Lula Cafe

On September 2, 1999, Lula Cafe opened in a small storefront on Kedzie Boulevard with a four burner home stove and a dented batterie of thrifted pots and pans. Today, stretching three storefronts, it is the founding member of the nationally recognized Logan Square culinary community and a celebrated forerunner of the ‘farm to table’ movement in Chicago. With self taught chefs and a willingness to cook against categorization, the menu at Lula has grown into a kind of humble maturity, risky but grounded, a boheme bistro of the unclassifiable kind. We want you to come for all occasions, to read a book at the bar with a glass of wine, to celebrate birthdays and first dates, to taste through the seasons, to brunch with friends after a night out. Anything is possible, welcomed, wished for, here at Lula. We serve a brunch that is casual, simple yet sophisticated, with ingredients like fresh farm eggs and porridges made from cornmeal ground at a local mill. Monday nights we host a weekly creative fixed price dinner for  $38, which in 13 years has never once been the same. And besides the daily offering of meats and fish from sustainable sources, every day we serve adventurous fare for vegetarians, including a six course tasting menu offered nightly. While at dinner the food is more intricate and informal, we never cede the accessibility and  youthfulness with which Lula was begun. We have been featured on NPR’s “This American Life,” in The New York Times, Food and Wine, Bon Appetit, and in Chicago press where Lula has been named an LTH Forum Great Neighborhood Restaurant, a Michelin Bib Gourmande, Jean Banchet Best Neighborhood Restaurant, and a proud member of the “Eater Essential 38.”