And also, I don’t think we mentioned, but there’s really nice wine list there from Scott Stroemer, who does the wines at Galit and it’s just a good variety of nice things to drink by the glass, whether your taste is more like skin contact or more natural, or you want something a little more classical, it’s all there. There’s some interesting cocktails. I tried a few of them. I am never, ever gonna be on team tahini-washed vermouth, but that’s me. 

Amy: Yeah, I did not try any cocktails, but I had some very nice wines as well. So really enjoyed that wine program. Yeah. And one other thing that I really liked was a great brownie. I feel like you don’t see good brownies around town very often, and I particularly like this one, really good and fudgy. 

John: So if you’re gonna go to Cafe Yaya. Like, you know, don’t go out of your way to get the 7 p.m. Saturday night reservation. Go some like, go. Go Wednesday, when you’re thinking, let’s go out to dinner. Get some of the dips and spreads. Get the pork schnitzel, which is amazing. And the baked leeks are really great. The sweet breads are very fun. And you know, just go in, walk in, you may have to wait a little bit. It’ll be worth it.

Amy: John, what’s the best thing you ate lately?

John: So I’ve been going to Green City Market every Saturday, and I’m so happy that this new stall called Sidekick is there. I love them. Do you know them? They are so cool. Yeah, it’s this young couple, Alex and Jenny. They make a lot of ferments, kimchi, pickles, all sorts of things. And they make kimbap, you know, those Korean sushi rolls filled with their own fermented pickles and spinach and egg omelet and beef. And it’s just like it’s, you know, when it’s like 95 degrees out on a summer day. I don’t know what all y’all Midwesterners do eating grilled cheese sandwiches, but the kimbap is great. How about you—

Amy: I’ve had it. It is, yes, it’s delicious. And they’re also at the Wednesday market too. I go every Wednesday morning, and I’ve had that for breakfast. It’s delightful.

John: Kimbap for breakfast is one of the great unsung you know, delights in eating. I think.

Amy: Yes, all right, well, and I just had dinner at Aba recently when it was one of those, like, 92-degree days and sitting out in the sun, and it was just like unbearably hot. So we had this beautiful tuna and watermelon like poke with radishes and cucumbers and a yuzu vinaigrette, and it was just like the most refreshing summery plate I could imagine. And it was like, just perfect for dinner. 

John: Oh, wow, that sounds great. Were you up there on the rooftop? 

Amy: I was on the roof. And also, if you go you have to get the Thirst Trap cocktail. It is, they do a really good job with frozen drinks there. And it’s like Aperol and fruity. And it was really, really great.

John: Okay, can I take a selfie of myself with the Thirst Trap cocktail making like pouty fish lips, you know, and put it up on my Instagram? 

Amy: Yes. 

John: Okay, 

Amy: I was only slightly embarrassed by the name of it, but I got over it.

Amy: Thanks for joining us for this episode of Dish From Chicago Magazine. Your hosts are dining editor Amy Cavanaugh and critic John Kessler. editing by Sarah Steimer and music by Bill Harris. You can find us online at chicagomag.com. Please be sure to follow, rate, and review us wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll see you next time.