Does Chicago’s Only Lebanese Tasting Menu Restaurant Match Michelin’s Hype?

Welcome to the Scene Report, a new column in which Eater Chicago captures the vibe of a notable Chicago restaurant at a specific moment in time.

Checking out Beity, a Fulton Market restaurant from chef Ryan Fakih, was meant to be the highlight of my week, for good reason. The Michelin Guide recently recognized the Lebanese gastronomic experience, which opened in early August after two years of anticipation in a food scene with few Middle Eastern fine dining options. The 16-course tasting menu ($165 per person) is called “Teta’s Tasting” after Fakih’s grandmother, who sends him personalized cooking videos from her home in Lebanon. And Beity means “my home” in Arabic. That’s what Fakih is trying to evoke here, the feeling of being at a loved one’s home.

The vibe: Aesthetically, Fakih’s goal of creating a homey space has been accomplished. The building used to house Michelin Bib Gourmand wine bar called Joe’s Imports. The chic 60-seat restaurant has stone walls, warm lighting supplied by brass fixtures, and archways reminiscent of classic Levantine architecture. Old classic Middle Eastern music like Palestinian Fairuz, Egyptian Amr Diab, and Western Saharan singer Mariem Hassan played in the background; it truly did feel intimate and exciting.

My friend and I went to Beity the day after Labor Day as people tried to cling to the long weekend. The 15-seat bar was packed with groups of friends and a couple lone diners, all drinking and snacking. We were the only ones in the main dining room — there’s another in the basement that gives an even more cozy, grandma’s house vibe with a fireplace — but around 7:00 p.m., the other tasting menu diners started to trickle in until the main dining room had a decent but small crowd. Around 8:15 p.m., it started to slow down, with not many customers coming in (the last seating is at 9:30 p.m.) and the bar folks beginning to leave.

The wait: Around 11:00 a.m. that same day, I tried to make a reservation and was dismayed to see Beity use Google’s reservation system — my arch-nemesis. Google told me they weren’t able to contact the restaurant to confirm my reservation and I called a couple times that afternoon with no answer.

But we decided to risk it and just show up. Thankfully, they had space for us to try their tasting menu; the night was nowhere near booked. Fortunately, Beity also uses Tock.

The drinks: I’m Muslim and don’t drink, so I asked about non-alcoholic cocktails and was disappointed that they only had two to choose from — the Jallab Spritz, with pomegranate molasses, pine nuts, soda water and rose water and the Apricot About It, with orange and rose blossom and apricot syrup, Seedlip 94 and egg white.

It’s already difficult to find non-alcoholic options, and I had hoped a Middle Eastern restaurant might be a bit more accommodating to Muslim non-drinkers. I ordered the Apricot About It, which was floral and yummy, but not very exciting. In fairness, it’s hard for me to get excited about most non-alcoholic cocktails except for the ones at Esmé, which rarely let me down, particularly this coconut vanilla cream soda with white miso foam and an accompanying umami explosion, or FRE Sparkling Brut with the alcohol centrifuged out of it, and smoked black teas that curiously smell of bacon.

People who drink alcohol would likely have a different experience than me. Everyone at the bar seemed to be enjoying themselves. It was clear the cocktail menu and wine list were a huge draw here. My friend ordered the Clothed and Unknown; she loved it. “It’s a typical mezcal sour with added spice from the Aleppo pepper, which you taste at the end,” she described it to me. “This is my ideal sour.” On Wednesday, September 11 Michelin added Beity to its guide and described the bar as “ever-busy” and offering “a casual experience with a limited selection of snacks and thoughtful cocktails made with the likes of arak, Aleppo, and tahini.”

Most of the tasting menu diners also got a wine pairing, and they frequently told their servers how much they enjoyed the wine selection. Beity offers two wine pairings; the Beity pairing is $75 and highlights wines from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Their Global pairing is $90 and highlights wine regions across the world, focusing on organic, biodynamic winemaking from female or family-owned winemakers.

Nylah Iqbal Muhammad/Eater Chicago

The highlights: For the food, the mezze was absolutely the star of the night. The fresh baked pita was just a revelation, and I was in complete contentment swirling it in the parsley hummus with lamb and pine nuts, and slathering za’atar crusted labneh on the bread. I’m not alone in the assessment; Michelin concurs. “Drawing on his Lebanese heritage and on family recipes, [Fakih] makes a strong impression with a mezze of parsley hummus with lamb, falafel in yogurt sauce, and generously charred pita. Such a spread shows both heart and refinement.”

