Restaurants in Lombard

The chefs at Don Juan Restaurante charm bellies with Mexican cuisine paired with more than 50 varieties of tequila. At outdoor tables, stardust spices dishes from a seasonal menu that changes weekly. A private party room gives tails space to pin themselves on donkeys as guests entertain themselves with seafood nachos and six genres of margarita. Brews imported from Mexico's frostiest beer rivers wash down sizzling fajitas, tacos, and heaps of fresh guacamole, and live entertainment marinates meats in the flavors of music.

After opening Riggio's Restaurant with her husband, Pasquale, Adreana Riggio became well known to the residents of Chicago's North Center neighborhood, who called her Mama. The year was 1952, and the scent of pizza was still unfamiliar in the city. Though the restaurant has since moved to Niles, customers are still treated like family. Diners can dig into savory Italian classics such as veal parmigiana and American dishes such as chopped steak with housemade mushroom gravy. The pizza menu brims with three sizes of thin-crust pies as well as deep-dish pan pizzas, which can be customized with ingredients such as pepperoni, spinach, or pineapple.

The cooks at Avenue Ale House plate casual American bar fare, including burgers, steaks, and chops, as bartenders pour fermented libations from their lengthy beer list. Bottles and pint glasses brim with Belgian brews, German pilsners, and British ales, along with porters, stouts, and seasonal hop juices. As servers fill tables, the sunshine, table umbrellas, and discussions about whether or not to put up the table umbrellas fill the rooftop patio during summer months. The restaurant hosts live music, which tickles tympanic membranes every Wednesday, and disc-jockey playlists encourage merriment each Friday.

Every four–six weeks, Cemitas Puebla's owner and chef, Tony Anteliz, sends a family member to Mexico to gather ingredients such as chipotle peppers and giant cinnamon sticks. He relies on time-tested family recipes honed in Puebla, Mexico to assemble these imported ingredients into sandwiches, tacos, and salsas that have been praised in the Chicago Tribune and on WTTW 11’s Check, Please!. Food Network's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives highlighted the restaurant’s signature cemita sandwich: sesame-seed-bread laden with fresh oaxaca cheese, papalo—a fragrant herb grown in Tony's mother's garden—house-stewed chipotles, and a choice of meats such as breaded pork and carne asada. Inspired by Lebanese shawarmas, tacos arabes begin with layers of pork shoulder and onion skewered on a rotisserie. The stack of meat rotates as slowly as a ferris wheel being ridden by a herd of elephants before a member of the open-air-kitchen staff shaves off tender meat and tucks it into pita-like tortillas.

Though the menu boasts south american empanadas, tropical-fruit marinades, and southern-style smoked brisket, co-owner Mike Jettner defines Dish Dine & Drink as a neighborhood joint above all. By at least one measure, it would have to be: he lives right around the corner, having moved there after a childhood spent only a few miles east in Rogers Park. His proximity lets him get to know the regulars and tempt new neighbors with promises of rich, comforting dishes such as the skillet mac 'n' cheese, a baked blend of cheeses and pasta topped with herbed breadcrumbs.

To help open a business in a place he knew well, Jettner gathered some of the people he knew best. His wife, Mary, is co-owner, and the menu of homemade crepes, creative sauces, and hearty sandwiches arose from a 30-year friendship with an instructor of culinary science. The space with the long, dark-wood bar still shows the sheen of Dish’s 2012 opening, but it too has Jettner’s sledgehammer’s handwriting all over it. The pub had been a dentist's office before Jettner, a former construction worker, broke it down and built it back up into a space where natural light streams onto paintings depicting streetscapes similar to those customers see from behind the huge windows.

From this outpost, Jettner hopes to watch the revitalization of the surrounding Norwood Park hub continue, as the new streetlights outside illuminate an ever greater number of just-opened storefronts and better-groomed sparrows. In the process, Dish plans to keep drawing in newcomers to explore this patch of the city with the strains of frequent live music and the aromas of its eclectic global cuisine.

The number 13 has gotten a bad rap through the years, but the Pineda clan is attempting to turn that around. Thirteen members of the Pineda family run Thirteen Asian Tapas + Bar, with four crafting meals in the kitchen while Gary Pineda leads the pack as general manager. All of their recipes are sourced from Filipino culinary traditions, themselves a fusion of Asian and Latin influences, as evidenced by dishes such as soy-sauce-infused adobo chicken and the roasted and fried lechon, or pork, topped with achara, a traditional pickled papaya garnish.

The kitchen calls on overseas recipes in selections such as pancit, a traditional Filipino birthday dish comprised of thin rice noodles sautéed with cabbage, carrots, and meat that diners unwrap to reveal a miniature band of singing party guests. On some nights, live jazz fills the intimate dining room, where purple walls and exposed brick surround a bar that begets nine specialty martinis that mirror the cuisine's manifold influences with flavors of ginger, mint, tequila, and imported Philippine gin.