The September Hit List: Pizza Lobo, Mama Delia, Moti Cafe, Kasama, and More

After two years of workshopping its New York-style pizzas by the slice at West Loop neighborhood bar Lone Wolf, Pizza Lobo has a home of its own, complete with 4,000-sq.-ft. patio — just in time for the final glorious days of summer. Its specialty and build-your-own pies join an expanded menu of snacks and salads, all from former Bad Hunter executive chef Dan Snowden. We’re loving the smoked provolone and ‘nduja specialty pie, garlicky wings confited in duck fat and romaine caesar wedges with marinated cherry tomatoes.

Dining status: Patio seating available for walk ins; carryout and delivery are also available.

This warehousey brewpub offers satisfying drinking food like soft pretzel braids, tempura-fried fish and chips and deliciously messy Merkt’s burgers. It also pours about a dozen expertly house-brewed beers, including our fave and the 2019 Great American Beer Award-winning Beezer, a light and tropical double-dry hopped IPA with a dry finishing bite.

Dining status: Open for dine in, with two-hour limit, reservations recommended; curbside pickup (including growlers!) is also available.

Regulars at this South Side barbecue temple love the tangy rib tips and smoky hot links — which is why we recommend ordering the combo so you can have both. Everything here comes with sliced white bread and fries soaking in tangy barbecue sauce. Be prepared to wait; this pint-size storefront allows in just three customers at a time these days. It’s also takeout only, so plan to carry out, or bring extra handy wipes, and feast in your car. 

Dining status: Open for carryout. Call 773-994-2428 for availability.

This airy cafe specializes in Indian street food: Think crispy samosas, steamed chicken momos, curry-scented maggi noodles and tikka masala flatbreads. You’ll also find an imaginative range of bite-size sweet and savory pancakes and wide tea selection, which you can eat on one of a few well-spaced, shaded sidewalk tables lining Clark St. 

Dining status: Patio seating is available; also carryout and delivery.

Part modern Filipino restaurant, part French bakery from celebrated husband-and-wife team Genie Kwon and Tim Flores (Oriole), this new spot in the bygone Winchester space has leaned into the counter-service model with success — to the tune of routinely selling out of items. (So don’t wait.) Adobo chicken wings, crispy-skinned lumpia, Shanghai and Filipino breakfast with garlic rice, and housemade longanisa or tocino join expertly made pastries, like cardamom buns, ube huckleberry Basque cakes, and serrano ham and raclette danishes.

Dining status: Patio seating is available; also carryout and delivery. 

Speaking of evolving with the times, nine-year-old tapas bar Black Bull morphed beyond a Spanish restaurant this summer to include a sherry bar and ultramarino (gourmet neighborhood market). Stay for regional Spanish plates with Midwestern touches, like garlicky head-on prawns, and foie gras terrine with sherry jam, or jamón matched to one of over 30 sherries, on the patio or at the 30-foot marble bar. Or stock up on small-batch wines, conservas, olive oils, dried spices and potato chips handpicked by executive chef Marcos Campos and his team. 

Dining status: Indoor and patio seating are available; also gourmet grocery items for carryout. 

You may already love this modern bar for its imaginative cocktails. Through November, it’s channeling that fun-loving energy into a pop-up inspired by the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids movie franchise. New bar manager Stella Miller is pouring 14 movie-themed cocktails, including Dad, Don’t Eat Me! with rum, Honey Nut Cheerios-infused cereal milk, and house toasted oat syrup. Fifty/50 chefs Chris Teixeira and Nate Henssler offer savory and sweet bites as fun as the oversized décor. Like: three housemade corn dogs with fries, served in a toy dump truck.

Dining status: Indoor and outdoor seating are available (with a 90-minute time limit), reservations required: to-go cocktails coming soon.

This stylish triangular bar slings luscious, Latin-tinged cocktails on its tight yet well-spaced patio and to go. The pisco and peach cocktail smacks of late summer — best enjoyed to the sweet sounds of vintage Latin records on the L-shaped sidewalk patio, or lounging in the grass at nearby Palmer Square park.

Dining status: Patio seating is available, reservations recommended; also carryout bottled cocktails.

This hearth-cooking restaurant, bar, and music venue is mostly a bar for now, with occasional DJ sets. The Heavy Artillery Punch, with rum, bourbon, cognac, pineapple, lemon, black pepper, is in heavy rotation. A nightly parade of local food trucks, like Two Jerks and a Truck and Rubicon BBQ, drop by to offer sustenance.

Dining status: Open for drinks only on the upper and lower patios.

Fans of square-cut tavern-style pizza will delight in the cracker-edged pies with blistered, three-cheese blend and tangy sauce at this old-school restaurant and lounge that’s a favorite haunt of Chicago’s first responders. We’re partial to the sausage and onion or no-frills pepperoni. If you’re in a pasta mood, John’s makes a solid lasagna, too.

Dining status: Indoor dining is available; also pickup and delivery.