Attra Middle Eastern Grocery--in Lincoln Village

Back-to-school shoe shopping brought my son and me to the Famous Footwear at Lincoln Village. We noticed a new cafe and a new grocery, Attra Middle Eastern Grocery. We were told it's been open since July 26th. Along McCormick north of the Chinese buffet, it's a fairly small store, but it has an interesting and somewhat odd collection of wares.

The good: bulk Lebanese spices, lentils, chickpeas, tea, including dried lemons and shawarma spice mixes. Bulk prices seemed good--for example, red lentils for $1.49/lb. They had some fresh middle eastern breads. They also carry canned goods beyond the ubiquitous Ziyad brand that seemed to be all from Lebanon. I don't remember seeing these on Devon, at Lincolnwood Produce, or at Fresh Farms. There's also a counter with a few savory items and more sweets. The pleasant young man working there told me they get their things "from Kedzie every day--not from the Middle East." (We had to wonder what kind of idiotic questions this guy had already had to answer.) He wasn't more specific than Kedzie. We tried a very good knafa and a piece of chocolate baklava. I was suspicious of the chocolate baklava, but he recommended it, and he was right. Very fresh and not overpoweringly sweet with just a nice taste of not overly sweet chocolate. Next time I will try to find out exactly where each item is baked. He also had some sort of mixed meat and veggies, middle eastern "pizza," and spinach pies.

The odd: dishes, serving pieces, a smattering of American household products, and hookahs for $39.99.

They're nice people, and they have free parking.

Attra Middle Eastern Grocery
6257A N. McCormick
Chicago, IL 60659
773-267-2004

EvA wrote:They're nice people, and they have free parking.

Nice people my experience as well, a well spoken women in her forties, who I assume is one of the owners, and her two lovely daughters were at the helm. I was originally drawn to Attra by Mike Sula's praise of the torshi, rich spice aroma, pungent with turmeric and mustard, I agree with Mike's praise for the torshi as well as the makdous, baby eggplant with walnut and chile pepper.

Wide selection of nuts, dried fruits, beans, well laid out sparkling clean and the baked goods, while not made in-house, are fresh and from top-notch locals, pita from Sanabel Bakery for example. In addition to torshi I bought coconut cookies, 3/$1, light, crisp melt in your mouth, one taste and I was sorry I had not bought more.

As they were ringing me up one of the charming daughters popped a gratis spinach pie in my bag with the caution "one taste and you will be back for more" she was right.

Thanks for the heads up on Attra EvA, count me a fan.

In addition to Attra that small section of Lincoln Village has a Chinese buffet, a Filipino buffet and a new, or at least recent, Filipino bakery cafe.

Enjoy,
Gary

The (apparently short-lived) Attra Middle Eastern (Assyrian) Grocery on McCormick and Lincoln is closing. Signs in the windows advertise 25% off everything. Time to pick up some dried yogurt for Doukua.

Attra
6257 N McCormick
Chicago, IL 60659
(773) 267-2004

Thanks for the notice. I'm sorry to hear they haven't made it.

d4v3 wrote:The (apparently short-lived) Attra Middle Eastern (Assyrian) Grocery on McCormick and Lincoln is closing.

A shame, I quite liked Attra.

G Wiv wrote:

d4v3 wrote:The (apparently short-lived) Attra Middle Eastern (Assyrian) Grocery on McCormick and Lincoln is closing.

A shame, I quite liked Attra.

Yeah, i was only there once. Now I wish I stopped in more often. I seem to drive by there fairly often. It was clean and well organized with a nice selection of grains, dried fruit and spices. I wonder if they have any Mastic chewing gum.