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Four restaurants celebrating ethnic Easter traditions
Taxim Every Greek restaurant serves lamb on Easter, but chef David Schneider aims to offer a more authentically rural Greek experience by using every part of the sacrificial lamb to construct his meal. Dinner starts with red hard-boiled eggs and magiritsa, an offal-based lemon-mint soup traditionally eaten to break the Lenten fast. Then: kokoretsi (grilled skewers made of heart, liver and kidney wrapped with intestine) and tsouknidopita (a pastry filled with nettles). Finally, he’ll spit-roast an entire lamb and carve it in the dining room, serving it not with the potatoes typical in western Greece (and Greektown) but with a bulgur wheat pilaf reflecting eastern Greece’s proximity to the Middle East. 1558 N Milwaukee Ave (773-252-1558). El: Blue to Damen. Bus: 50, 56, 72. Two seatings Sunday night for five-course dinner. $55.
Mi Ciudad Look at the ingredient list for their traditional Holy Week soup fanesca, and you may wonder if Ecuadorans missed the part about giving something up for Lent. It starts with salt cod cooked in milk, then adds pumpkin and a full dozen (for the Twelve Apostles) add-ins ranging from rice and peanuts to sambo (a type of squash), mote (hominy) and melloco (an Ecuadoran potato). Crumbles of fried fish top it off— and there’s a plate of empanadas on the side. Just don’t wait until Easter Sunday to try this hearty feast; owner Manuel Aguilar says that by Saturday, meat-loving Ecuadorans have had enough of Lenten fish and they’re ready to go back to steak. 3041 W Irving Park Rd (773-866-2066). Bus: 80, 82. Lunch, dinner (closed Tue). Average main course: $15.
Shokolad Nobody does Easter eggs like the Ukrainians, with their intricately dyed batik eggs called pysanky. So it’s not surprising that eggs figure heavily in the meal that concludes the meatless week before Easter. This cafe will be closed Easter Sunday, but on Saturday you can sit down for a Ukrainian feast of soft-boiled eggs, egg salad with leeks and fresh horseradish, babka (a brioche-like bread), cold cuts including ham, sausages and holodets (mixed meats in aspic), and roasted leg of lamb, followed by some of baker-owner Halyna Fedus’s delicate miniature fruit tarts and oreshki (walnut-filled cookies). 2524 W Chicago Ave (773-276-6402). Bus: 49, 66. Breakfast, lunch, dinner (Fri, Sat). Average main course: $7.
Staropolska How central is food to the Polish celebration of Easter? Visit any Polish church in Chicago on Wielka Sobota (Holy Saturday) and you’ll see families bringing in baskets of hard-boiled eggs, sausages and breads for Swieconka, the ritual blessing of traditional foods— all of which will be eaten with gusto come Sunday morning. This Avondale restaurant/tavern/deli, with its charmingly Epcot-esque Old World decor, will serve classic Swieconka foods such as ham, eggs, and beets with chrzan (horseradish) for breakfast, then segue into heartier Easter fare including zurek (white borscht), bia?a (fresh white kielbasa), and roast duck for lunch and dinner. 3028 N Milwaukee Ave (773-342-0779). El: Blue to Belmont. Bus: 56, 76, 77. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Average main course: $8.
