CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Any conversation about Tiffany’s on Broadway, a family-owned restaurant in Uptown, should start with their chimichurri wings—which have become a staple ever since co-founder Michelle Tiffany Corrales opened the restaurant in 2021.
There's the sauce: Savory, but it still packs some heat. The wings, which are marinated, baked, fried and finished on the grill, are lightly charred and just caramelized enough to make for a great bite.
Michelle’s mother Marcela Corrales, the restaurant’s other co-founder, said she doesn’t know how her daughter came up with the idea. She did say that Michelle, whom she called her “little Ratatouille,” has been testing her culinary skills ever since she was a kid.
“Since she was, like, 9 years old, I used to see her watching Food Channel all the time,” Marcela said. “I’m a single mom, so sometimes I would come home and food would be ready. I would be so thrilled when I would try Michelle’s dishes. She would have all these ideas, and it’s amazing food.”
Marcela said the reason she wanted to open the restaurant was so people could try her daughter’s flavors.
“She has a lot of talent, I can tell you that,” she said.
Over the weekend, the duo will celebrate the two-year anniversary of Tiffany’s on Broadway. Although the restaurant might be a relatively new addition to the stretch of Broadway between Wilson and Lawrence Avenues, Marcela and Michelle have called Uptown home for decades.
Marcela first moved to the neighborhood in 1986, when she immigrated to the United States from her native Bolivia. Since then, Marcela has operated pop-up shops in what used to be the Wilson Mall and ran a retail store in the same space they currently use for the restaurant.
Michelle said she came up as a chef in that same pop-up scene, where she was trying to show people how to create delicious, home-cooked meals infused with cannabis.
“It was a new approach, because it wasn’t just cookies; it wasn’t brownies,” she said. “It was cooking home-cooked meals and showing them that it was just another way to be able to consume [cannabis],” Michelle said. “From there, I started doing pop-ups where it was: Come try some of my home-cooked meals, things made from scratch—with cannabis.”
They started working events where they sold things like Michelle’s homemade empanadas, both with and without cannabis. The reception couldn’t have been much better: Marcela and Michelle were told they’d have customers if they ever opened a brick-and-mortar restaurant.
Over the past few years, those community ties have helped generate steady business from neighbors, friends and family. Even the local alderman, James Cappleman, is a regular customer. Still, Marcela said they’ve had to fight hard to keep the restaurant running.
“In order for us to be surviving, I still have to keep my other two jobs … but we’re getting there,” Marcela said. “Things are getting better, and it’s getting to be less stressful for me. I’m hoping by summertime, a lot of good things will be happening.”
Marcela pointed to the new development going up at the corner of Broadway and Wilson Avenue.
“Hopefully it’s going to be full of tenants that will be coming here,” she said.
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