Every dish was plated stunningly, and the service was impeccable. The staff gave detailed explanations of each dish and its meaning in Lebanese society and to Fakih and his family, infusing the meal with that cultural experience I had come here for. The sayadieh (a minimalist take on a fish rice dish traditionally cooked in a clay pot) was good. I liked the burst of acidity from the sumac crust on the branzino. Sayadieh is one of my favorite meals, so I was almost humming with excitement waiting for it and my main complaint was perhaps just wanting more. The koussa — stuffed squash with bulgur — was homey and delicious, with a lovely tomato broth and a delightful addition of crispy leeks on the top. And the shish barak (lamb and beef dumpling served with yogurt sauce) was dry again, with a yogurt sauce that was much too thick, but the flavors made up for it.

There were brighter spots at dessert. I loved the lemon frozen yogurt with agrumato extra virgin olive oil. The day before, I had made a plum olive oil cake with olive oil from the family farm of Hisham Khalifeh, owner of Middle East Bakery in Andersonville, in ‘Arura, Palestine, so I was feeling obsessed with olive oil desserts. This one did not disappoint, and I could have taken home a carton of it. The frozen yogurt came with a Lebanese 7 spice (a Middle Eastern blend often called baharat, meaning “seven” in Arabic) digestive cookie with chocolate and caviar. It was nice to have another burst of salt from the caviar with the ice cream.

Nylah Iqbal Muhammad/Eater Chicago

The lowlights: I wanted to love Beity’s food, I really did. Overall, though, it was much more underwhelming. than I’d anticipated.

The a la carte menu (dishes ranging from $5 to $20) is really just six bar snacks and two desserts, a small offering compared to other places in the city and a deviation from the Beity’s description of it as “a more casual dining experience.” You would not be able to get a full meal from this menu without ordering at least three dishes per person, which would be fine if there were more options. We ordered makanek, a Lebanese beef and lamb sausage with pomegranate molasses. As a lifelong seafood fiend, I also wanted the samak bizri, fried sardines with finger limes and lemon tarator (a Lebanese tahini sauce) tartar, but they were out that night.

The makanek was flavorful but much too dry. Without dipping each bite into pomegranate molasses, I couldn’t have enjoyed them very much, and I firmly believe that when a sausage requires a dipping sauce to taste good, then it’s not a good sausage.

The moghrabieh, Fakih’s deconstructed take on a Lebanese stew of semolina dough pearls of the same name, chickpeas, onions, and chicken was also incredibly dry and my least favorite dish of the night. The chicken had every bit of juice that once existed cooked out of it, and was stuffed into a pastry that was visibly cracking from lack of moisture and fat. The best part of that course was the charred onion and the cinnamon jus, but I only ate a couple bites of the chicken-filled pastry.

Nylah Iqbal Muhammad/Eater Chicago

The verdict: Beity’s presence on the Chicago food scene is culturally necessary; we need more fine dining options from Middle Eastern countries — honestly, almost every place that’s not Western European is grossly underrepresented in the fine dining scene. Maman Zari in Albany Park, which serves a Persian tasting menu, opened in 2023. It felt incredible to eat the Levantine dishes I love surrounded by vibrant music in a beautiful space with a calm vibe.The bar vibes are so immaculate, I would go back in a heartbeat to have a non-alcoholic cocktail, that heavenly fresh pita and labneh, and to try the samak bizri. I’ve got a feeling I would have gobbled those sardines down at a frightening speed.

However, I wouldn’t do the tasting menu again. At $165 per person (not including the automatically added 20 percent gratuity and 3 percent service charge), it was simply too expensive for the quality of food we received. The elements of a stunning Lebanese tasting menu are all there, but the execution wasn’t what I was expecting.

It doesn’t make me feel great that I didn’t fall head over heels with Beity’s tasting menu. I love Arab food, and it’s hard when people put their culture, their family, their soul into a curated experience menu and it doesn’t stun you. I wanted to be entranced by everything, but instead I found most of the dishes to be lackluster, especially for the price.

Although I was let down by the tasting menu, I have grace and high hopes for the future of Beity. Its bar program seems incredible, and the mezze (especially the pita) is delicious. It only opened a mere month ago, so I’m hoping that with more time, the tasting menu will mature to tell the story it wants to tell. They already have a clarity of mission, values, and culture. The food just needs to catch up.

Beity, 813 W. Fulton Street, open 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, reservations via Tock