UPDATES | BLOG

Hello to all of my Foodie Friends! I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. We’ve just received the news that the government has imposed new mitigation restrictions for suburban Cook County restaurants that include the closing of all indoor dining rooms. We’ve tried our absolute best to keep our customers and staff safe and will continue to utilize every step possible to continue to do this in the future. My staff and I will follow the governments guidelines as we all try to get this pandemic under control. Our dining room will be open by reservation only this Tuesday (10/27) and Wednesday (10/28) evenings beginning at 5pm. Beginning on Thursday (10/29), we will place our regular dinner menu on hold until we’re able to open our dining room once again. For the time being, Marco’s Kitchen will be offering curbside family dinner packages at least four days per week. We’ll be repeating some of our most popular curbside dinners along with creating new dinner curbside dinner menus. If you have an idea of something, you’d like us to offer, let us know and we’ll do our best to create it. We might even name the dinner in your honor. Very soon we’ll be offering a new program called ‘Ala Carte Tuesday’s.’ We’ll be offering house-made breads, soups, salads, entrees and desserts by pre-order for curbside pick-up. We’ll also be offering select premium fresh meats, seafood, poultry, fruits, vegetables and sauces to cook in the comfort of your own kitchen. Make sure you’re signed up for our email list and place your orders quickly as certain items will sell out. I wish everyone a safe and Happy Halloween!!! Always the best, Chef Marco

To all of our friends, I am sure you’ve all noticed you haven’t received any notices for produce bags and curbside dinners this week. Rest assured, that we’ll continue our produce bags and curbside dinners next week. I made the decision to forego these two very popular offerings this week in order to have a vigorous week of staff training as we’re adding new additions to our dining room and kitchen staff. Our outdoor and indoor dining has significantly increased, and I feel that I need some additional time to spend with my staff in order to make sure that everyone educated on our style of cuisine, dining and service. We are also implementing new safety procedures as we all know it’s going to be a long road until we all settle into our new normal. I would like for everyone to feel safe in our very intimate dining room. The restaurant is cleaned and sanitized from the front door to back door every day. Face coverings are worn by my staff at all times and hand sanitizer is always available. My staff is instructed to stay home if they feel the slightest bit sick. We must all work together to keep each other safe. Our dinner service hours this week are Tuesday through Saturday from 5pm until 9:30pm. All of us at Marco’s Kitchen look forward to providing our guests with food and drink from around the world complimented by incredible service and menu knowledge. Dinner reservations are very strongly suggested as we only offer five guests tables. Rest assured that we’ll be here for years to come bringing you the finest food from around the globe. Buon Appetito, ❤️Chef Marco

By PHIL VETTEL Marco's Kitchen Planned opening: Late March Now: Opened April 5 for carryout Chef-owner Marco Conte is in a good mood, having had great success with Mother’s Day carryout (“400 dinners,” he said), but he still yearns for what might have been for his downtown La Grange restaurant. “We had our licenses and were ready to open the last week of March, and then (came) the shutdown,” he said. “And I was scared; I didn’t know what to do. So my sous chef and I decided to open curbside takeout. We changed from international fusion (the original plan) to lower-cost family dinners, and we’re keeping the prices reasonable. And the response has been incredible.” Conte, who ran Cafe Amano in Elmhurst for more than a dozen years, offers a set menu three days per week. “Every dinner is a different holiday, a different country,” he said. “This weekend, we’re doing French Creole. You order the whole dinner. We keep our stock very low, overhead very low. I have a staff of five, myself included, and two just answer the phones. We’re not making a lot, but it’s enough to save the business.” In addition, Conte partnered with a produce distributor to create $10 produce bags, sourced from local farmers, for curbside pickup. “You drive up to the curb, drop $10 in a box and we put the bag in the car,” he said. “The first week I sold 125 bags, then 300, then 375. And last week, 450 bags.” Conte looks forward to opening his dining room, but wonders whether it will work under presumed restrictions on occupancy. “My dining room only seats 40, so at 25%, we’d be down to 10 people,” he said. “If we open, maybe I’ll do a chef’s table for 10 to 12 guests, and that’s all we’ll do — a dining experience for a group of friends. Which is fine, but we’d continue offering curbside.” Original article in Chicago Tribune: https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-food-restaurant-postponed-openings-0513-20200514-vsz6c2k72jf3npzlycsu63tggm-story.html?fbclid=IwAR04T_Y_Dsa-r_oL6ZbdGPcoWpzOKBuLioS8rPoomKd-JqKysYcpLaZaLkw

