Aug. 25--Marc Malnati, owner of Lou Malnati's Pizzeria, has been a champion of deep-dish since well before he took over the family business at age 22; in 2013, he even appeared on "The Daily Show" to serve a slice to deep-dish-hater Jon Stewart. But as much as we box Malnati into the cheese-and-buttercrust triangle of our brains, he has -- gasp! -- some other favorite foods.
Such as: "I really like fish tacos," he says.
And that's the simple explanation for the pizza mogul's first nonpizza project, Buzz Bait Taqueria (1529 N. Wells St., 312-664-2899). First, he and some team members at Lou's started making tacos in their spare time. ("People loved them.") Then, he joined forces with Giulia Sindler from Kamehachi, the venerable sushi spot in Old Town. Then, the taste-testing: taco after taco until they decided on a final menu of seven, from sweet and spicy ahi tuna (a recipe from Sindler's mom) to crispy shrimp to mahi mahi with peanut sauce.
The restaurant -- 30 seats, plus a 16-seat patio on Wells Street -- also serves sides (elotes, coconut-lime rice), gluten-free rice bowls and booze, namely beer, wine, margaritas and a tequila-spiked milkshake.
Malnati shares some Buzz Bait trivia:
The partnership was birthed at Lollapalooza.
"I met up with Giulia at Lollapalooza last August, and I said, 'I've been striking out trying to find a lease on your street, but I want to open a taco stand there.' She said, 'I've been thinking about a taco stand too!' We had lunch, and I convinced her that fish tacos were the way to go. We signed a lease with her landlord (in the space next door to Kamehachi), and we just pulled it off."
They tried 50 different tortillas before deciding to commission their own.
"We looked at making them ourselves, but we're a little short on space in this location. We found somebody to make them for us; they sell to us raw, and we cook them. They're fantastic. We're using flour, which is more of a California thing."
His secret weapon is a barbecue chef.
"I don't have a 'name' chef. I'm not big on that. We've all got enough food know-how to do this together -- it's about getting great fish and serving it in a reasonable amount of time in a fun atmosphere with a smile on our faces. But my secret weapon is a guy named Bruce Schlesinger, who's a barbecue wizard that I know. He came into the kitchen and said, 'What if we put a smoker in here and we do a slow-smoked salmon taco with bacon?' Anything with bacon is killer, and that taco is unbelievable."
All the cool kids start with dessert.
"We have one dessert, a chocolate cherry tamale with vanilla bean gelato. It's done in a tied-off corn husk and served warm. It's so spectacular a lot of people are eating backward; they'll order dessert first and then get tacos."
He laughs. "And we've sold about a zillion margaritas."
mconrad@tribpub.com
Twitter @marissa_conrad
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