Making your reservation for “Midwestern omakase” (Thursday and Friday nights only) at this intriguing six-month-old restaurant starts with a text message: “What do you like? How much do you want to spend?” (Three courses run $35 to $50, depending on the protein you choose.) You also will likely think you’re at the wrong place as you wait to get buzzed in at the Green Exchange, a corporate-looking building in Logan Square.
But the experience inside is way more intimate than the location lets on. With limited resources (using only what they can grow or get locally), chef-owners Chad Little and Leonard Hollander are all about pleasing you. Mention that you love fish, and you may get meaty grilled halibut collar on a mound of creamy grits and chili-spiked collard greens. Let slip that you nearly licked those grits off the plate, and corn may come again, this time in a tower of sweet cornmeal cakes held together with delightfully sticky Brittany caramel. Quirky goings-on right to the end, when the building’s security guard had to get up from his postshift beer to let patrons into the bathroom down the hall, scolding the owners as he did so: “It locks each night at eight!” 2545 W. Diversey Ave., 312-866-0795