As we pass the halfway point of the year, the Tribune food team takes a look at three recently opened restaurants across the Chicagoland area in these unstarred reviews: Da Local Boy in The Loop and Highwood, The Greggory in South Barrington and The Radicle in Logan Square.
Da Local Boy
After opening Da Local Boy on the North Shore two years ago, couple and business partners Dianne Antonio and Nate Domingo are now bringing their fresh, authentic Hawaiian platters to Loop commuters hungry for an affordable, island-inspired escape with their latest counter-service outpost.
Hearty platters like pork belly, huli huli chicken and pulehu short ribs fill the space with the smoke from Domingo’s char grill, where he cooks the sort of dishes served at mom-and-pop joints on the island. The Loop location opened in April in what was previously the Asian-Latin fusion restaurant Saucy Porka.
Hawaiian cuisine spans generations of indigenous Polynesian and immigrant food traditions from Asia, North America and Europe. With dishes like loco moco, lumpia and even poke nachos on the menu, “We kind of modernize it with our fusion mixed street foods,” Domingo said.
Try the OG Plate ($19), piled high with enough meat and rice to share, with huli huli chicken and tender grilled pork belly, plus rice and macaroni salad and an umami shoyu marinade.
The juicy huli huli chicken is marinated for two days. “It’s not dry, because we’re constantly basting it while we’re grilling it,” Domingo said.
On the side, light, creamy macaroni salad, made with Hellmann’s mayo, salt, pepper, carrots and a bit of sweet relish, is a traditional accompaniment in Hawaiian plate lunch culture and perfectly balances the grilled meats.
A tuna poke bowl ($18) is simple yet deeply flavorful, made traditionally without heavy sauces, and green onion and nori seasoning atop fluffy white rice. Domingo notes that salt brings out the flavor of the raw fish.
“It’s cut from the rich iron in Hawaii to make red clay salt,” he said. “When we put it on our poke, sometimes it gives it a little bit of that texture crunch.”
To drink, grab a can of Hawaiian Sun ($4) blended passion fruit, orange and guava juice, also known as POG. The island-branded soft drink comes in a plethora of flavors and has been manufactured there since 1952. At the Highwood restaurant, you can also get a pina colada-style “Lava flow” drink ($9) with delicious ribbons of frosty strawberry sauce. It’s the sort of flamboyant drink Domingo would serve at a resort.
The dishes that inspire Domingo the most are the fresh catches he’d cook on the beach with friends back home in Lahaina, Hawaii.
From delivering plates to launching a food truck and opening two locations in the span of a few years, Da Local Boy’s cooking has caught the attention of food writers regionally and nationally.
Domingo, who lost his job as a resort chef during the COVID-19 pandemic, moved to the Great Lakes to follow Antonio, who enrolled in graduate school. While she was in school, he was working at a car wash and selling plates of the meals he grew up eating to his coworkers to make extra money.
“That kind of helped with the homesickness,” he said. “I could cook local food that I couldn’t really find around here.”
After a couple of years of building a following, the couple opened their first restaurant in Highwood in 2024. The North Shore location is full-service and slower-paced, while downtown is counter-service and takeout-focused — Domingo is mindful that his downtown customers only have minutes for lunch and keeps the grill ever-cooking for the line.
But who is “Da Local Boy,” anyway?
The restaurants are named partly for their son, Sky, who is now 8. He was only 2 when the family moved from Hawaii.
“We do this all for him,” Antonio, his mom, said.
But also, it represents the family’s origin story. “I was raised in a Filipino household, but raised outside the Hawaiian culture ways,” Domingo said, “That’s what a local is, (someone who) knows the roots of all things in Hawaii, and knows the history, knows the culture, knows the people.”
— Lauryn Azu
335 S. Franklin St., 312-423-9957; 320 Green Bay Road, Highwood, 847-748-8715, dalocalboychicago.toast.site
The Greggory
Even before I had a chance to look at the menu, the thing that struck me the most during my visit to The Greggory in suburban South Barrington was how pleasant the staff is to small children. It might not seem like a big deal to everyone, but it is if you’re also a mom of a toddler who is always on the verge of a tantrum. Yanni Reglis, the wonderful server who took care of our family of three on a recent weeknight, immediately put my almost-3-year-old at ease and piqued his curiosity enough that he’d watch and wait to see what happens next. The staff was OK with me moving the chairs around to accommodate how close my toddler wanted to sit, gave him a sippy cup without us asking, were unfussy about the occasional silverware bang from our table, and most of all — didn’t overwhelm us with decisions.
