Kasama
Chicago, USA
Kasama is a restaurant in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, at 1001 N. Winchester Avenue, serving a Filipino-inspired programme from husband-and-wife team Tim Flores and Genie Kwon. The business presents itself as both a daytime bakery and a dinner destination, with the official site noting counter service in the day and reservation-only evening service. Michelin also identifies Kasama as Filipino, contemporary cuisine and describes it as a simple space shaped by the pair’s fine-dining background. By day, Kasama operates as a casual bakery and counter-service restaurant, open Wednesday to Sunday for breakfast and lunch. The daytime offer sits alongside the restaurant’s more formal dinner identity rather than replacing it, so the same address accommodates two distinct formats of service. Official reservation information confirms that daytime visits are first come, first served, while evening dining is arranged separately. In the evening, Kasama serves a modern Filipino tasting menu on Thursday to Sunday. The official restaurant site lists a set tasting menu with optional beverage pairings, and Michelin’s profile notes the restaurant’s contemporary Filipino focus and the way Flores and Kwon reinterpret homey preparations in a more refined context. That combination suggests a kitchen balancing familiar flavours with precise, modern presentation. The overall experience is therefore shaped by contrast: a bakery and counter-service operation in the daytime, then a booked tasting-menu restaurant after dark. Michelin’s description also points to a compact setting and to the couple’s complementary strengths, with Flores guiding the savoury side and Kwon bringing pastry expertise to the dessert programme. Taken together, the evidence supports a restaurant with a clear Filipino identity, a dual service structure and a polished but not ostentatious character.