There are a few Turkish restaurants in the Chicago area, but most of them focus on kebabs and spreads, but NBC 5 Food Guy Steve Dolinsky says the new Albany Park spot is focusing just as much on sweet treats as the rest of the menu.
At Antepli Mediterranean, located in an inner corner of the mall, right next to a huge international supermarket, the menu is full of beef and chicken, served on large platters as large kebabs or hand-rolled minced beef on a skewer, grilled on the grill or thinly sliced from a vertical skewer as shawarma.
“We use sliced beef along with lamb fat, so it tastes different, better,” said Kadir Karaks, the restaurant's manager.
A great way to use shawarma is in an Iskender kebab plate, the base of which is pita bread.
“We make the pita bread fresh every day, and then we put little cubes of pita bread on the bottom and then we put the beef shawarma on top,” Carax said.
It's topped with a tangy tomato sauce, drizzled with rich, creamy yogurt, and finished off with a drizzle of hot, melted butter.
Vegans will love the hand-rolled sarma (stuffed grape leaves) made entirely from rice, and if dining with friends, start with the generous sampler platter.
“The appetizer platter will come with hummus, baba ganoush, eggplant and Turkish esmeh. It will also come with cheese rolls and freshly baked pita bread,” he said.
And fabric is used everywhere on this menu.
Sometimes it's used as the dough for cheese-filled, stripy pide (often studded with salted beef), or the thin, delicate dough for lahmacun, a Turkish flatbread stuffed with minced beef and lamb, sumac-mixed onions and fresh tomatoes, and rolled up before serving. Another dough, filo, is the star of homemade baklava, Antepli's signature product among expats nostalgic for the tastes of home.
“We make fresh baklava every day and all our products are sourced from Turkey, especially Turkish pistachios,” he said.
Larger options are stuffed with ice cream, and there's also kunefe, a dessert of shredded phyllo soaked in sugar syrup, and they come in two varieties.
“You can enjoy the cheese on its own, or you can enjoy the cheese and pistachios together,” Carax said.
Here are some places you can go:
ANTEPLICE
4849 N. Kedzie Avenue
773-942-6300