“We want to be accessible on many levels. We have a large, large build-out here and it can’t just be special occasion diners. It’s got to be for people who are here on a regular weeknight, people with kids and bigger families,” one of the Greggory partners, Gregg Horan told the Tribune in May. “We’re family-friendly for sure, but we’re also business-friendly. There is space for everybody.”
Once we settled in, Reglis asked us what was catching our eye on the menu (the halal steaks!) and then offered to choose the adventure for us, or at least, guide us so that we weren’t falling victim to over-ordered gluttony. I deeply appreciate when front-of-house is honest about proportions and what to expect size-wise, saving diners from wasting food and money. We were recommended the 16-ounce stone axe wagyu strip, which is one of the three wagyu halal steak options on the menu.
Even though there is a proliferation of halal food options in Chicagoland, there are only a few traditional, American steakhouses that accommodate the dietary preference in a way that doesn’t take away from the “steakhouse experience.” (Speaking of, are all steakhouses too dimly lit?)
The Greggory partners, Horan, Bill Veremis and chef/partner Jose Sosa, wanted the Barrington restaurant to be a dining destination —not just another steakhouse. And they emphasize that the restaurant, which was a Tribune Readers’ Choice Food Awards winner for best suburban restaurant, could very well be placed in any big city, like downtown Chicago or somewhere in New York City. “We happen to be in South Barrington,” Veremis said.
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The ingredient-driven, open-fire concept is front and center and the movement is hard not to watch closely — chefs throwing meat into the flame, the clinking of stacked plates, servers gliding through tables with a sparkler-topped slice of white chocolate cake.
Michoacán-born Sosa helped shape some of Chicago’s most acclaimed restaurants, including Gibsons Italia, Hugo’s Frog Bar & Fish House, and Ummo Chicago. He reunited with Gibsons alum Horan and Veremis to launch The Greggory, and said he wanted it to be part of something “big and bold” in the suburbs, where there’s a need for independently owned restaurants.
The restaurant is undeniably big. But for a massive 10,000-square-foot space with several distinctly different dining rooms, it feels surprisingly intimate.
We started with Gruyere popover rolls with an addictive, dippable butter (a fantastic house bread option) and then a crabmeat and avocado appetizer that was draped with a caper remoulade sauce with piquillo pepper. The avocado was thinly sliced and fanned out on a pound of fluffy crabmeat, all of it inside a bowl of butter lettuce.
The service was timed well, too. Only a half hour — not too long, not too short — passed between the starters and the steak.
Since we were obviously going to split one very large wagyu, they happily threw a few slices of steak back on the open-fire hearth to meet my well-done preference.
Alongside the steak, the truffle double-baked potato with fontina fonduta, chive oil, winter truffle and baby leeks was excellent. A really rich and indulgent iteration of steak and potatoes.
Reglis came back another half-hour later to grab my dessert order, something I’d been mulling over since I sat down. And because my toddler was surprisingly settled in, I wasn’t as stressed that the meal was unfolding so leisurely.
I opted for the restaurant’s signature chocolate praline cake with hazelnut mousse, caramel buttercream, caramelized praline bits, vanilla ice cream and fudge sauce.
Though the dessert menu could have offered more (there was a strawberry Basque cheesecake, a sundae tower, a white chocolate cake and a banana cream pie), it was a solid, intensely chocolate cake that I’m happy I ordered.
The restaurant is highly detail-oriented and runs like an extremely well-oiled machine, but there’s a thoughtful, human touch that is hard to ignore.
— Zareen Syed
100 W. Higgins Road, Unit C1, South Barrington; 847-551-5740; thegreggory.com
The Radicle
“Is this the old Daisies spot?” a woman behind me mused as I walked into The Radicle, which is indeed in the old Daisies location on Milwaukee Avenue in Logan Square.
