Zizi's Cafe

After hearing about this place from many Turkish friends for while, we finally met up some friends there for early dinner. Absolutely delicious! All the appetizers we tried ( ezme, humus, dolma, lahmacun and eggplant salad) as well as the doner, iskender and Adana kebap entrees were as good as you can find in a good restaurant in Turkey.

I searched for Zizi's and couldn't find anything. I believe LTHers would like it..

2825 N Sheffield Ave,
Chicago IL
60657 (At Wolfram St)

Here's the menu.

Hours:
Mon-Thu, Sun 11 am - 10 pm
Fri-Sat 11 am - 11 pm

. . .and the phone number, should you want to inquire about anything else:

Zizi's Turkish & Mediterranean Cafe
(773) 697-9228

I've been thru Zizi's a handful of times now and need to bump this thread up so it gets some deserved love. They opened this past Fall and from the get go the super friendly owners and his staff have took care of me each time. I usually order to go and they insist I take cup of tea while waiting and also turned me onto his soups by offering me a cup on one visit. Smart business.


On Sheffield in Lakeview

Zizi's has a fresh spit of both chicken and lamb doner. The namesake wrap includes lamb or chicken doner with onions, tomatoes, arugula in some fantastic dough. It's a alot of food when you include your choice of fresh cut fries (sometimes fried limp) or rice.


Zizi's favorite Wrap with lamb doner

I usually prefer the pork or lamb/beef at other places but at Zizi's I really like the chicken. They mix green peppers and onions into the mix and it's juicer than all other chicken shaved from a spit I've ate. But the best part about this place in my eyes is their fresh baked breads. Whether it's their wraps, sandwiches or Pide (Turkish pizza), it's all baked on site to order. Nothing too innovating as far as the menu goes but they do the classics very well at a reasonable price. A welcome addition to this area that's actually alot better now than it was a decade ago.


Chicken Sandwich

Zizi's Cafe
2825 N. Sheffield Ave
Chicago, IL 60657
(773) 697-9228

Also want to throw in my support for Zizi's. They have an off-menu sea bass that is awesome. The whole fish is displayed in the refrigerator case, and he cooks it either grilled and stuffed with aromatics or baked in a salt dome. I've had the grilled one and the skin was fantastically crispy. The owner has been there every time I've gone, and he often offers free samples of everything. It is also BYOB.

Zizi's Turkish versions of Pizza (Pide) and Egg Rolls (Cigar Borek) are two tasty lunch specials for under $5. The egg rolls come with choice of filling. The lamb is a tad dry inside but a dip in the yogurt sauce makes them a nice snack.


Turkish Egg Rolls

Pide is available all day and into the night but they also make smaller ones which are on special during lunch hours. The sauteed onion, mushroom and cheese one below was excellent. Fillings vary but the fresh baked bread never does. Nice having them around.


Turkish Pizza

We finally got here (they're, like, literally at the end of our block--what can I say, it takes us a while to try new things) and took home a doner platter with couscous and a vegetarian mousaka. Really really good! The delicious doner was mine all mine, but I have to say the bites I had of my wife's vegetarian mousaka made me seriously consider getting this on some future visit. Very friendly owner and staff.

Zizi's has been recommended to me a lot recently so I finally decided to give it a try.

From the website I immediately recognized Zeynel (he's standing with Omer Asik) who used to be the primary server over at Turquoise. For years Turquoise was my go to Turkish restaurant but they proved to be inconsistent and lately I've preferred Cafe Orchid.

I'm sorry to report that my first meal at Zizi's was pretty hit and miss. In fairness this was a delivery order so it's possible the food does better in the restaurant.

The food ranged from awful to good with everything in between. I was thrilled to see celery root on the menu since you rarely see that at Turkish restaurants in the US. I should've read the menu more carefully because what they're serving is indistinguishable from gloppy cole slaw. A far cry from zeytin yagli kerevis. The eggplant salad had great texture and lots of smoky flavor but no balance at all. It tasted like eggplant with olive oil with no flavor imparted from the red onion or the parsley (or lemon juice for that matter). Bummer, cuz the eggplant itself had a lot of promise. The doner tasted like classic gyro meat, which is fine, but not what I was hoping for from a local Turkish joint.

On the flip side, I enjoyed the adana kebab which had nice gamey flavor though lacked any spice at all which is the hallmark of adana kebab. Still it was a good kebab. The lentil fingers were earthy and somewhat spicy, a solid rendition though not as good as the version at Cafe Orchid. The pide with sucuk was also solid but I'd really like it if someone would offer a rendition using a spicier sucuk and kashar cheese. I just can't get excited about pide made with mozzarella. Finally, the star of the meal, for me, was the ezme. The balance was right on with great depth and heat from the pepper paste and plenty of walnuts.

I wish Zeynel luck and I was disappointed they were out of the lahmacun since that was my favorite dish at Turquoise so I was hoping Zizi's could follow suit. There are a number of Turkish restaurants a couple blocks from my house so I don't know if I'll make it back to Zizi's to try it again any time soon.