DRIVE RIGHT UP By Lisa Arnett August 2020 For a chef preparing to open a new restaurant, the moment when final permits arrive and you’re cleared to open for business is the pinnacle of excitement. For Marco Conte of Marco’s Kitchen (26 S. LaGrange Rd., 708.603.2129, marcoskitchen.com), that anxiously awaited moment came just as the pandemic hit. “All the restaurants were closed,” says Conte, who grew up cooking in his family’s Italian restaurants in Detroit before moving to Chicago in 2004 to work as executive chef of Cafe Amano, a French-Italian bistro in downtown Elmhurst. “It took me about a week to regroup and we decided we would start doing curbside dinners.” The original concept for Marco’s Kitchen was a global menu featuring fare inspired by Conte’s travels, from Italian to Mexican to Middle Eastern. “When I was in Alexandria, Egypt, a few years ago, I jumped into a taxi and stayed with [the driver] the entire day and had dinner with his family,” Conte says. The curbside offerings are keeping in the same spirit and amassed a loyal following over the spring and early summer. AROUND THE WORLD Every Sunday evening Conte releases menus for dinner pickups later in the week; diners can call the restaurant starting Monday morning to make their reservation and prepay. Each three-course dinner has a specific theme and a set price (usually $40 to $50 for two people, $80 to $100 for four). Past hits include a Bourbon Street dinner with shrimp étouffée, a French meal with lobster bisque, and a Spanish feast with assorted tapas. Wine add-ons (most around $20 a bottle) are an easy way to complete curbside meals without an added stop at the liquor store. The Mexican meal I ordered mid-June was an impressive value for $40. Housemade tortilla chips provided the perfect crispy scoop for salmon ceviche with diced cucumber and tomato. A fruit salad of sliced papaya, pineapple, mango, and watermelon came with a side of chili-lime salt for sprinkling. The main course, slightly spicy enchiladas stuffed with shreds of roasted chicken, paired well with sides of creamy pinto beans and grilled spears of zucchini and yellow squash. For dessert, cinnamon rice pudding was a comforting treat. Portions don’t look huge at first, but there were plenty of leftovers for a lunch the next day. Conte and his staff bake their own breads in a massive oven that was left in the kitchen from a previous restaurant concept. “I was amazed when the technician went in there and told me the oven was built in 1928,” Conte says. “He said that the oven was designed as a workhorse oven to bake huge amounts of bread and designed to run 24 hours a day. [It’s] insulated with powdered seashells, which holds high heat temperatures the best. The inside of the oven can be at 650 degrees and the outside is cool to the touch. The technology from that slot in time is amazing.” Past creations have included a seeded Italian loaf served with a charcuterie platter for Father’s Day and rustic country bread for a Napa Valley–themed meal. LOOKING AHEAD At full capacity Marco’s Kitchen seats about 40 guests. As of press time, Conte was making plans for what service will look like with indoor dining. “We’ve measured the dining room and we’ll open with five tables that will seat four guests each,” he says. “For the first month or so, we’re going to try to maximize our seating by trying to set and seat tables every two hours.” It will be a welcome shift for Conte to be able to offer the full a la carte menu that he originally envisioned for his restaurant. Whatever you order, be sure to save room. “We are really big on dessert,” he says. Though Marco’s Kitchen may have made its debut at a challenging time, this sounds like a sweet ending, indeed. Original article featured in Naperville Magazine: https://napervillemagazine.com/2020/07/drive-right-up/

Marco's Kitchen Fresh Produce Bags Are Back!!! -Thursday, July 23 from 1pm-3pm- Now $20 Each My staff and I are pleased to announce the return of curbside Marco’s Kitchen Fresh Produce Bags on Thursday, July 23rd, 2020 from 1pm-3pm. Our produce bags will be redesigned and contain farm-fresh restaurant-quality produce along with some surprise additions that our guests have requested. It could be something sweet or an incredible loaf of bread still warm from the oven. Bags will vary every week and will always include the best seasonal produce around. Due to the rising cost of produce and surprise items, the bags will now be at $20 each. Click on the Sign Up Box below to reserve your bag. Please 1 bag per pick up slot. On Thursday, July 23rd, please arrive at Marco's Kitchen, 26 S La Grange Road, La Grange, Illinois 60525, pull up curbside and we will have a contactless drop box for payment and deliver the bag to your car. Please remain in your vehicle. Thank you & stay safe! ❤️Chef Marco https://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040B45AAA629A3F85-marcos7 Breaking Bread Over the past few months, we have transformed a pizza restaurant into a small, intimate and elegant restaurant. With our space came a beautiful seven-shelf carousel oven that is part of our dining room. Since our opening in April, we’ve baked thousands of loaves of bread as part of our curbside pickups. On Mother’s Day alone, we baked over 250 loaves of bread for our pickup dinners! This oven which was built in 1928 and placed into the space in 1982 is the heart of our kitchen. The oven was originally designed to bake bread in large bakeries and designed to be a 24/7 workhorse oven. For us, it is used for breads, roasting meats and even making cupcakes. Our breads contain only six simple ingredients: flour, water, oil, yeast, sugar and salt. Sometimes we add seeds, cheeses or herbs right before the loaves are baked. We never add any preservatives or imitation flavors to our bread and suggest that it is enjoyed the same day it is baked. One of the most important family values that I learned while growing up was to ‘break bread’ with family and friends as often as you can. This is our way of ‘breaking bread’ with everyone! Let's Dine Together! We would also love to ‘break bread’ with you in person. Our beautiful dining room is open with safety and social distancing guidelines. Our tables are all spaced between six and eight feet apart, our servers are wearing masks, all surfaces are sanitized on a daily basis and throughout the day. We know that many are uncomfortable with the thought of dining out with strangers. Our dining room is at the size where we can offer our intimate dining room privately for groups of 10-12 guests. We can plan a prefix dinner, chef’s dinner or your guests can order off of our regular dinner menu. Don’t let that special date night, birthday, anniversary slip away. We all need a reason to get dressed up, get treated and feel special! We have unveiled our new dinner menu and the response has been very well received by our dine-in guests. When you arrive, we will offer an Amuse-Bouche that will tease your appetite. Our most popular menu items include Black Truffle Burrata, Oysters Rockefeller, Grilled Romaine Salad, Pistachio Encrusted Lamb Chops, Pan-Seared Muscovy Duck Breast and Pan-Seared Halibut with Lobster Sauce. The menu changes based on seasonality of our fresh ingredients.
Thank you again for all the support and see you all soon, whether curbside or table-side! 
❤️Chef Marco

