The Gundis Kurdish Kitchen

The Gundis doesn't dress up its case. It's a low-key room on Clark, the kind of place you'd walk past looking for a coffee shop, and what it's actually running is one of the more generous breakfast spreads in the city. The Kurdish breakfast for two arrives as a small buffet: three cheeses, three house jams, honey, butter, sesame butter, vegetables, fries, fried cheese rolls, and an egg scramble built to order. It's not a plate, it's a table-covering argument for slowing down.

The baklawa crepes back it up, and the Kurdish coffee — brewed from pistachio beans rather than the usual grounds — is genuinely its own thing, not a novelty stunt. Order it. If you're the type who defaults to two eggs and toast everywhere you go, this is the place that makes that habit look small.

Dinner holds its own too, easy and unfussy, the kind of spot you bring friends to without a plan. Michelin took notice in its 2025 Chicago selections, which tracks — the cooking here is specific enough to earn it without needing the trophy to make the case.