Our story

A room on Roscoe

Midwestern cooking, one season at a time

A long wooden table by the front windows, two cups of coffee in the morning light

Lark & Ivy opened in the spring of 2019 in what had been a hardware store for sixty years. We kept the maple floors, the tin ceiling and the sliding ladder, and put the kitchen where the paint counter used to be, so you can watch dinner being made from almost every seat.

We wanted a place you could come to twice a week: once for a bowl of soup and a glass of something at the bar, and once for a long Saturday dinner with people you haven't seen in too long. The menu is short on purpose and changes every Tuesday, when the week's deliveries come in.

Most of what we cook comes from within a few hours of the restaurant: vegetables from Kettle Creek Farm in Kankakee County, pork and beef from a family farm near Champaign, and flour milled in Wisconsin. When a farm has a glut, it goes on the specials board. When the tomatoes are done, so are we.

Hands feeding fresh pasta dough through a hand-cranked machine

Chef and co-owner

Mara Lindqvist

“I'd rather cook one perfect squash than twelve interesting ones.”

Mara grew up in Rockford, cooked her way through kitchens in Chicago and Copenhagen, and came home convinced that the Midwest was the most underrated larder in the country. Her cooking is plain in the best sense: a few things on the plate, each one at its peak, with enough acid to keep you reaching for the next bite. She writes the menu on Monday night, after a phone call with the farms, and she still works the pass every dinner service.

Theo Park runs the room and the wine list. He believes a neighborhood restaurant should know your name by the third visit and your usual by the fifth, and that nobody should feel they need to spend more than $14 on a glass of wine to drink well.

“The roast chicken alone is worth the walk from the Brown Line. The pear and brown-butter pancakes are worth moving to Roscoe Village.”
Third Coast Table
“A room that feels like a well-read friend's kitchen, and a cook who knows exactly when to stop.”
The Lakefront Ledger
“One of the city's best-value wine lists, poured by people who clearly drink it themselves.”
Chicago Supper Review