We are a small, family-run Chinese kitchen on Chicago's near west side. We cook the dishes we believe in, plated for the table, finished in front of you on the cookline.
We took a small storefront on the South Loop side of Taylor Street in 2018. The block was already full of food — Italian, BBQ, Mediterranean — but no one was cooking the kind of Chinese plates we grew up with at home. We opened with a short menu and the line started forming the second week.
Every dish runs through the same cookline at the same wok stations. Proteins are cut down each morning. Sauces are house-made — the honey glaze, the General Tso's, the black-pepper jus. Dumplings are hand-folded daily, the only way they should be served.
We could double the menu. We don't. A short menu means every dish gets the wok hei, the rest, the seasoning we want it to have. If a regular orders the honey chicken on Monday and Friday, it should taste the same on both days.
We open the doors at eleven for the lunch rush from the medical district, the late-shift teams from the hospital, and the families who walk the kids over after school. We deliver fast — usually faster than the apps. The 10% MLKITCHEN code is the easiest way to thank you for the trust.
ML Kitchen opens at 1138 W Taylor with a one-page menu.
Honey chicken and pan-fried dumplings cement themselves as the signatures.
Pickup and delivery scaled up to keep the kitchen open through the pandemic.
Same cookline. Same recipes. Same regulars — and a few new ones.
Every plate finished on the cookline. Every order honest.