Marco’s Kitchen Update: The past few months has been a whirlwind to say the least. We were ready to open when Covid-19 was declared a pandemic and businesses were forced to close. Even businesses that were well known and established were and are in danger of closing. At Marco’s Kitchen, we weren’t open for business before Covid-19 was declared a pandemic so we weren’t eligible for any state or federal government help. We were on our own…I had to take the future of my business and family into my own hands to survive this crisis. I was forced to think very quickly and began offering family dinners at a great value in order to help families that were out of work and unable to see a clear path. Our meals became very popular very quickly…we will continue to offer curbside dinners until things return to normal. The first week of April, we also began to offer low cost produce bags to the community for a number of different reasons. The idea came from my elderly neighbors that were frightened to go to the grocery store to purchase food. We started bringing fresh fruit and vegetables to our neighbors to keep them happy and healthy. Marco’s Kitchen produce bags were created with the following in mind: It helped our long-time family owned produce company get through a very hard time of not being able to sell any produce. It helped the farmers sell the produce that they work so hard to cultivate and grow. It helped the La Grange community during a very tough time. Some of our produce bag buyers let us know that coming to our curb was the highlight of their week. Just as we did, some of our guests were purchasing bags for their elderly neighbors. Our produce bags helped people at home to create new recipes, cook and talk about it online. We have a lot of pictures of the great creations that were made from our bags. Our produce bags helped us keep on our opening staff at Marco’s Table. The produce bags were not designed for Marco’s Kitchen to make a big profit, it was designed to help others in their time of need. At the price of $10 per bag, we covered our costs. Sadly, our last produce day was on June 25th, 2020. We’ve been receiving unfavorable comments from individuals that have come to the conclusion that we are impeding on other local businesses and their sales. We in no way want to interfere with any other businesses in the local area. We truly believe that healthy competition is very important in the business community as it drives everyone to be the best at what they do. Of course, this is not to say we won’t ever offer pop-up curbside pickup packages. We’ve been able to master our perfectly calibrated 92-year old oven and we’ll be baking different styles of fresh and warm bread for pick up very soon. We’ll also be baking all of the sweet treats that we’ve offered in our curbside dinner packages for purchase. We’ll definitely keep you posted on our special offerings through email, Facebook and Instagram. Now for the news we’ve all been waiting for…our dining room will be opening at a very limited capacity on Wednesday July 1st, 2020. We will be practicing new safety guidelines in the kitchen and dining room along with social distancing. We are looking forward to creating new and exciting dishes and cocktails, but we are also dedicated to keeping our patrons and staff very safe. We will begin taking reservations on June 28th, 2020 at 10am. In order to maximize our dining room, we’ll be offering three dinner seating times from Tuesday through Saturday. The three seating times are 4:30pm, 6:30pm and 8:30pm. For the time being, we will be able to offer five tables in our dining room. New Guidelines and Practices: Face covering must be worn in the restaurant until you are seated at your table. Hands must be sanitized at the door upon entering. If you feel the need to cough or sneeze, please use your dinner napkin and request a new one. Please do not arrive early for your dinner reservation as waiting space is limited. When departing Marco’s Kitchen please wear your face mask. Hand sanitizer is available at any time during your dinner. We will have one person specifically designated for table sanitizing after each group of guests depart our dining room. Private Events: If you are planning a private event, we will be offering our dining room privately for up to thirty guests. Our availability for private parties would be Saturday for lunch or Sunday for lunch or dinner. Call or email us for our luncheon, dinner or cocktail party menus. Our Bar: For the time being, we will have six seats at our bar with social distancing. Full dinner service is available at the bar. Our bar hours will be from 4:30pm until 11pm. We thank everyone for their support and are looking forward to bringing the incredible flavors of the world to our dining room! Always the best! ❤️ Chef Marco