Four years ago, when Luis Zendejas’s father broke his foot, he stepped in to run his parents’ restaurant, Las Islas Marias, in Wheeling, Illinois. Growing up, Zendejas had worked for the restaurant, and, at 20 years old, he found he enjoyed the leadership
role. He liked the work so much that when his father came back, Zendejas stayed on, and declared his intention to eventually open his own restaurant. What followed was an intense internship of sorts with the older Zendejas passing along his knowledge and experience to his son to help ensure he’d be ready when the time came to start his own business.
Now, at 24 years old (he turns 25 on Thursday), Zendejas is making his dream a reality with the opening of Logan Square’s Siete Azul at the end of October in the closed Chicago Diner space. Siete Azul is a coastal Mexican restaurant that reflects Zendejas’s Mexican heritage and culture, as well as looks to family recipes. It is an expression of the places where he and his parents have lived: a town near Santa Cruz, California, where he was born; Michoacán, Mexico, where his parents are from; and now Chicago.
“I’ve kind of been a nomad throughout my life, so I’m very familiar with change,” says Zendejas, who originally thought he’d pursue a career in finance after graduating from DePaul in 2023. In addition to being owner and operator of Siete Azul, he is now an equal partner in his parents’ 16-year-old restaurant. “I was never a fan of math, but once it started being applied to real-life events and decisions that’s when I realized that I really had an interest for it,” he says.
At Siete Azul, Zendejas hopes to show people that Mexican food is more than just tacos, tortas, and burritos. At the same time, he wants to present seafood in a way that softens its fancy perception. “I want Siete Azul to surprise people with how upscale Mexican food can be but also with how comforting seafood can be,” he says.
On the menu that means appetizers like ceviche de camarón featuring diced shrimp, tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers bathed in fragrant lime juice. Pan-seared langostinos are paired with thin slices of red onions and a rich salsa Nayarit. Both starters are served with crispy tostadas. For the empanada de camarón, Zendejas worked with purveyor Masienda to create its blue corn masa wrapper. “When we visited one of my aunts in Mexico, she was making tortillas out of purple masa on her front porch,” he recalls. “Those ended up being some of the best tortillas I’ve ever had in my life.” That masa will also be used for the tacos al pastor.
Larger plates include a Mexican riff on steak frites with fries made of sweet potato, a popular ingredient in Michoacán, says Zendejas. Butter-sauteed scallops sit in a vibrant poblano sauce, while the whole grilled red snapper comes with a guajillo tomato sauce. “Everything is a mix of some life experiences or memories of mine with cuisines and dishes that I’ve come to admire in Chicago, California, and Mexico,” says Zendejas. Zendejas made sure to incorporate feedback from his parents as he developed and fine-tuned dishes.
While a liquor license is pending — Zendejas hopes to get one by mid-November — a cocktail menu is already in place. A strawberry horchata martini takes the Mexican rice milk beverage into classic cocktail territory. A hibiscus margarita taps into Zendejas love for the flower-based tea his mom used to make him. A wine menu has yet to be finalized but expect a mix of California wines to reflect Zendejas birthplace as well as global selections. Beer, a great pairing with Mexican seafood dishes, he added, will be offered as well.
For Siete Azul’s interior, Zendejas worked with Chicago’s 555 Design. The 70-seat space features light wood touches throughout, including at the 10-seat bar upfront and the smattering of booths and tables in the dining room at the rear of the restaurant. “I’ll give them a lot of credit because they had to work around our budget restraints,” says Zendejas. “The interior is meant to be modern but also give props to my heritage.”
The restaurant’s name also partially looks to the past. “I wanted to give some credit to what started it all, which was our original restaurant,” says Zendejas. The restaurant’s name is a reference to one of Las Islas Marias’s most popular dishes, siete mares (“soup of the seven seas”), a seafood soup. Azul, which means blue in Spanish, nods to the ocean and the abundance of seafood the restaurant will feature.
“There are moments in life when you are kind of forced to come to grips with how you really feel about something,” says Zendejas. “Obviously, I would never hope for my dad to break his foot, but I’m glad it happened because I found my calling because of it.”
Siete Azul, 2333 N. Milwaukee Avenue; 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday to Tuesday and Thursday; 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday; BYOB for now.
