Breakfast or Nightcap?

By Naperville Magazine
June 2024 View more Table for Two

By Phil Vettel

This restaurant-lounge runs the gamut from avocado tartines to Zorba Burgers

One would be forgiven, after seeing this cocktail bar’s sleek look and perusing its menu, for wondering just why this place is called Zorba. Yes, the wall holds a couple of paintings of Greece’s coast, and a glass-encased bronze sculpture of Poseidon sits on a pedestal. But the menu is straight American hotel, with only a single dish—a Greek salad—hinting at anything Athenian. True, there is a Zorba Burger, but rather than a Greek-inspired interpretation—I expected maybe ground lamb, feta, and tzatziki sauce—instead it’s composed of wagyu beef, clothbound cheddar, and a “special sauce” on a potato bun.

Zorba is inside the Arista Hotel at Naperville’s CityGate Centre, a development by Calamos Real Estate. And owner John Calamos Sr. flew more than 900 combat missions during five years of active duty in Vietnam. His Air Force handle? Zorba the Greek. Mystery solved. (Check around the cocktail lounge for a painting of Anthony Quinn from the film Zorba the Greek.)

As a cocktail lounge, Zorba invites guests with cushy black-leather seating, soft lighting, and herringbone-pattern wood flooring. The drink menu offers the requisite list of craft drinks, along with half a dozen “vintage” cocktails from the early to mid-1900s. The intriguing pick is dubbed Have a Little Faith, which is whatever the night’s bartender has dreamed up that day; on one visit, it was a smoky mezcal, vanilla, and bitters pour dubbed the Rockin Oaxacan, or something along those lines. Plus a dozen or more wines by the glass, a mix of domestic and imported beers—check and check.

As a restaurant, Zorba offers a solid all-day menu that touches all the something-for-everyone bases that virtually all hotel restaurants must do. In addition to the Greek salad I mentioned—a very large portion of greens with onions, cucumbers, feta cheese, Kalamata olives, and a tart vinaigrette—there are also Caesar, cobb, and wedge salads, any of which can be fortified with protein (chicken, shrimp, salmon, or steak) for an extra $5 to $12.

Among appetizers, chef de cuisine Liam Athy is particularly proud of the housemade hummus, which was added to the menu subsequent to my visits. “We’re making four different styles (traditional, garlic, red pepper, jalapeño) with beautiful pita bread and seasonal vegetables,” he says. “It’s a good option for individuals, or to share.”

Another good starter, the single best dish I had, is called gochujang cauliflower, and if the name is a bit of a misnomer (it’s a housemade spicy glaze, not an authentic Korean fermented paste), it’s still delicious. The cauliflower florets are crunchy with a soft interior texture, and the glaze supplies a persuasive, but not overwhelming, spiciness.

Zorba has the advantage of sitting adjacent to Che Figata, a very good Italian restaurant that makes its own pasta, which is why Zorba’s housemade pappardelle is so good. It’s a vegetarian dish made with spinach, roasted peppers, mushrooms, and Grana Padano cheese—and, like the salads, protein add-ons are available. Housemade linguini also supports the chicken entrée, a breaded airline chicken breast (wing attached) in a piccata sauce. “It’s a really nice sauce,” Athy says, “a recipe we used a year ago at Che, though this is a more traditional style.”

Other main dishes worth your attention include the shrimp and grits, topped with coins of andouille sausage. Steak frites sounds uninspiring, but it’s a good-tasting piece of beef, under a blob of truffle butter, and at $34, an excellent value. The grilled salmon I sampled (nice) is now a plancha-seared salmon with a housemade spice blend.

Desserts are outsourced, though there are plans to expand those offerings. Both the cheesecake and gooey chocolate cake are topped with lots of fresh berries.

In the morning hours, Zorba features a substantial breakfast menu with such options as fruit parfait, tartines (avocado, or brie and ham), lemon-ricotta pancakes, French toast, and Belgian waffles.

Zorba recently added a kids’ menu (burgers, chicken tenders, grilled cheese, pasta), which should help its efforts to draw customers from farther away. The Arista Hotel, residents of Domain (the apartment structure across the street), and office workers at CityGate give Zorba (and Che Figata) a good supply of potential customers, but there’s always room for a few more.

Photos: CityGate Hospitality (interior); Jenna Creative (food)