Black-Owned Restaurant

Raised in Humboldt Park, Dominique Leach now serves barbecue at her Lexington Betty Smokehouse in Pullman amidst frequent appearances on TV.

“I don’t think America is really up to speed on that yet,” says Mychael Bonner of Caribbean and African food, which he prepares with his decades of restaurant experience at his new Spice by CMB.

Private chef Emani Roberts is opening Brûlée, a Southern brunch restaurant blocks from McCormick Center, to serve South Loop residents and convention-goers. 

Growing up in Bronzeville, Chloe Gould didn't know that a being a chef was a career or what ginger root was. Now she's opening a restaurant that combines the Southeast Asian flavors of her time in Singapore with her American Southern heritage. 

After a decade in Lincoln Square, Luella's Southern Kitchen is moving to Albany Park to serve just breakfast and brunch. It opens August 6.

Tyris Bell helped his brother Darnell Reed open Luella's Southern Kitchen and worked there for the past eight years. Now he has opened his own place, an eclectic barbecue joint in Canaryville. Don't worry, it still has mac 'n' cheese.

Damarr Brown, the Chef de Cuisine at Virtue in Hyde Park, wasn't sure he wanted to do Top Chef at first. But after his mentor, Chef Erick Williams, encouraged him to take the opportunity, he went far in the competition. Brown discusses representation in the Chicago restaurant industry and shares his recipe for Chicken and Andouille Jambalaya.

"For me, sustainability is developing and training the largest sum of African American and brown young men and women that I can possibly find," says chef Erick Williams, who has recently garnered national acclaim for his new Hyde Park restaurant, Virtue.