About Aba
Aba occupies 302 North Green Street in Chicago's Fulton Market District — the neighbourhood that has become the epicentre of the city's contemporary dining scene, one ambitious restaurant at a time. Chef Partner CJ Jacobson, who trained at Alinea before developing his Mediterranean vision, has built a restaurant that takes the cuisines of the Eastern Mediterranean — Israeli, Lebanese, Turkish, Greek, and their many regional permutations — and applies the technique and ingredient quality of the American fine dining world to results that honour the source material rather than merely approximate it.
The menu is designed for sharing, with mezze-style small plates and larger communal preparations that move between the flavour registers of the region: smoky garlic hummus beneath roasted vegetables, hamachi with citrus and herb oil, whipped feta with honey and dukkah, shawarma-spiced skirt steak with grilled flatbread. The crème brûlée pie — a signature that has acquired genuine destination status — demonstrates Jacobson's willingness to take the playful traditions of the region's dessert culture and apply fine dining rigour without destroying the thing that makes them pleasurable.
The wine program is Aba's second great strength. Jacobson and his beverage team have assembled a list oriented toward the lesser-known appellations of the Mediterranean — Assyrtiko from Santorini, Xinomavro from Macedonia, white Grenache from the Roussillon, orange wines from the Bekaa Valley and the Galilee. These are wines that most Chicago sommeliers would struggle to source; at Aba, they are the frame through which the food is understood. The rooftop patio, overlooking the Fulton Market skyline, provides the setting that amplifies everything.
The Jacobson Vision
What separates Aba from the proliferation of Mediterranean restaurants that have opened across Chicago in the past decade is Jacobson's genuine culinary depth. He has travelled extensively in the region, worked with Israeli, Lebanese, and Turkish producers, and brings a specificity to the cooking that has not been generalised into palatability. The za'atar is sourced from specific Palestinian hill regions. The tahini is a single-origin Levantine product, not a commercial blend. The flatbread is made fresh, to a formula developed through years of practice, not outsourced. The restaurant is curated rather than assembled.
Aba operates the Lettuce Entertain You hospitality group's standards with Jacobson's personal vision intact — which means the service is warm and precise, the kitchen is consistently excellent, and the operational reliability that allows a restaurant to deliver an exceptional experience on the third Tuesday of November as readily as on a Friday in June is present throughout.
Why Aba for Closing Deals
The Mediterranean sharing format is one of the most effective dealmaking environments in Chicago's restaurant landscape. Food arrives continuously, creating a natural rhythm to the conversation that allows business and pleasure to coexist without either dominating. The wine list's depth and distinctiveness provides material for conversation that signals taste and worldliness without being ostentatious. The rooftop terrace — if the season permits — adds an element of occasion that a dining room cannot replicate. And Jacobson's reputation, while not carrying the Michelin-star weight of the city's top tables, is known to Chicago's serious dining community in exactly the way that matters for a business dinner: it says you know what you're doing.
Why Aba for a First Date
Aba is the first date for the person who wants to demonstrate that they have a point of view. The Mediterranean sharing format — the continuous arrival of small plates, the decisions about what to order, the wines nobody has heard of — creates a meal that has content. There is something to talk about here that is not each other. The room is warm and beautiful, the rooftop is romantic in a way that is sophisticated rather than obvious, and the price point is high enough to signal effort without requiring the commitment of a tasting menu. This is the first date that communicates: I find pleasure seriously.