A New Dinner Series Highlights South Side Chefs

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A new dinner series highlights South Side chefs, in a bid to bring people from other parts of the city. In the segregated city that is Chicago, businesses and restaurants that aren’t on the wealthier, denser North Side are often overlooked. Even places that receive acclaim – for instance the James Beard Award-named “America’s Classic” Lem’s Bar-B-Q – struggle to attract visitors from across the city. For other barbecue standouts that are further off in the corners of the city, like Lexington Betty Smokehouse in Pullman and Sanders BBQ Supply in Beverly, the trip to get there is even longer and thus even easier to forgo, despite the accolades: Food Network appearances for Lexington Betty’s chef and co-owner Dominique Leach; a nod from both The New York Times and the local Jean Banchet Awards for Sanders, which is in the process of opening a location in Hyde Park. 

“I think clearly the South Side gets less recognition than other sides of town,” says Leach. “So we thought, ‘How great would it be to highlight the South Side and some chefs that have establishments on the South Side?’”

That’s the origin of Leach’s South Side + Friends dinner series, which kicks off on January 31 with a collaboration with James Sanders of Sanders BBQ Supply. “We’re obviously doing barbecue, that’s a must,” says Leach of the meal, which will take place at House of GAZ (3265 S. Archer Ave.) in Bridgeport. 

But not every South Side + Friends dinner will be barbecue. February 25 will pair James Beard Award-nominated baker Maya-Camille Broussard with Leach. (“They just have the best quiche in the city,” Leach says of Broussard’s Justice of the Pies, located in Avalon Park.) Kendra Anderson of Caviar Dream Co. is the next guest, on March 28, and Leach has a list of other possible collaborators for what she hopes will be a monthly series.

The venue itself is a collaboration between Leach and her longtime photographer and videographer John Gaz and social media guru Nicole Gaz. The small loft-style event space includes a kitchen for Leach and her guests, where diners at South Side + Friends can watch them cook. “People are so engaged and really want this intimate time with chefs,” Leach says.

She wants people to see and share “two chefs together, collaborating,” she says, “because we want to be able to highlight a good time and camaraderie and a safe, inclusive space.”

She hopes that South Side + Friends can not just bring people from everywhere in the city to sample the work of some South Side chefs, but also interest them in the restaurants of those frequently Black chefs and the neighborhoods they’re in. 

“I really would like people from other sides of town to come and experience Pullman and get a taste of the culture and the history,” she says.