Tiztal Cafe

I did a search and found threads mentioning this place dating back to 2009, but no dedicated thread. This seems long overdue. Tiztal is a destination worthy breakfast/brunch/lunch place masquerading as a friendly neighborhood restaurant. The interior is filled with beautiful artwork and the service is warm and friendly. The owner was the long time manager of the late Zephyr Cafe, and the Zephyr omelette makes an appearance as one of many delicious items on the menu. Many folks swear by the oatmeal shake, but the dish I come back for again and again is the chilaquiles with chicken and eggs. The verde sauce has a well balanced heat, the chicken is perfectly seasoned and the side of potatoes is cooked just right. If there is a better version of chilaquiles in town, I have yet to find it.

Tiztal Cafe
4631 N. Clark St.
Chicago, IL 60640
773.271.4631

Chilaquiles

Those chilaquiles are my go-to choice at Tiztal as well. I also love the garlic breakfast potatoes. The have a juice bar with a nice offering of fresh squeezed juices. Most are squeezed to order so be patient, it's worth it.

In my opinion, Tiztal has the best chilaquiles in Chicago. I've never actually managed to try anything else on the menu because I know I'll regret not getting them.

Tried Tiztal Cafe this weekend with the significant other and it was so delicious and so very inexpensive, that he has declared that we will no longer do brunch anywhere else. I'll have to work on him about that -- but it was really a great, great brunch. We had the much celebrated oatmeal shake, which was like a liquid rice pudding in a glass -- we split it and felt less guilty about having a shake at breakfast. I had the steak and eggs -- perfectly over easy eggs and the steak, which was skirt steak, was well seasoned and very yummy. Also -- rare as requested, which is hard to do with skirt steak. The SO had the chicken fried steak with biscuits and gravy and he ate every bite -- which is quite unusual for the SO. We also tried a plain waffle as breakfast dessert (yeah...i know -- we had the shake. but WAFFLE!) and it was well done and crispy. The potatoes that come with every egg dish are quite good but they were described as being cheesy and they weren't. They were crispy and very well done though.

There were probably 5 or 6 items on the menu I wanted to try so I'm certainly not going to have a problem with weekly breakfasts there for awhile. The interior was very nice and the service was attentive and pleasant. The prices were affordable and the portions were good. I hear they have a great patio out back so when it's warm, I'll be interested to try eating out there. The coffee was good and often replenished. I have zero complaints and nothing but praise. This place rocked. And it's very near my neighborhood so I feel like a schmuck for not having tried it before.