A long lasting home for Thattu, a James Beard Award-nominated and Jean Banchet Award-winning Indian restaurant that commenced as a pop-up dinner collection and a stall at a West Loop food stuff corridor, is less than building in Avondale, ways absent from Metropolitan Brewing Business and food stuff incubator Guild Row.
The opening, projected for slide 2022, will be a single of the most expected of the 12 months thanks to Thattu’s exclusive spin on South Indian food. Fans have been waiting around for it considering that the stall pulled out in of Politan Row food stuff corridor in 2020 and switched to a pop-up product. The aim of entrepreneurs Vinod Kalathil and Margaret Pak was to break the mildew of formulaic Indian-American dining establishments that concentration on churning out butter hen and naan, pandering to mainstream American diners with an harmful fixation on spice and heat.
Thattu serves the delicacies of Kerala, a coastal condition in southwestern India where by spices like cardamom and black pepper have been 1st harvested, an critical culinary money of the entire world that only recently has received mass focus in The united states. Regional specialties include griddled appams (fermented rice cakes with coconut milk), beef curries, and masala biscuits. Chef Pak, who is Korean American, tailored recipes from Kalathil’s mom. Thattu will provide all of all those recipes to Avondale, along with a total bar and home for a retail room, considering the fact that Pak has recognized that Chicago does not have many South Asian grocers amongst the cluster alongside Devon in West Ridge and Metro Spice Mart in West Loop. She want to provide Indian pantry items, this kind of as a spice blend for rasam, a tamarind broth, to a wider viewers: “Patel Brothers can be scary,” suggests Pak, referring to the iconic South Asian grocer chain established in Chicago.
Kalathil and Pak understand Indian foodstuff in The usa — like lots of global cuisines — can usually be subjected to unfair anticipations from the two the buyers unfamiliar with the food’s origins and from members of communities from which the meals emerges.
Kalathil and Pak are hoping to elude that lure with playful recipes. For illustration, Pak has been toying about with soba noodles with octopus and eel that uses the identical coconut milk foundation as her fish curry. It’s a minor little bit far more smoky and crunchy and showcase how Thattu hopes to distinguish by itself.
“We don’t want something to do with ‘authentic,’” Kalathil says.
The Avondale area also has a bar that will place location Thattu in the midst of a new surge of South Asian eating places with leading-flight cocktail programs which include Vajra, Superkhana Intercontinental, and Rooh.
Thattu begun in 2018 as a sequence of pop-ups at sites like Kimski in Bridgeport and Saigon Sisters in West Loop. Pak’s cooking attained her a following, and Thattu was portion of Politan Row’s opening vendor lineup in 2019.
Pak and Kalathil’s route towards restaurant possession differs from most in the culinary world. The venture is self-financed — the two worked in the finance industry just before leaving for restaurants. When at Politan Row, the food stuff corridor that’s been closed since the pandemic led authorities officials to suspend indoor eating, they began looking for a everlasting restaurant spot. They had cash saved, so they weren’t in a rush to obtain a room they could pay for to be picky. As their search ongoing, they engaged in a partnership with Guild Row, a social club and coworking room for cooks and other creatives co-established by Jim Lasko of the defunct Redmoon Theater.
Working with Guild Row’s kitchen, Thattu ongoing its pop-up collection in 2021. They’d often promote out of foods soon just after saying preorders by means of social media. Whilst that procedure gave them a chance to try out out recipes, none of the possible cafe spaces they appeared at had been doing work out. Thattu was shut to signing a lease on a location in Lincoln Park, but the functions couldn’t finalize a deal. Other likely spots were being as well little. Many others did not experience comfy more than enough.
Tiny did Pak and Kalathil know, the suitable room was just throughout the road from Guild Row, a developing that was pegged for private gatherings. At 2,900 square feet, this was a minimal greater than they planned, and the location — concealed beside the Chicago River and near motor vehicle dealerships — does not draw a whole lot of foot traffic. Builders have noticed the likely in new development in the region, but — for now — it’s peaceful. Kalathil is aware of they’re using a hazard in hoping the space will understand its prospective, but they are self-assured in what Thattu can give.
“What I pretty much enjoy the most about it is that it is a blank canvas,” Pak says.
Kalathil adds: “We didn’t want fine eating. This is not all reservation, it’s a ‘walk in, enjoy’ kind of a area.”
The area, which will attribute a garage doorway window to enable the wind into the principal eating area and a sidewalk patio is coming along. Further than the restaurant and retail, the room provides additional prospective compared to many others they experienced thought of: “A chai store has often been on my mind,” Kalathil says.
Thattu, 3118 N. Rockwell Road, prepared for a tumble opening.
