Former Vivaldi restaurateur Anan Abu-Taleb is back in Oak Park, his hometown, with a new restaurant he hopes to open in August.
He’s calling Maya an “American grill with a Latin-American flair.” The cuisine will mix Mexican and other Central and South American flavors with “simple American grilled dishes.”
“We don’t want to lose customers by having our menu [cater to just one type of food],” said Margi Abu-Taleb, Anan’s wife and partner in the venture.
The menu will emphasize seafood and offer options for all tastes, the owners said.
“We’re trying to reach out to a larger market and be family-friendly,” Anan Abu-Taleb said.
Part of that family-friendliness is found in the restaurant’s layout, he said. The building will be the same as Vivaldi, 144 S. Oak Park Ave., but the space will be completely different, from front to back.
The entry will be moved to the center of the building’s frontage on Oak Park Avenue, so diners will walk directly to the host stand. To the left will be a dining room with capacity for about 80. To the right will be the bar, where margaritas and mojitos will be prepared, and a three-season dining room that looks out onto the outdoor patio.
They plan to be able to use the dining room and the patio/three-season area for special events.
Vivaldi was known as having great patio dining, but only by those who’d been there, Abu-Taleb said. The patio wasn’t visible from the dining room.
“Now when you walk in, you’re going to see it,” he said.
The kitchen is being relocated to the southeastern corner of the building, making it easier to get deliveries in the back and to get plates out to each of the dining areas.
Architect Gus Kostopulos did the redesign, with Aria Group Architects in charge of the interior design. Both are from Oak Park.
Prices at Maya will be lower than they were at Vivaldi in another appeal to a wider audience. Maya will be open for lunch and brunch, too.
The Abu-Talebs owned a Mexican restaurant, Bamboleo, in Downers Grove, and toyed with the idea of using the name in Oak Park. But informal surveys found the name hard to spell and remember, the couple said.
Anan Abu-Taleb said he likes the connection to Mayan civilization, which spanned areas that are now different countries in the Americas, just as Maya’s cuisine will do.
“And it’s easier to say,” he said.
In August 2006, Abu-Taleb was at a standstill with his landlord and a developer who was planning to remake much of the property north of the restaurant. Those plans now include preserving historically significant buildings and building an L-shaped condominium building just south of the buildings that used to house Thyme & Honey (which is about to re-open in Forest Park) and Val’s halla (which moved to Harrison Street).
On top of the delays caused by talks between the landlord, restaurateur and developer, Abu-Taleb experienced the typical delays in getting permits issued.
“It’s not been an easy project,” Margi Abu-Taleb said. But that’s just part of doing business, the owners said.
“Looking back, I would still do it,” Anan Abu-Taleb said.
CONTACT: dcarter@wjinc.com