Sleek and Sophisticated
By Naperville Magazine
November 2024 View more Table for Two
By Phil Vettel
Leilani puts its own modern spin on Asian classics
“This,” my friend Kelly said at the end of our meal, “was a lot better than I expected.”
High praise, considering. I’d dragged Kelly and her husband, Jeff, from La Grange to Aurora for sushi and other treats. Do you know how many sushi places you have to pass in order to drive from Cook County to downtown Aurora?
And yet Leilani, which made its debut in early August, proved well worth the journey. The restaurant is sophisticated enough for a date night, imaginative enough for serious foodies, and sleek enough to appeal to the late-night crowd that Leilani clearly wishes to attract.
The interior is done in black, including black-painted brick and room dividers, and black tables with black-upholstered bucket chairs. Red accents come in the form of plates and draped fabrics, most dramatically in the form of an up-lit tree sculpture hung with red ribbons. In the front room, a dramatic wall-length triptych displays onna-bugeisha (female samurai) in fighting poses.
Leading the ownership team is Abigail Tiu-Kemph, who was at Mora Asian Fusion with her partner, owner Jason Morales. The two were working on an additional Mora location in Aurora when COVID claimed Morales’s life in early 2022, leaving Tiu-Kemph with their newborn daughter and a suddenly canceled project.
But Tiu-Kemph persisted, lining up financial partners and teaming with Mora chefs Garnett Chavez and Clark Francisco to create Leilani (named for her daughter).
The restaurant calls itself Asian fusion, an intentionally broad umbrella that gives the kitchen a lot of creative and geographic leeway. The menu is heaviest with Filipino flavors, but you’ll find Korean dishes, Japanese influences, a Thai curry or two, and a trio of steaks, each with a different Asian accent.
The menu, unsurprisingly, is huge—more than three dozen items, including a list of gluten-free dishes—so I could only manage a relatively small sampling. By all means start with the lumpia, deep-fried Filipino egg rolls filled with pork and vegetables; the lumpia are super crispy, and go well with the savory nuoc cham dipping sauce (traditionally Vietnamese, but remember, fusion).
Shrimp are a strength, whether it’s the honey-walnut tempura shrimp topped with walnuts and glazed with honey aïoli, or the jumbo grilled shrimp with a vibrant lemongrass sauce with citrus, garlic, and jalapeño notes. “I’m thinking of bottling that sauce,” said Tiu-Kemph. (Save me two bottles, thanks.)
My favorite dish might be the miso cauliflower, which features toasted cauliflower florets with a white-miso glaze, topped by sliced jalapeños. The crunch of the cauliflower, the umami of the glaze, the sharpness of the chile—just a terrific composition.
Sushi options consist of sushi or sashimi assortments, and eight creative maki rolls; I enjoyed the Wild Night roll, which features spicy tuna and escolar with avocado, truffle, and crispy shallots, though next time I might go for the Dragon’s Breath (salmon, bluefin, Fresno chile relish).
Among entrées, the chicken inasal (roasted and grilled chicken) is a Filipino tradition. Arriving on the plate in narrow slices, the dish looks like simplicity itself, but a long marinade and accompanying butter sauce gives the chicken a complex array of citrus, garlic, herbal, and peppery notes. A definite recommend.
The kitchen’s fusion leanings echo in the bulgogi, ordinarily a Korean stir-fry of beef and vegetables but here presented as a fried-rice dish with tender beef, kimchi, and a fried-egg topping. Why not?
The menu’s steaks are for splurging; there’s a $42 New York strip steak and a $40 rib eye, but my money’s on the $37 garlic-soy skirt steak, matched to roasted fingerling potatoes and a fragrant Thai basil chimichurri sauce.
There are only a few desserts (what, no halo-halo?); the ube bread pudding (ube is a Filipino purple yam), with cream and coconut flakes, is pure comfort food.
Beverage options are plentiful: Leilani offers a boba tea menu, along with sake, beers, and a smattering of by-the-glass wines. The restaurant’s attention is clearly on cocktails; there are more than a dozen signature drinks, including a Smoked Fashion (think mezcal-based old-fashioned). There aren’t a lot of nonalcoholic options, but, on request, the bartender whipped up a “Strawberry Mule” (a play on the Moscow Mule) that was delicious.
A sultry place to enjoy those cocktails (besides the bar, of course) is the downstairs lounge, dubbed Forbidden City, which seats 75 and doubles as private party space.
Photos: Leilani Asian Fusion—Sarah Cervantes (food) and Ulysses Arriaga UAV Productions (main interior)
