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In 1983, a restaurant named Reza’s opened on the corner of Berwyn Avenue and Clark Street in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood. Marked by a simple sign and glass-fronted doors, it was small, with barely enough room for six tables. But it quickly became a hub for Iranian immigrants in the Windy City.
The Iranians who gathered there were looking, more or less, for the same things: Community and Persian flavors — floral, saffron-scented basmati rice, creamy soups, thick stews and tender, braised meats. These were the tense, unsettling years following the 1979 Iranian Revolution and Iran hostage crisis.
My mother and aunt, who were born in Iran but settled in Chicago after the revolution, found Reza’s in its early days. It quickly became a home away from home for them and the families they established in Chicago.
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It’s not too much of a stretch to say that I grew up within the Chicago common brick walls of Reza’s dining room. In the mid-1980s, the restaurant expanded from its original cramped footprint to an expansive set of rooms, eventually with a capacity to seat 200 guests or more.
Share this articleShareThis might be hard to believe, but I was a picky eater as a kid. My mother tells me that when I was 5 or 6, I wanted to eat nothing except the appetizer that Reza’s served free with every entree order: A chunky lentil soup with a tomato base, thick with rice and finished with lemon juice and lots of chopped parsley.
After we ordered our main courses — long skewers of grilled meat or chicken, lamb shanks braised with onions and tomatoes, fesenjan or ghormeh sabzi — the servers would parade out of the kitchen with bowls of the soup, baskets of warm pita, and plates of feta and herb sprigs (naan-o paneer-o sabzi). It’s rare for a formal Iranian meal to exclude this combination of warm bread, cheese and herbs. But Reza’s added the soup.
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I had my own little ritual around it. I’d crumble bits of feta and bread into it, letting the cheese almost poach into creamy dumplings in the hot soup, while the bread thickened it into a porridge. When family members pushed their soup bowls away, to save room for their main courses, I asked for their uneaten bowls.
At one point my mom asked the manager at Reza’s if they’d share the recipe, but they always refused, saying it belonged to Reza’s mother, and was a family secret.
As an adult, I’ve re-created it from taste memory. It’s a bowl of tangy warmth, with soft lentils and rice suspended in a ruddy broth flavored with onions, cumin, cinnamon and parsley. For the full experience, serve it with warm pita, feta and fresh herbs to nibble on between spoonfuls.
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