A new restaurant and a bar from the duo behind Lilac Tiger, Coach House, and more is scheduled to arrive in July in Lincoln Park. Muhājir, which aims to tell the stories of migration through food, opens on Wednesday, July 1. Bobo, a Filipino cocktail lounge located inside the same building, will debut a week later on Wednesday, July 8. It’s arguably the most anticipated project of the year from chef Zubair Mohajir, who opened Mariela in the Loop in May with fellow collaborator and chef Rishi Kumar. With the Lincoln Park restaurant and bar, Mohajir is partnering with longtime chef de cuisine Jacob Dela Cruz.
As a first-generation immigrant born in Chennai, India, and raised in Doha, Qatar, chef Mohajir has built a reputation for showcasing his culture through his food, while exploring its intersections with other world cuisines in a way that feels both reverent and revelatory. With Muhājir, Mohajir and Dela Cruz expand on that culinary journey, embracing countries along the ancient spice route and those who traveled it. The Lincoln Park restaurant’s menu focuses on East-to-West culinary connections from Mohajir’s birthplace through the Middle East and North Africa, making stops in Sicily, Andalusia, and Portugal. Live wood-fire cooking plays a prominent role at Muhājir. “Wood fire is part of the human story and is rooted in what we do,” says Mohajir. “Throughout this menu you’re going to see how different cultures used it.”
Take, for instance, thaali, a starter that, like many of the dishes on the a la carte menu, is meant to be shared. The assortment of dips made with fire-roasted ingredients includes caponata, tomato-tamarind achar, goat cheese shattah, and ful, which nod to Italy, India, Palestine, and Egypt. It’s paired with papadums, or cracker-thin crisps, and wood-fired sourdough focaccia and served in a custom-made plate from Chicago’s DTK Ceramics.
“With this dish you essentially get to taste all the places we’re touching,” says Mohajir. “For a dish to get on the menu, we ask ourselves: Where does it come from, who is it by, and what kind of connection can we help create for an aha moment?”
A rotating snack tray takes a similar all-in-one approach spotlighting street food from various countries with dishes like pesarattu, a savory crepe that here is stuffed with shrimp mousse.
On the seafood side, grilled tiger prawns come topped with an aromatic sauce of gooseberry achar and khuzambu, a tamarind-based curry. Butterflied whole-grilled fish, currently branzino, finds inspiration in noomi basra (dried black limes) and a Middle Eastern tea. The two ingredients are combined to create a bouillabaisse-style sauce. (Mohajir and Dela Cruz are working with Albany Park’s Sahar International Supermarket to source ingredients like that tea as well as Palestinian olive oil and fresh merguez.)
A 10th-century North African recipe inspired Muhājir’s tableside whole duck presentation. Digging through vintage recipe books also served as a jumping-off point for the preparation of the bone-in rib-eye. Dela Cruz found direction for its shoyu-like marinade via a fermented Arab condiment called murri. Don’t sleep on the baby onions caramelized in that sauce.
“Everything on this menu is old, but what makes it new is the re-imagination through our lens,” says Mohajir.
Desserts tap into those spices, too, like the shaved kulfi, a traditional Indian frozen treat, paired with saffron honey or chai sabayon.
“We’re in this vicious cycle, where we start to question what makes America quote unquote great, and without question, it’s our immigrants.”
Formerly a sushi bar, the interior of the intimate 44-seat restaurant offers a sense of the Middle East and Spain’s Andalusia via the rounded arches on one wall, while the shiny brown tiles covering the opposite wall continue the earth tones found elsewhere, including the dark wood tables. Simple candelabra-like sconces between the arches lean into the restaurant’s restrained aesthetic. On the far side of the dining room, an open kitchen and the action from its wood-burning grill is on full display.
While Muhājir’s menu is a joint creative process, Dela Cruz takes the lead at Bobo, the sister cocktail lounge tucked behind the restaurant that looks to Filipino street markets for its muse. It’s named after his father, whose nickname is Bo, and also references BoboQ, the popular Filipino barbecue pop-up Dela Cruz did during the pandemic out of his parents’ house. Bobo will feature a concise rotating menu of snacks, including slow-cooked lamb ribs finished on the grill and kare kare grilled prawns. Dela Cruz is also blurring the lines between sweet and savory with dishes like his version of hopia, a Filipino pastry, that incorporates shrimp.
The beverage programs at both spots are led by Richard Beltzer and David Mor. Mor has worked with Mohajir on Mirra, Lilac Tiger, Truce, and Mariela, while Beltzer’s behind-the-bar resume includes stints at Monteverde and since-closed Bad Hunter, where his creative cocktails earned a cult following.
At Muhājir, Beltzer subtly leans into spices mirroring dishes on the menu. The tequila-forward Silk Road includes saffron, rose, and citrus. “We really want the restaurant’s food to shine with the drinks accompanying it,” he says. “The drinks don’t need to be this five-page story.”
Like with Bobo’s food, Beltzer will embrace Filipino flavors, moving beyond the standard ube and pandan. While the cocktails will be based on classics, they will be more “adventurous” than those in Muhājir. Contrasting Bobo’s dark interior, the drinks will be colorful, “whether it’s with gels, fruits, or jams,” says Beltzer.
This isn’t the first time Mohajir and Dela Cruz have worked together. The two worked side by side at Coach House before Mohajir transformed it into a chef residency model earlier this year. Located behind Lilac Tiger, the award-winning 22-seat tasting-menu restaurant wasn’t without its challenges.
“You can only do so much in a room without a kitchen,” says Mohajir. “We had reached the ceiling together at Coach House and I think we squeezed as much out of it as we could.”
Mohajir and Dela Cruz are also partners at Sarima Café, a Filipino and Indian pastry shop and coffee bar where sweet potato mushroom dosas are served side-by-side with ube crinkle cookies.
When it came to naming their newest restaurant, it was Dela Cruz who suggested Muhājir. Named after the Arabic and Urdu word for “migrant” or “immigrant,” Muhājir is also tied directly to Mohajir’s family name.
“Every decade or so, we’re in this vicious cycle, where we start to question what makes America quote unquote great and without question, it’s our immigrants,” says Mohajir. “I love making delicious food, but I also love standing for what I believe in, and food is my vehicle to do that. The story of us in this world cannot be told without all of us.”
Lisa Shames
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