Much like its predecessor, The Radicle, which opened on Jan. 2, is driven by seasonality and sustainability, all while looking to answer the question: If the Midwest were a region of Italy, what would the food look like there?
The menu features thin-crust pies, a raw bar and seafood, plus cocktails and wine with a local focus. Executive chef Joe Frillman said he is largely influenced by the cuisine along Italy’s Adriatic coast.
“Selfishly, it’s the food I want to eat at this moment in time,” he said. “Summertime on the patio with some raw oysters and a pizza that’s surprisingly light. A fun, raucous atmosphere is something that I’m always after, and we want it to be for the neighborhood as well.”
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The patio is indeed a fantastic spot to soak up a warm Chicago summer night. We started our meal with a special that’s no longer on the menu, the asparagus salad. The green stalks were perfectly cooked and the spring onion vinaigrette made it a nice light and refreshing bite. But the portion was pretty small for the $21 price tag, likely due to the lump crab that was mixed in with the greens.
The fritto misto ($18) is quite an adventurous dish, so much so that our server warned us that it’s an adventurous dish, but it’s a fun appetizer for seafood lovers. The shrimp heads, a prized delicacy in my household growing up, were delightfully crunchy and flavorful. The fish skin was also beautifully crispy, though the pale yellow saffron aioli was needed to cut through the saltiness. The skate cheeks were the safest bite from the dish for the fish skeptics, but were a touch oily.
“People are going after the prime pieces, and we’re happy to take the byproducts or the scraps if you will and figure out how to turn it into something delicious,” Frillman said.
He points back to the history of Italian cooking, where prime cuts would often go to the people with the most money, leaving more common folk to find a way to use the less-desirable pieces to make delicious food. But it’s also a way for the restaurant to try and keep prices lower at a time when costs continue to climb.
“I think it writes a captivating story for the food as well,” Frillman said. “It allows us to then inspire a cook who might never have seen an ingredient like that.”
The rhubarb pizza ($26), which featured guanciale and ricotta, was such a playful bite with the contrast between the slightly sour tang of the rhubarb and the sweetness of the caramelized onion. The more traditional supreme ($24), with sausage, green pepper, mushroom and onion was a solid choice for those less adventurous. It’s a staple that will likely remain on the menu and is among Frillman’s favorites for its nostalgic draw.
The Radicle maintains its connection to its sister restaurant by offering a couple of sweets by Daisies. The chocolate slab pie ($9) is a prime example of when the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The slice of pie itself is rich and decadent, but it’s not all that exciting unless you pair it with a generous dollop of sweet cream, which adds the right touch of sweetness to the bite. But it’s the flakes of chocolate crunch that bring the whole dessert together.
The cocktails range in price from $10 to $12, making them among the most affordable in town. Frillman said the team sought to make flavorful and intriguing cocktails without only using expensive spirits, and they embrace the method of using scraps or ugly produce here as well. With drinking trending downward, there are plenty of low-ABV options too.
Scoop of Blue Moon ($12) comes out in such a distinct blue-green color, with a circle of frozen sprinkles balanced atop the large ice cube. It’s like drinking a slice of fancy birthday cake, and gets better with each sip.
While much of the early attention on The Radicle focused on those cocktails, Frillman views the space as much more than a cocktail bar.
“It’s not just a bar, it’s a place for the community to come and hang out,” he said, noting that they have a kids menu so families can come and enjoy the space as well.
The summer menu is launching soon, so the rhubarb pizza is leaving the menu, but diners can be on the lookout for more stone fruit, such as a peach pizza with prosciutto, whipped ricotta and arugula. Frillman also hopes to launch a sampler plate of their raw offerings, which could include items such as raw oysters, raw clams, a white fish dip and salmon tartare.
It’s worth noting that a 20% service charge is automatically added to all dine-in checks, and no additional tip is expected. They make a point of making this abundantly clear, delivering the check with a note that explains it all, and this level of easy transparency is something I hope more restaurants take up.
— Kayla Samoy
2523 N. Milwaukee Ave., 312-488-4069, radiclechicago.com