The Essanay Studios entrance on Argyle Street, a short walk from the new restaurant. Photo: Dan Leonard, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Argyle Street picked up a cuisine it did not really have a year ago. Garuda, an Indonesian street-food restaurant, opened in June at 1046½ W. Argyle St., in the old Gusto’s space, and has settled into the Asia on Argyle strip as one of only two Indonesian restaurants in Chicago.
Uptown Update reported on opening day, June 1, that the owners had a soft opening the day before and promised nasi goreng, mie goreng, rendang, satay, bakso, soto ayam and ayam penyet, with a wider range of dishes than Lakeview’s Rendang Republic, which opened in 2025. Block Club Chicago later wrote that Garuda is owned by the same family that runs Tanoshii Sushi in Andersonville, and that the menu includes sate ayam with peanut sauce, nasi goreng, mie ayam and the shaved-ice dessert es campur.
The restaurant’s own site, garudachicago.com, lists the same Argyle address and a phone number, 773-564-9100, and posts current hours there. Those hours have been described differently in earlier write-ups, so the posted schedule is the one to trust before you go.
The opening adds another flag to a stretch that already runs from Vietnamese pho shops to bakeries and groceries in a few short blocks, a short walk from the rebuilt Argyle Red Line station. For Uptown diners who have had to leave the neighborhood to find Indonesian food, the point is simpler: it is now on Argyle, and it is open.
Linh Tran-Whitaker covers Argyle Street, dining and community life.
