Lula Winter Art Opening

For our Winter show of 2015 we are delighted to announce Over Under, an exploration of contemporary practices in weaving among four artists.  PAZ    28" X 26" JACQUARD WEAVING, 2013 Melissa Leandro  Samantha Bittman uses a traditional hand-loom for non-traditional ends, augmenting woven cloth with painted passages and disrupting the grids that make up a standard woven cloth with sewn interruptions. Melissa Leandro uses high and low tech weaving systems to translate drawings mined from her personal history into cloth. The hand loomed work is used as a substrate to work back into with sewing, collage, cutting and melting. She also translates drawings into digital files that are then woven on a digital jacquard loom translating the paper and pen to pixels and pixels into yarn. Christy Matson's weavings are done on a digital loom as well, allowing her to weave far more complex designs than would be possible on a traditional matrix, designs culled from her own drawings, translated digitally into zeros and ones. Michael Milano's work in the show concentrates on drawings he's done that allude to and are inspired by the structure and design of a woven grid and the traditions and practice of weaving. Please join the artists for a reception at Lula on March 10 from 6-9 hors d'oeuvres & a cash bar LONGEST DISTANCE    19" X 15" ACRYLIC ON HANDWOVEN TEXTILE Samantha Bittman

Third Annual Chefs' Dinner Benefiting Comfort Station

On November 3, Lula Cafe’s Jason Hammel will host the third annual Logan Square Chef's Dinner to benefit Comfort Station Logan Square, a multidisciplinary arts space that provides free cultural programming for the surrounding community.

Since 2010, Comfort Station has held monthly art exhibitions, weekly films and concerts, potlucks, workshops, and lectures — each year further establishing itself as a micro-cultural center in the heart of Logan Square. Much of Comfort Station's operating and programming expenses are covered through donations and sponsorships from local patrons and businesses, with the annual Chef Dinner being the largest single source of funding that the organization receives each year.

Joining Jason in Lula’s kitchen — and in his conscious, culinary pursuits — are some of the neighborhood's most exciting chefs: Jared Wentworth (Longman & Eagle), Abraham Conlon (Fat Rice), Jared Van Camp (the forthcoming OWEN + ALCHEMY), Tony Bezsylko, Ethan Pikas and Justin Behlke (Cellar Door Provisions), Matthias Merges (Yusho) and Alfredo Nogueira (Analogue).

It’s a group comprised of celebrated artists in their own medium (food!), so naturally this dream team of local epicurean talent will collaborate on a six-course feast. Over the past four years, Logan Square has become a culinary destination in Chicago, and this annual Logan Square Chef's Dinner reflects the broad array of talent that is located in the blocks surrounding Comfort Station.

Tickets are available for purchase via this link for $165 per person — inclusive of all food, beverages, tax and gratuity. The evening begins at 6pm with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres.

Rosé All Day

Like Lula Cafe, the Matthiasson vineyards and wine production is very much about family, community and sustainability. We both consider those three values inextricable, and to that end, offering their very fine rosé all summer long was a natural inclination on our part.  

Steve and Jill Klein Matthiasson, the vineyard’s proprietors, play an integral role in the wine-making and farming communities in California. Both have had life-long careers in sustainable agriculture, and they continue to apply those ideals of balance, restraint, and respect for the individual—and for the whole—to their wine. Their approach is simple but careful, a concept that is central to the tradition of viticulture and winemaking. Respect for this tradition forms the core of their work. And their hands literally touch every vine and every bottle.

Matthiasson’s 2013 rosé was made from a combination of Grenache, Syrah, Mouvedre, and Counoise from the Windmill vineyard in the Dunnigan Hills, along with Syrah grapes from the Kahn Vineyard in Lovell Valley.

Right now, we think the perfect pairing for this wine is a sunny seat on our patio.

Radishes: From City Farm to Your Plate

Something most people don't realize about Lula is just how many vegetables we serve every day — in fact, over half of our food costs are for veggies! We have our own grow room, at least four times a year we create an all-vegetarian Farm Dinner, and every night of the week (except Tuesdays, of course) we offer a six course vegetarian tasting menu. Plain and simple: Lula loves veggies.

