Chicago’s Thattu among NYT’s top 50 restaurants

Thattu, an Indian restaurant offering Kerala cuisine, located in the Chicago neighborhood of Avondale, has found a place in the third annual New York Times Restaurant List.

“This former food-hall stand serving fare from the coastal southwest region of Kerala in India has found a larger home for its loud flavors, courtesy of the owners Margaret Pak and Vinod Kalathil,” the Times noted.

“Everything here, down to the stainless steel plates the food is served on, feels homestyle,” it says. “Expect fish fries, yogurt rice and coconutty curries whose remnants you’ll eagerly sop up with appam, lacy domes made of rice and coconut.”

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“Even the more playful dishes, like tater tots dusted with chaat masala, feel like those clever snacks devised in a pinch by an enterprising home cook,” writes the Times.

“Our menu brings you traditions of Kerala along with playful interpretations from our culinary team. Rich with aromatic spices, coconut and curry leaves, the cuisine is a celebration of the bounty of the land and the sea,” according to the restaurant.

To make the list, the Times said, it had combed “hundreds of places across the United States — from Rattlesnake Point in Florida to the Arts District in Los Angeles — to find our favorites.”

“Half of this year’s selections — marked as new — have opened since the 2022 list was published, but plenty of others have been around for years and are still sending out exceptional dishes,” the newspaper noted.

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“Despite the upheavals in recent years, this is an expansive moment for independent restaurants. We can’t help but feel that cities and towns in the United States are better to eat in today than they have ever been” it wrote noting, it wasn’t easy to narrow the list down to “the 50 restaurants that excite us most right now.”