Mahari, a new fusion restaurant from Hyde Park native chef Rahim Muhammad, brings cuisines from across the African diaspora to Hyde Park Mall in August.
Coming from a long line of chefs, Muhammad said Mahari is a fusion of his family roots in the Dominican Republic and Louisiana, and his time exploring the Caribbean and the American South.
Born and raised in Hyde Park, he often visited his grandmother near New Orleans. Her home, nestled in a vast network of levees on the Mississippi River, was teeming with life: the front yard was planted with avocado, fig and plum trees, and it was a gathering place for extended family.
“We always got together on Sundays and everyone would cook big dinners,” Muhammad recalls. “Everyone in my family would cook exquisite dishes that you would find on gourmet menus.”
He added that Louisiana’s warm, humid climate meant crops grew abundantly in his grandmother’s community, giving people a strong value for fresh food.
After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Chicago in 2007, Muhammad worked as a prep and cook at Table 52 under chefs Art Smith and Rey Villalobos. In 2016, he became a sous chef at the University of California, where he served as the resident specialist in halal cuisine.
As Covid-19 lockdowns have been lifted and the city’s culinary scene has slowly recovered, he’s brought his culinary expertise to smaller restaurants that have opened across the city. Most recently, he helped grill restaurant Chemistry expand its menu.
Throughout his career, Muhammad said he has found many friends and mentors among the city’s multicultural chefs. Their mentorship inspired Muhammad to study the preparation and history of African, Latin and Caribbean cuisine.
“I saw how they were connected. I started researching the history of certain foods and how certain foods got to certain places,” Muhammad said. “When you travel around the Caribbean, like Trinidad, Jamaica, St. Lucia, you’ll see the influence of foods from all over South America and other island areas.”
He had wanted for some time to open his own fusion restaurant, inspired by the diversity of fine dining in California and Washington, D.C.
Last year, someone tipped him off to a restaurant space in the Hyde Park Mall. La Petite Folie’s former home at 1504 E. 55th St., the space owned by the University of North Carolina, had been vacant since the restaurant’s owners retired in December 2022. Muhammad and his team—a beverage specialist, a community engagement director, a general manager and a sommelier—quickly met with the university; the rest is history.
“We are very confident in what we are going to offer people in this experience, but also in the need to make this type of cuisine more known,” he said.
Muhammad added that one of the goals of Mahari, which means “gift” in Swahili and is his eldest daughter’s middle name, is to take customers on a culinary journey around the world. He also said he hopes his cooking will inspire people to explore their own family history through food, as he has.
“What really touched me was seeing how the Creoles and their cuisine are a fusion of Caribbean, Latin and French cuisines,” Muhammad said. “That type of cuisine is not typically at the forefront of the culinary world, especially on the South Side.”
He’s still finalizing the menu, but several preview events he’s hosted around town offer a taste of what’s to come: dishes like bacalaitos, Puerto Rican cod fritters with mango chutney, sweet plantain French toast, and Moroccan couscous with suya-smoked lamb. For drinks, Muhammad has paired the menu with cocktails like the “Mahari-ta,” a blend of ginger liqueur, mango puree, and citrus, and the “Sorel Sling,” made with Moroccan hibiscus mixed with Brazilian clove, Indonesian cassia, and Nigerian ginger.
“You’ll see different dishes from all over the world on the menu. Our presentation is authentic, but we’ve added a few touches of style,” he said.
Muhammad has tentatively set an opening date for August and hopes to finalize the date in the coming weeks.
“When you arrive, you think you’re on an island far from home, but you’re here on the South Side of Chicago,” he said.
