Ox & Tiger comes from chefs EJ Macayan and Hitomi Wada, a couple who met in the Bay Area and later moved to Chicago, where an idea they'd been cooking up for friends grew into the restaurant. Their food weaves together their respective Filipino and Japanese heritages, built on fresh, local ingredients and dishes meant to carry personal memory.
The restaurant seats just eight guests at a single counter, with a shelf of family photos, books, and art lining the small room. Meals run as a fixed, multi-course menu, with EJ and Hitomi cooking and talking through the dishes as they go — an intimate, conversational format built around storytelling as much as technique.
The restaurant seats just eight guests at a single counter, with a shelf of family photos, books, and art lining the small room. Meals run as a fixed, multi-course menu, with EJ and Hitomi cooking and talking through the dishes as they go — an intimate, conversational format built around storytelling as much as technique.