Cleo’s Southern Cuisine in Bronzeville

Black History Month begins today, and I wanted to dig into a restaurant with Deep Southern roots, located in a South Side neighborhood with its own storied past. The menu traces its recipes to both Mississippi and Louisiana… partly a result of the Great Migration, and a granddaughter’s commitment to carrying on her family’s traditions. The wave of African Americans moving from the South to Chicago in the 1940s and 50s changed the complexity of the South Side, but moving this far North doesn’t erase family recipes, especially for one young woman who now runs a Bronzeville restaurant just a few blocks from where she grew up.