We're always working to source vegetables from the best and closest farmers, and sometimes those farmers are right here in the city. Watch a bunch of radishes make a sunny afternoon trip from a City Farm location to your plate in Logan Square:

Vimeo

Halo-Halo

While she was living in LA, our pastry chef Kelly Helgesen would follow her sweet tooth to Jollibee. Popular on the West Coast, this fast food chain serves up Filipino-inspired fast food, including their version of a traditional ice cream dessert known as Halo-Halo.

Tagalog for “mix-mix,” the treat is commonly served with boiled kidney beans, garbanzos, sugar palm fruit (kaong), coconut sport (macapuno), and plantains caramelized in sugar, jackfruit (langkâ), gulaman, tapioca, nata de coco, sweet potato (kamote), cheese, and pounded crushed young rice (pinipig).

The dish is constructed by placing most of the ingredients (fruits, beans, and other sweets) inside a tall glass. Top it with shaved ice and sprinkled sugar, the top it off with either leche flan, purple yam (ubeng pula), or ice cream. For good measure, evaporated milk is poured into the mixture upon serving.

Kelly’s version, which is now on Lula’s dessert menu, is a Midwestern spin on her favorite Filipino dessert: strawberry ice cream, strawberries macerated with shiso*, vanilla shaved ice, candied fava beans, lychee pearls, flan, popped sorghum, and strawberry syrup.

Or, as Jason Hammel describes it: Halo-Halo is the adult equivalent to going to an ice cream parlor and asking for every single topping.

*The berry season changes quickly, and we’re already on to stone fruits! Look for sweet cherries in lieu of strawberries now...

PQM vs LULA

Every Tuesday night, Publican Quality Meats hosts Burger, Bourbon and Beer Night. The weekly series takes place from 6-9:00pm, and features two dueling burgers: The PQM Burger (which stays on the menu from week to week) and a rotating special burger from a guest chef. This week, Lula Cafe's own Jason Hammel will be battling it out for burger bragging rights. Use your usually Lula-less Tuesday night to come cheer us on!

Publican Quality Meats | 825 W. Fulton Market Street | 312-445-8977 

Monday Night's Farm Dinner: Vegetarian!

Genesis Growers

Four or five times a year, just when the season is at its brightest (or darkest, really, on that February day when we have to look, like, real deep at the turnips), we decide to create a totally vegetarian Farm Dinner. Now, if you didn't know, we offer a tasting menu every night of the week of vegetarian cooking — six courses, four of them savory, one cheese, one sweet — which give guests a chance to see what we can do with the season's finest. But creating three new dishes all at once takes a different level of imagination.

We like to imagine repetition and mimicry in food. Things becoming one another. Like when a flavor in a mid-winter apple just happens to mirror the flavor of a slice of turnip dressed with honey, nutmeg, and a splash of lemon; when the shape of a dumpling just happens to look like a scallop, or a new potato, or a heart of palm.

Last year we did a spaghetti squash salad where we shredded the meat of the squash and spread it flat on the plate in a crazed shredded yellow nest. We loved the way the squash swirled and turned, how it hid the other ingredients on the plate and made the act of eating it a discovery.

So, the nest, we thought. Let's make another nest.

This week at the market, Vicki from Genesis Growers is offering her tender haricot verts — the fancy tender thin cousins of the green bean. Our idea (if it works!) is to turn those into a nest of green, by cutting them lengthwise into svelte, twig-like patterns, with little surprises "nestled" within. Bright, juicy tiny cherry tomatoes, or ground cherries, or slices of plum. Roasted pepper, maybe cheese. We don't know yet because as I'm writing this, it's Wednesday, we've only been back from the market for an hour or two, and the idea is new, fresh, unformed — just a little egg waiting for something to emerge.

— Jason Hammel

Make your reservation by calling 773-489-9554 or visiting lulacafe.com.

Walk-ins are always welcome!

In addition to the Farm Dinner menu, our Café and Specials menus are also available on

Monday evenings.