Jimmy Bannos Jr.’s earliest memories are of working in his father’s restaurant.
After spending plenty of time at Heaven on Seven, his dad Jimmy Bannos Sr.’s now-closed Cajun restaurant in the Loop, he’d always dreamed of opening a restaurant. At the tender age of 25, Bannos Jr. made that dream happen with The Purple Pig. There, Bannos Jr. won the 2014 James Beard award for rising star chef.
Now, Bannos Jr. has accomplished another longtime dream: opening a Greek restaurant. The chef returns to his roots with the new Kouklas Greek Eatery at 7620 Milwaukee Ave. in Niles.
He left the Pig in Streeterville a decade after that, taking chef Kevin Stack and a few others with him to work on Kouklas. Stack, who’d been dreaming of becoming a chef since around sixth grade, “understood exactly what it takes to get to the next level,” Bannos Jr. said.
As a fourth-generation restaurateur, Bannos Jr. is the first in his family to open a Greek restaurant. The Niles eatery is his most personal project yet, he said.
Bannos Jr. and his father have worked together at many restaurants, including the Pig. But for this venture, Bannos Sr. is mostly taking the back seat. Dad is around as a consultant and to keep an eye on things as an industry veteran.
“Literally every single person in my dad’s family that’s been to the U.S. has been in the restaurant business. There’s no way I’d be in this business if it wasn’t for [my family] and what they’ve done since the early 20th century,” Bannos Jr. said. “It’s like a celebration of our heritage.”
Kouklas has become a gathering place for Mediterranean food and culture. It’s taken over the 9,000-square-foot former site of the iconic Amici Ristorante. Bannos Jr. and Stack, along with managing partner Audrey Witte, have put together a unique menu of shareables, classic Greek entrees, handmade pastas, cocktails and wines that incorporate seasonal and local ingredients, as well as a curated selection of more unique imports from Greece.
Originally set to open in late summer 2025, the team experienced a few unexpected delays. The more than 70-year-old building was fully gutted, with a new plumbing system installed and the electrical system was updated, but Kouklas finally opened on Dec. 30 for dinner service only.
Many of the dishes are inspired by the traditional Greek cuisine Bannos Jr. grew up with. But these aren’t “fusion” dishes, Bannos clarifies. They’re “interpretations,” he says.
“It’s not like your grandma’s cooking,” Stack said. “I mean, the pastitsio recipe we’re doing is [Bannos Jr.’s] grandma’s recipe. But we’re just taking it up an extra level. We’re searing it in a pan, crisping it up.” The Greek “bolognese” dish is served with a dollop of béchamel foam.
They’ve brought notable touches of The Purple Pig to Kouklas, including a “refined” version of their famous whipped feta dip.
Instead of using just any feta cheese, Kouklas chefs use the French brand Valbreso. The cheese, made from 100% sheep’s milk, is much softer than traditional feta, making it easy to blend with the other base ingredients for the desired consistency: cream cheese and plain Greek yogurt.
Kouklas’ whipped feta, or tirokafteri, is spiced up with charred Fresno chiles and served with slices of grilled Greek sesame sourdough. But the base recipe offers up “insane possibilities,” Bannos Jr. said.
“You could smear it on a bowl and put a Greek salad on top of it,” Bannos Jr. said. “You could smear it on a sandwich with tapenade and put lamb in it.”
The recipe entails using a standard blender, and it can be dressed up with ingredients such as oregano, olive oil, cucumbers or sweet peppers.
Approximately four months after opening, every night has been busier than the last, Bannos said. Orders of lamb chops, half-brick chicken, octopus, crispy pork belly and grape leaf-wrapped whitefish are slapped onto a custom-built live-fire grill — the star of the restaurant build — every night. The “mammoth” grill was built in Texas, and each night it is loaded up with olive and oak wood sourced from Arizona and California.
Bannos Jr. and Stack cooked up an order of their famous lamb chops on a recent visit with a Sun-Times reporter. The chops receive a generous dousing in lemon, Greek oregano, and, of course, olive oil (Bannos Jr. calls the concoction a “Greek bath”), before hitting the flames.
The chops are served atop a spread of Bannos Jr.’s “world-famous” tzatziki and embellished with an anchovy and parsley-based salsa verde.
Another star dish is Kouklas’ hilopites, which are square-shaped, hand-crafted noodles. Their hilopites are larger than the ones you’d find at a “typical” Greek restaurant, and are egg-free for “better texture,” Bannos Jr. said.
The hilopites are served with a creamy vodka sauce, which uses vodka distilled from milk for a creamier taste. The sauce’s base also includes tomato paste and more high-quality Greek olive oil. It’s served with tender lamb shank and topped with bread crumbs.
Vodka sauce isn’t traditionally used in Greek dishes, but Stack and Bannos wanted to create a dish that called on their Purple Pig days, when one of their signature dishes was milk-braised pork shoulder.
Staff gave the bright and bustling restaurant the nickname “Madhouse on Milwaukee,” with more than 200 covers on an average weeknight, and nearly double that on weekends.
But after the end of every night, according to Stack, “we look at the menu again, and we’re like, ‘What’s next?’”
With spring underway and patio season just around the corner, more changes are expected to hit the Kouklas menu soon. Stack, in particular, was recently very excited about receiving a shipment of Greek truffles.
Kouklas is likely the first Chicago-area restaurant to source truffles directly from Greece, he added. They’re bringing in a variety of Greek beans, high-end olive oils, honeys, volcanic sea salt and wines, too.
But acquiring those items isn’t as easy as sourcing Italian ones, Bannos Jr. said. The demand for Greek products just isn’t as high, so Kouklas is priding itself on its ability to source seemingly more exclusive ingredients.
“We want to, you know, stick to Greek,” Stack said. “We’re dealing with a lot of people that are excited that we’re bringing their product in, and it’s cool to support a bunch of different people.”
Bannos and Stack’s meals are complemented with cocktails and Greek wines, such as the lamb chops or hilopites, which naturally pair up with a glass of wine made from agiorgitiko grapes, Greece’s most popular red wine varietal. Wines made from this grape are typically medium-bodied with notes of ripe fruit like cherries, raspberries and strawberries, which have an affinity with rich dishes with lamb or cream.
For those who favor craft cocktails, drinks like the Kouklas Old Fashioned, with chocolate cookie syrup and tobacco bitters, or the Greek Martini, garnished with decadent whipped feta-stuffed olives, offer unique twists on the classics.
Ever since meeting at The Purple Pig in 2009, at ages 20 and 25, Stack and Bannos Jr. have been on the “same wavelength.” The two are always in “sync” and share “the same mentality” when it comes to the kitchen.
Every week, the two send each other a text quoting Tom Cruise’s character in the 1996 film “Jerry Maguire.”
“You complete me,” they remind each other.
