A Hospitality Veteran Finds Freedom via African Diaspora Food in His New Avondale Restaurant

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For a hospitality veteran, a new Avondale spot is not just his first independent restaurant but also a vehicle for discovery. Spice by CMB is Chef Mychael Bonner’s venture into African diasporic food after a career primarily spent cooking European food for the large restaurant group Lettuce Entertain You.

“I was kind of in the mental space of ‘I don’t really know what kind of cuisine I want to discover,’” Bonner says of himself when he left Lettuce to open his own catering operation several years ago.  

Spice by CMB’s space at 2853 N. Kedzie Ave. has served as the base for Bonner’s CMB Catering since 2023 and has offered brunch on the weekend for a year, but the restaurant officially began dinner service this week. (Weekend brunch will continue.) Its menu reflects Bonner’s exploration of African-influenced dishes across the globe, from Ethiopia (berbere spiced roast chicken) to Guyana (braised short rib pepperpot) to the Carolinas (broken rice), following a transatlantic line that reflects the history of African slavery. 

“As an African American chef, I didn’t want to get pigeonholed into just one genre of cuisine,” Bonner says of his early years in the restaurant industry. His mother and grandmother both cooked professionally in Memphis and at an Italian restaurant in Indiana, and he himself spent much of his career in Italian restaurants. “I don’t want to be known [as] the chef that cooks great fried chicken [or] shrimp and grits. I also wanted to show that we have a lot more range than that.” 

But “catering also gave me a period of time to hone what I wanted to do and focus on something that I can say, ‘Okay, this is my own interpretation of the food that I want to cook and eat.’”

He found himself drawn to Caribbean and African dishes, traces of which can often be found in recipes from the American South that were often perfected by Black cooks. “I don’t think America is really up to speed on that yet,” he says of “this food that I think is fresh and innovative.” 

Spice by CMB diners can try the cuisine-defining Trinidadian twist on Indian flatbread, roti, with hummus and salsa to dip. The essential East African (and Southern) ingredient okra meets the common West African benne or sesame seed in a vegetarian entree that also incorporates American ranch dressing – made with avocado – even though Bonner never liked okra as a child. Same with black-eyed peas, which he now uses in the fritter akara, which is popular in both West Africa and Brazil, brought there by West African slaves.

“When you’re working on a concept” for a corporate restaurant group, “you’re really stuck within the confines of the cuisine,” Bonner says. But with Spice by CMB’s focus on the African diaspora, “I feel liberated, in the sense that we can just go after what this looks like across the world now. And just understanding the slave trade and understanding how they were fed – some of those things that made the cuisines of these different parts of the world.”

Bonner is especially excited to bring his technique from decades in kitchens to humble dishes, for instance presenting the broken rice given to slaves alongside a grilled branzino with North African chermoula.

“To be able to present that dish that’s so homely in a way that’s very beautiful to me tells a story,” he says. The roast chicken he serves tells many stories: of his childhood in central Indiana, not far from the Amish farm that provides his chicken; of Amish support of the Underground Railroad; of the lost connection to Africa of those escaping slaves, in the form of jollof rice and berbere spice; of the other places in the Americas slaves ended up, via roti from Trinidad. Enthralled by his research into new dishes, Bonner might eventually introduce more “things that people don’t know,” that are more “adventurous,” like the doughy fufu or coconut-and-rice pancake vitumbua.

But for now he’s focused on “service and creating an experience for people that they really have an opportunity to come in and enjoy themselves in a comfortable space that’s cool,” particularly locals. He himself designed the chic space, which features exposed brick walls, statement chandeliers, plants, and a bar offering beer, wine from lesser-known regions, and cocktails that incorporate tropical flavors like hibiscus. (The beverage program is by Amanda Marino, with input from Bonner.) 

Spice by CMB joins restaurants like Erick Williams’ celebrated Virtue, which spotlights African American history through its Southern food, and Mahari, which won a local Jean Banchet Award for Culinary Excellence this year for its African diasporic food. Both of those restaurants are in Hyde Park, while Caribbean and Black restaurants like Kabawa and Tatiana in New York City are also finding acclaim. Spice by CMB brings the trend to Chicago’s North Side – perhaps a sign of its wider spread.