River North’s Sifr turning Middle Eastern fare into ‘everyday eating’

CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — It didn’t take long for Sifr, the Middle Eastern and woodfire-grilled venture from chefs Sahil Sethi and Sujan Sarkar, to earn a high honor from the critics: It was among Chicago’s 2024 additions to the Michelin Guide.

The guide is best known for awarding its prestigious Michelin stars, but it also highlights dozens of non-starred restaurants, such as Sifr, based on how much they impress Michelin Guide inspectors. Given that diners in Chicago aren’t necessarily as familiar with Middle Eastern cuisine, Sethi and Sarkar said Sifr’s inclusion on the guide makes a difference.

“When we started, we thought it would be a home run, to be very honest, but at every restaurant, it takes time to understand our customer: what they want, what exactly we can achieve,” Sarkar said. “Overall, this restaurant should be for everyday eating, where you can come back for a nice cocktail, for a rooftop simple food, all of these things.”

Sethi and Sarkar both found their connection to Middle Eastern cuisine after working in kitchens in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, respectively. Sethi, who spent two years learning from and working alongside chefs from Jordan, Syria, Morocco and Tunisia, said it became one of his favorite styles of cooking.

“I often say I left my heart in Abu Dhabi,” he told WBBM.

Those experiences led the pair, who previously earned a Michelin Star together at Indienne , to launch Sifr in 2023 in River North. The plan was to make modern Middle Eastern fare — much of it cooked on a massive, 9-foot-wide grill — the backbone of their menu. As they enter Year Two, though, Sarkar said they are adding a little more Mediterranean flavor.

Folding in more Mediterranean influences has already netted a couple of benefits, they said. For one thing, it’s allowed the chefs to work a wider range of produce into their menu. Sarkar added that it’s also been serving as an accessible entry point for folks who don’t fully understand what to expect from Middle Eastern cuisine.

“[Middle Eastern cooking] is all about the Arabian peninsula, where there’s this mix between a Mediterranean kind of cooking and also a lot of influence from India — the spice, not the food or dishes — so that’s what we are representing now,” Sarkar said. “I think there’s a long way to go now. This is a starting point.”

The shift requires a certain level of experimentation, something that Sethi and Sarkar believe Sifr should be well suited to accommodate. That’s largely because of how versatile Middle Eastern cuisine can be, evident in Sifr’s chickpea hummus and its mezze platters, which offer guests the opportunity to sample a wide range of Middle Eastern flavors while also enjoying a bit of a mix and match dining experience.

“You can put anything on hummus; it’s going to taste nice because the bodies are rich,” Sethi said. “I make, at home, a pasta with leftover hummus; it becomes something like cacio e pepe. Do I want to put that on the menu? It’s about finding that real boundary of how the cuisine can be redefined, and I think we’re learning as we go.”

Striking the right balance between experimentation and staying true to Middle Eastern cooking will be a challenge, but as Sarkar often says, the most important thing is the flavors.

If they nail the flavors, the rest, he says, will follow.

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