A Filipino-Hawaiian Bodega is Chicago’s Hottest Restaurant

MSN Eater / by Ashok Selvam / March 15, 2025

With his supply of musubi dwindling only a few hours after first opening their doors, Julius Tacadena and his crew at Kanin decided to burn through their supply reserved for the next day, so they could serve the hundreds of customers waiting in line more than an hour along Damen Avenue.

“We opened at 11 on that day, at 10:30 we walked out to take a picture and there was a line,” says Kanin partner Noah Rabaya. “We were like — are you guys here for us? And they’re like, ‘yeah.’ And we were shook like you could not believe.”

Kanin, which debuted on Saturday, March 8 at 3110 N. Damen Avenue, quickly closed the day after on Sunday, March 9 as Tacadena and his staff licked their wounds. Their tiny three-table space, which can be described as a Filipino-Hawaiian bodega inspired by Tacadena’s upbringing in Hawai’i, might be Chicago’s hottest restaurant. Read more here.