Lizz Wright and Monica Haslip open The Hunt café at Chicago’s Logan Center

Singer and professionally trained chef Lizz Wright and her wife, Monica Haslip, have opened The Hunt inside the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. The café, at 915 E. 60th St. in Woodlawn, welcomed its first customers Sept. 22 and is open to the public, making it an option for neighbors as well as people spending time on campus.

Breakfast is available throughout the day. Choices include house-made quiche, buttermilk biscuits, cheddar scallion biscuits and a breakfast sandwich customers can assemble to their preferences. The menu reflects Wright’s appreciation for Southern breakfasts, shaped in part by her years developing her cooking on 27 acres of farmland in western North Carolina.

The café also offers lunch, snacks and food to take along. Sandwich options include the Bloom “V-ahn Mi,” a vegan bánh mì made with fried tofu and pickled vegetables on a baguette, and a barbecue jerk salmon burger served on brioche. Wright described the selection as intended to sustain people through long stretches of creative and intellectual work.

Food shares the space with music and art. Record players play selections from Wright and Haslip’s vinyl collection, while artwork and objects collected internationally by Chicago artist Richard Hunt are part of the setting. Together, those elements give visitors more to explore than the menu during a break at the arts center.

The Hunt builds on the couple’s Carver 47 Food & Wellness Market, established in 2017 at Little Black Pearl Art & Design Center, 1050 E. 47th St. Their food offerings also include fresh juices and smoothies. One example is Green Glory Juice, which combines apple, spinach, celery, ginger, lemon and parsley. Their juice and smoothie offerings have recently been added at the Obama Presidential Center as well.

Wright’s culinary training includes graduating from New York’s Natural Gourmet Institute in 2009. Her music career began much earlier with singing in her father’s Georgia church, followed by a professional recording deal in 2002. She and Haslip first met when Wright performed at Little Black Pearl in 2013, where they connected over possible collaborations.

The café opening arrived just three days before Wright released “Nearness,” an album of standards and spirituals recorded with longtime collaborator Kenny Banks Sr. For Wright, cooking and performing are related forms of creative work. At The Hunt, that connection takes a neighborhood-facing form: meals, records and opportunities to get to know returning customers.