Cafe Nova

Great food & very nice people here at cafe nova. So happy there's a place nearby that serves exciting south Asian food for a change. So many varieties & choices for both vegetarian & non-veg.

Come here while this place is still solvent (and help it stay solvent!). Can you get as tasty or healthy or spicy a lunch plate as this anywhere else in the city for $10? Probably not, and then on top of that, it's Sri Lankan, which is equally hard to find in the city.We tried two 2-item combos, one with jackfruit and lamb/spinach curries, and the other with eggplant and fish curries, and both with paratha. Not one of these curries was something I wouldn't order again, although the jackfruit one requires you to have some serious spice chops - make sure you have a lassi or something. (I recommend the mango - it's cardamom-y!) The lamb is tender and appropriately fatty, the fish is brighter-flavored, and the eggplant is earthy and crisp.If I were a Loyola student I would probably eat here every week. Living just 2 miles away, I still might.

This place was great! The food was delicious. Nice level of spice and good serving sizes. Service was a bit slow but not an issue. Spacious bare-bones dining room. Daal good, pakora nice, chapatis good, Kothu Roti was fantastic.It is handy to have their menu up on your phone while ordering since the self service ordering menu doesn't have pictures...

This is decent Indian just walking distance from our place. The staff were very nice and accommodating. Ordering from a kiosk is never fun, but the food was generally pretty good. My husband thought the Tikka was too sweet, but overall I enjoyed it. The samosas were spicier than I'm used to, and I enjoyed it. The place was dead empty while we were there, though.

Absolutely recommend this restaurant, tasty food with out the grease. Palak was really tasty . I really enjoyed the chicken curry. Masala dosa is great. They have combination of two or three plates you can order if you want to try a bit variety. The manager here is very welcoming. I see why a lot of Cops and Loyola students eat here.

The service is just absolutely wonderful. Great people. Every dish I've tried is delicious and the portions are great. The facilities are clean and inviting. I can see that they really care about their customers and the food they make.

Ordered carry out here. They don't have delivery unless you order through grub hub. Parking is only a few in front of the stores. The fellow was nice enough to meet me curbside and hand it through the window when I called to let them know I was there. Very nice and accommodating. Did I mention the food was very good? I had Kothu Roti with Chicken which for me was unusual so I decided to try it. It was delicious. My friend had the chicken curry. Very good. Medium spice for that was spicy! Just a warning. I forgot to take photos because we wolfed it down.

The furnishings are spare but the food is pretty incredible and I'm surprised that this place isn't always packed, given the quality of food and reasonable prices. When I've gotten takeout I've had to wait a few minutes longer. Not sure if it's their policy to completely stuff the containers to overflow as compensation, or if that's just what they normally do, but I always end up with way more food than I can expect to eat in a meal. Thankfully they make for great leftovers

These are the sort of people who would enjoy giving a starving dog a rubber bone. I read with joy in my heart an interview with the owners before they opened about their plans to bring authentic Sri Lankan food to Chicago. They seemed to know what they were talking about. I am half Sri Lankan, on my father's side, I have a deep hankering for the cuisine without knowing how to cook much of it myself. I'm part of a growing group of South Asian Americans who can't easily find access to our comfort foods. Pretty much all the good, authentic Sri Lankan restaurants in North America are in Toronto and New York City. Those two cities have enough people like me, and non-Asians who have developed a taste for Sri Lankan, and adventurous non-Asians who want to try something very different, that they have enough restaurants to compete with each other. Not so here in the Midwest. after the very good and authentic Curry Bowl in Madison shut down, the best I can do is drive to Minneapolis or Grand Rapids and those two restaurants are in transition to not being authentic. Here's the progression, a lone Sri Lankan restaurant opens up where there are none, and attracts the wrong crowd. Customers who have no interest in eating Sri Lankan food get annoyed when what they order isn't at all like the Americanized Indian food they were expecting. After a while, the owners give up and convert to Americanized Indian food. Well this sad progression happened in record time at this place. On their website they still boast having a Sri Lankan menu, and they take reservations and if you order in advance you can have your Sri Lankan favorites made to order. I made a reservation two weeks in advance, for my 70 hour drive add half an hour to find parking coming from Milwaukee. I placed an order for hoppers, Pul Sambol, dal, and Sri Lankan Chicken curry on the bone. This is like a national dish. When I arrived, they said they don't take reservations and don't pay attention to their third party web page messages. There is nothing Sri Lankan left on the menu. The dal is not Sri Lankan dal. They don't even know what Sri Lankan rice is (it is NOT basmati). They serve Americanized Indian food only. A couple of South Indian dishes like dosa. They also rent mopeds. As an Americanized Indian restaurant that rents mopeds it's a three star place. As a restaurant that has "Sri Lankan food" on its website, and store front, it's a cruel joke.

We came to Chicago on an international global eats "self-created tour" and Cafe Nova did not disappoint! We had the kothu roti, jackfruit curry, parotta bread and mango lassi. We ordered a number two spiciness for both dishes. I've lost my pallet for spicy and my niece's palette is well prepared for spicy foods. The jackfruit curry was much more spicy than the kothu roti. The number two was marginally hot for me and the kothu roti was perfect. We really liked both dishes a lot but agreed the kothu roti was just perfect. It was satisfying in that way that like fried rice with egg satisfying. We were in Chicago for a global eats tour and still struggle to decide if the food here at the cafe Nova or are Somali and breakfast at Mogadishu was our favorite they were different and we really loved both of them. The service and the preparation here at Cafe Nova was excellent. The young men working here and I guess probably the owners very warm and kind. When We told them what we were doing in Chicago in the specific reason we came they even gave us a complimentary dessert of gulab jamun which are like little fried donuts soaked in a light syrup. It's not something I would have ordered myself because I avoid sweets generally. However they were served warm and they were really really good lol. This is another place that if I were a Chicago one I would visit very regularly. Those young folks at Loyola University are lucky to have this right there!