Lizz Wright never imagined releasing an album and opening a café in the same week.
“I learned to mind what you ask for,” she jokes. “I’m exhausted but so grateful.”
On Sept. 22, the jazz chanteuse and professionally trained chef and her wife, Monica Haslip, opened their newest spot, the Hunt, at 915 E. 60th St., at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts on the campus of the University of Chicago. It builds off their other business, Carver 47 Food & Wellness Market at Little Black Pearl Art & Design Center, 1050 E. 47th St., established in 2017.
Lizz Wright (left) and her wife, Monica Haslip, opened their newest spot, the Hunt, 915 E. 60th St., at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts on the campus of the University of Chicago. It builds off their other business, Carver 47 Food & Wellness Market at Little Black Pearl Art & Design Center, 1050 E. 47th St., established in 2017.
Lizz Wright released her latest album, “Nearness,” a collection of standards and spirituals recorded with her longtime music collaborator, pianist Kenny Banks Sr., in September.
Opening the doors to the Hunt came just three days before Wright released her latest album, “Nearness,” a collection of standards and spirituals recorded with her longtime music collaborator, pianist Kenny Banks Sr.
While managing both worlds sounds like a challenge, the multihyphenate talent said she finds a lot of crossover.
“I really want to practice composing every day of my life,” she said, seeing parallels between writing a song and creating a dish.
In fact, she and Haslip (who spent years at BET and Johnson Publishing before embarking on youth-and-art center Little Black Pearl) first met when Wright performed a concert at the Kenwood staple in 2013. They instantly connected on ideas for collaboration. Wright even named her Virginia-based label, Blues & Greens Records, to show the synergy between her two pursuits, which came together around the same time early in her life.
As the daughter of a pastor in small-town Georgia, Wright started her music journey as a child by singing in the choir and eventually became the music director of her dad’s church. By 2002, she went pro and signed a deal with Verve Records. The following year, her debut album “Salt” topped Billboard’s contemporary jazz charts.
Like music, Wright’s love of cooking was fostered at a young age, when she tended to the family garden. A desire to pursue food took her to New York, where she graduated from the Natural Gourmet Institute in 2009. From there, she headed to the mountains of western North Carolina where she spent her time honing her food craft on 27 acres of farmland. “A lot of my food and plant relationship inspiration comes from there,” she said. “I really love the way [Southerners] make biscuits. I love the way they can put a whole breakfast on top of salad greens. I love the time being taken to really eat a real breakfast, and that it’s available all day.”
The Bloom “V-ahn Mi” sandwich is a vegan bánh mì with fried tofu and pickled vegetables on a baguette.
Many of these hallmarks made it over to the Hunt where an all-day breakfast menu offers homemade quiche, buttermilk and cheddar scallion biscuits and a build-your-own breakfast sandwich. The Hunt also highlights flavors from different cuisines in sandwiches like the Bloom “V-ahn Mi,” a vegan bánh mì with fried tofu and pickled vegetables on a baguette, and the barbecue jerk salmon burger on a brioche bun.
“We are really trying to cater to people who are using their minds a lot,” Wright said of the menu, which includes a range of breakfast, lunch and snacks and grab-and-go items to get people through long days of creative work.
For those needing a mental break, the university spot, which is open to the public, also features record players that spin some of Wright and Haslip’s vinyl collection.
“I’m really enjoying the dialogue that this space is creating,” Wright said of the way food, music, art and community intersect at the Hunt.
The interaction with customers harkens back to her church roots.
“I really like seeing people every day or every week and knowing their names,” she said. “It’s like I’m nourishing people in my own way.”
Wright also does so with a range of fresh juices and smoothies like the Green Glory Juice (a mix of apple, spinach, celery, ginger, lemon and parsley) that have been a signature of Carver 47 and were just recently added to the offerings at the Obama Presidential Center.
The Hunt is named for Chicago artist and sculptor Richard Hunt, whose works are seen in the restaurant and in Hyde Park.
“I keep hearing that when folks go through the museum, they’re feeling very emotional. So, I’m really happy our juice blends can restore their body so they can get their bearings,” Wright said. In another example of interconnectedness, Wright’s music has been featured on former President Barack Obama’s annual playlists, including “Hit the Ground” on this summer’s edition.
Wright and Haslip are conscious of the history and people who hail from the Hyde Park/Kenwood area (where they also live) and have named both of their cafés after similar luminaries. Carver 47 is named for agricultural scientist, educator and inventor George Washington Carver.
“We realized he was at Tuskegee [Institute] for 47 years and thought that was wild since [the café is] at 47th and Greenwood,” said Wright. The Hunt is named for the late Chicago artist and sculptor Richard Hunt, whose works are seen in Hyde Park.
On the menu at The Hunt is a sandwich called The Sculpture in homage to artist Richard Hunt, with blackened chicken thigh, smoked Gouda, pickled red onion, charred red pepper relish and garlic aioli on a brioche bun.
“He just passed [in 2023], so I still feel like his presence is so fresh in this neighborhood,” Wright said. On the menu at The Hunt is a sandwich called The Sculpture in homage to him, with blackened chicken thigh, smoked Gouda, pickled red onion, charred red pepper relish and garlic aioli on a brioche bun. Haslip also designed custom wallpaper for the space that pays tribute, “but it’s very subtle and you have to get up close,” said Wright, adding, “We also have a collection of different pieces of art and artifacts that he collected from places around the world.”
In a way, Wright sees these figures as her third set of creative collaborators, behind Haslip and Banks Sr. “What I really love about it is that these rooms that are designed to tell someone’s history, to show what they loved, to show what they gave and how they contributed to the world,” she said. “I feel like it introduces the humanity of these great American icons with such tenderness and really without agenda. We’re just here.”
