As Chicago restaurants go, few can claim the fan loyalty of Lula Cafe. The popularity of this neighborhood gem, located in Logan Square long before the area became the hip haven it is today, goes beyond the food it serves, delicious as it may be. Both a destination and a retreat, Lula is celebrated as a gathering place.
“First and foremost, Lula is an arts community,” says Jason Hammel, who founded the restaurant with his wife, Amalea Tshilds, in 1999. “Part of our mission is to be a supportive place for people who are creative and the makers and doers of the world, and provide a space for them to share their work.”
An artistic attitude can also be found at Hammel’s second restaurant, Marisol, located in — and in partnership with — the Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA).
“Marisol is very connected to the life of the museum in the way that it’s constantly changing and bringing in new energy,” says Hammel. Rather than parrot the MCA’s exhibitions, Marisol’s creative seasonal cuisine finds inspiration in the reinvention that the art generates.
With its new Chef Collaboration Series, Marisol further embraces change and the city it calls home. Launched in May, the ongoing program aims to uplift local culinary talent by showcasing chefs’ signature dishes on Marisol’s lunch menu.
“The idea for this was to collaborate with and support our industry friends and spotlight their restaurants,” says Hammel. “It also challenges us here to do dishes we normally wouldn’t do.”
Take the program’s first offering: a Kerala spicy fried chicken sandwich. Created by Margaret Pak of Avondale’s recently opened Thattu, the sandwich has its origins in the chicken bites Pak and her partner and husband Vinod Kalathil offered at their first restaurant in the now-closed Politan Row.
Available through July, the sandwich features a chicken thigh marinated overnight in ginger, garlic, curry leaves and lime juice. Dredged in rice flour, it’s fried to order. A curry leaf aioli, spicy pickles and shredded greens finish the dish, which is served on a buttered brioche bun. ChaaterTots, tater tots served with house chaat masala and spicy beet ketchup, are available as a side.
“These are all the spices that Vinod’s mom would use,” says Pak, referencing her husband’s South Indian family. “It represents the combination of our Kerala roots and tells the story of Thattu then and now.”
To get the series rolling, Hammel didn’t have to look far for potential collaborating restaurants.
“I have a long list of industry friends,” he says. “When you stay around this long in the business, you get to know a lot of people.”
Once the restaurants are confirmed, Hammel lets the collaborating chefs choose the dish they think best tells their restaurant’s story.
“Food is a language, and the stories are the important part for me,” he says. (Speaking of stories, Hammel’s debut cookbook, “The Lula Café Cookbook,” from Phaidon, debuts in October.)
Next, recipes are shared, and the culinary teams work side by side to fine-tune the item to be served.
“A recipe is not a dish,” says Hammel. “You have to have the touch and energy of the person who made it.”
For Peach’s, the second restaurant in the series, its story revolves around family and the neighborhood where it’s located.
“Peach’s has occupied a little spot in Bronzeville for about eight years, and since then we’ve grown into a pillar within the community,” says Chef Trillis Rollins. “We try to build relationships with food.”
That warm welcome starts with the restaurant’s name, which references a term of endearment, and continues with the Southern comfort food served there.
“The word ‘Peach’s’ embodies somebody that everyone knows at one point in time,” he says. For Rollins, it was his “nanna,” who could often be found in the kitchen cooking.
For its Marisol collaboration, which runs from August to October, salmon croquettes and grits, a top-seller and on Peach’s menu since it opened, and peach cobbler will be featured.
For Rollins, the Marisol collaboration goes beyond the exposure it could bring to the South Side restaurant.
“I’m an artist at heart,” says Rollins, who has a degree in graphic design. “This collaboration is the perfect opportunity to bring together two of the worlds that have driven me as a person.”
At Lincoln Park’s Bocadillo Market, the third restaurant in the series, multiple cultures come together to create a unique cuisine.
“I love the way he connects the history and intersection of race and food culture in Spain with that of the American South,” Hammel says of Bocadillo Chef James Martin. “He looks at those two as a dialectic and then he weaves his own personal story into that.”
Starting in November, Marisol will offer a signature Bocadillo dish: tempura squash blossom and Spanish sobrassada plated with avocado coulis, rosemary honey, crostini and a sobrassada whipped goat cheese.
“The Spanish chorizo and squash blossom add balanced layers of flavor and texture that are familiar to some,” says Martin, “but also offer a nice culinary entry point for others who may be enjoying Spanish cuisine outside of tapas or paella for the first time.”
For the past few years, Martin has partnered with Hammel’s nonprofit Pilot Light, which brings food education into Chicago’s schools.
“Being part of the dining experience at an institution like MCA adds to the cultural experience all people should have while enjoying the food,” Martin says about his upcoming collaboration.
“One of the things that came out of the pandemic is this energy of putting things together that are off the cuff or fun,” Hammel says of the various restaurant pop-ups occurring in Chicago.
“After these last few years, we are looking for ways to connect in real life more and more.”
