Englewood’s Sikia Restaurant Prepares For Refresh With Group Enter
Dozens of supporters gathered at Sikia Restaurant, 740 W. 63rd St., for a “Farewell & Whats up” luncheon hosted by Kennedy-King Faculty leaders. Sikia is the student-run restaurant on the metropolis faculty’s Washburne Culinary and Hospitality Institute.
Servers wearing all black topped off drinks of recent cranberry lemonade, whereas within the kitchen, scholar cooks ready dry-aged duck, salmon coated in a jerk agave glaze and for dessert, candy potato crème brulée.
For a lot of visitors, it was the primary time they’d eaten within the restaurant since earlier than the pandemic. For many college students, it was the primary time they’d served visitors on the Englewood faculty.
“That is just like the previous days of Sikia if you would are available in and see of us having fun with their meal and having fun with our college students and the great hospitality that they’ve to supply within the scrumptious meals that they serve,” stated Kennedy-King Faculty President Dr. Katonja Webb-Walker.
Sikia closed its doorways in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic.
With no different white-tablecloth eating places in Englewood, neighbors journeyed to close by communities for a spot to take a seat down and eat. Washburne college students who as soon as skilled on the restaurant, studying to prepare dinner intellectual meals and serve visitors, moved courses to the Downtown Hyatt on Wacker Drive to refine their abilities.
Three years later, Sikia is making ready for a refresh, with the assistance of about $500,000 from a historic $5 million grant given to Kennedy-King Faculty by philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. The restaurant goals to reopen by fall 2024, based on Jewel Mideau, government dean at Washburne Culinary and Hospitality Institute.
Wednesday’s luncheon was a “farewell” to the previous Sikia and a “whats up” to a brand new restaurant that can have hardwood flooring, freshly painted partitions and colourful seating and artwork, stated Mideau, who’s main the cost to renovate the 4,000-square-foot house.
Visitors had been requested to scan a QR code and vote for design schemes they’d prefer to see within the renovated restaurant.
College leaders stated the brand new Sikia will as soon as once more be a group vacation spot because it resumes its mission of coaching the following era of culinary and hospitality leaders.
“My coronary heart is so full proper now,” Mideau stated. “I don’t know that you just all perceive the magnitude of what’s actually taking place proper now right here in Englewood for us.”
Elisa Louden graduated from Washburne three years in the past and is now a prepare dinner at The Clare, a luxurious retirement residence Downtown, however she comes again to volunteer as a result of she “loves this place a lot,” she stated.
Louden stated lead chef and teacher Gabriel Alvarez, “one in every of my favorites,” helped pave the way in which for her.
Plating meals, like Wednesday’s entree of dry-aged duck breast with black cherry gastrique and inexperienced pea puree, is the “better part for me,” Louden stated. “Folks eat with their eyes first,” she stated.
“Each individual is totally different, so displaying their paintings in numerous methods and for individuals to have the ability to see that in the case of them, that’s my favourite half in the case of plating and cooking normally,” Louden stated.
For scholar Ismael Diaz, turning into a chef is “simply in my blood,” he stated.
Diaz grew up watching his dad, a chef, and his mother, a lifelong prepare dinner, put together conventional Mexican dishes, he stated. Each Saturday night time, he and his mother and father would sit on the sofa and watch the Meals Community, he stated.
Wednesday’s luncheon was Diaz’s first — and final — time working at Sikia, he stated. On Friday, Diaz will obtain his affiliate’s diploma and start his coaching as a sous chef at a restaurant, he stated.
“I by no means acquired to expertise how Sikia works, and in the present day was an excellent instance of attending to serve and again of the home, attending to prepare dinner,” Diaz stated. “Being right here, I acquired to be taught several types of cooking and types of working the entrance of the home as effectively. I didn’t should restrict myself to only one expertise.
“I’m grateful for my academics, who taught me the whole lot alongside the way in which. I recognize the whole lot they’ve carried out for me.”
Subscribe to Block Membership Chicago, an unbiased, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Each dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods. Already subscribe? Click on right here to assist Block Membership with a tax-deductible donation.
Hearken to the Block Membership Chicago podcast:
