Why name a fine-dining restaurant after the irregular wooded knots that jut out of a tree?
Walking into Burl, which opened Friday near Evanston’s Central Street corridor, you might pick up on an arboreal theme that manifests itself in the many wooden fixtures with curved edges. You would certainly notice Burl’s domed oven and the nearby open-flame grill.
“The obvious answer is that it’s a nod to our wood-fired concept,” said Rachel Canfora-Carlin, who founded Burl with her husband, Tom Carlin.
“But we have some analogies as well.”
One version uses Burl’s peculiar location on a side street off of Central Street, what Canfora-Carlin calls an “offshoot” from the north Evanston retail district.
Her other analogy views the restaurant as an Evanston branch of the chef-driven Chicago dining scene, in which the pair met.
Either way, the wooden metaphors hint at a deeper aim, what Carlin calls a sense of place. For Burl designs its menu based on the output of the Midwestern farmers whom Carlin has befriended over the years.
It’s “farmer-driven” cuisine, Canfora-Carlin insists, not farm-to-table. Many chefs will approach farmers with a list of ingredients they want for their menus. Not so for Burl.
“It’s a different kind of conversation, where Tom will go to the farmers and be like, ‘What do you need us to buy from you,’ so that your farm can eliminate more waste, become a little bit more sustainable and just have them make money, to be honest,” she said.
And thus the resulting menu has a distinct Midwestern flair.
Take the fish fry ($25), an allusion to the Friday tradition in Wisconsin that Canfora-Carlin said evokes a “supper club vibe.” Burl’s version uses walleye. Or for another freshwater fish, order the lake trout ($30), currently sourced fresh frozen from Lake Superior.
The header for the mains makes the regional theme abundantly clear: “water and land.” Some of the other dishes, though, might not seem so Midwestern on first glance.
The sirloin ($37), marinated in a mix of anise and chili, comes with a vegetable slaw. It’s cooked with fish sauce, often used in East Asian cuisines. But this sauce comes from Third Coast Superior, a Midwestern supplier.
You’ll also notice the menu’s sometimes terse but colorful notes. The mostly domestic wine menu features Day Wines’ “Vin de Days” Orange from Oregon: “orange wine doesn’t taste like oranges hold my beer & see.” Or check out the pappardelle bolognese ($37): “beef, pork, tomato and time.” (It takes 48 hours to prepare.)
Other offerings include a slate of vegetable-based dishes that, like the rest of the menu, will shift with the Midwest seasons. The current options lean toward root vegetables, such as beets with chocolate, quinoa, walnuts and apples ($12).
“The beets will probably always be on,” Carlin said. “I might change like — make it a little more vibrant for the springtime. There’s a version I try that has fermented aji dulce chiles in it that is really nice.”
Some of those changes, of course, stem from what Burl hears from farmers.
Carlin, from Kansas City, Missouri, moved to Chicago and worked at Publican Quality Meats, the West Loop cafe and butcher shop where he would meet Canfora-Carlin. The pair got married in 2019.
Publican Quality Meats was also where Carlin began to relish a “farmer-driven” cuisine.
“When I was at PQM, one of the things I loved was working the counter and getting to give people this food and say this is Trent’s pork or Louis’ lamb or whatever the case may be,” Carlin said. “Instead of saying it’s from this farm, saying it’s from this person, creating that connection.”
Canfora-Carlin went on to work at Hogsalt, whose restaurants include Au Cheval and Bavette’s Bar & Boeuf. She will continue to serve as the restaurant group’s recruiting, training and development director.
Meanwhile, Carlin moved on to Dove’s Luncheonette as chef de cuisine, and then on to Galit. He left the Middle Eastern restaurant in 2022, when it earned a Michelin star. For a while, he’s stayed at home in Evanston, where the couple live with their two daughters.
They’d thought about opening their own restaurant, but when the Prairie Avenue space — formerly Coast Sushi & Sashimi — opened up, Canfora-Carlin jumped on it.
“It was me being a pestering wife,” she said. “And being like, ‘You need to act on this and call the landlord.’”
Carlin tried to demur, at least for a bit, but Canfora-Carlin insisted that they try immediately. They ended up buying the building, not leasing, so they could embark on the massive task of renovating the building.
Burl had previously eyed an opening in fall 2025, but with the complications of tearing out the innards of an old building, that became January.
Ahead of its Friday public opening, Burl opened for friends and family on the preceding Wednesday and Thursday. Any new opening poses challenges aplenty for the staff, but all things considered, the first service went smoothly, Carlin said.
“The overwhelming feedback that I’ve received is that the food is great, the staff is kind, the space is welcoming,” he said. “Those are the things we were most — not concerned with, but that if we get that right, we can get the rest right quickly.”
If you go: 2545 Prairie Ave., Evanston, just south of Central Street. 847-425-0177, open Wednesdays through Sundays at 4 p.m., closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Accepts cards only. Near Metra’s Central Street station at Green Bay Road; street parking only, though valet could be available in the future.