Old School Palos Hills, Illinois

The table

What is cooking
depends on the morning.

Old School has no printed menu, because the chef has never wanted one. He decides at dawn, writes it down, and sends it out. What follows is the rotation those lists are drawn from — two constants and everything else that comes and goes.

Ask for today’s list on WhatsApp or by phone. Most days are fully reserved by mid-afternoon.

A full written menu is on its way — it will live in the Old School app, along with a lower price for ordering there. Until then, this page is the honest version: what the kitchen makes, and what it makes it from.

Always on the list

The two constants

The old-fashioned lamb: shoulder on saffron rice with almonds.
The old-fashioned lamb
Old-Fashioned Lamb Ask for today’s price

Two and a half pounds of shoulder, seasoned and marinated the day before, then roasted five hours until a fork does the work. Served over saffron rice. The chef invented it himself — his stated reason: to keep off the competition.

House signature
Stuffed Lamb Neckرقاب محشية Ask for today’s price

Neck packed with spiced rice and cooked low until the meat pulls away in sheets. On saffron rice, with the pan juices spooned over.

Daily staple

The rotation

Two or three of these,
on any given day.

All of it halal. All of it under the same guarantee: if you reach for a knife, you don’t pay.

Roasted lamb with slivered almonds and salad.
From a recent day’s list
Ouziأوزي

Lamb and spiced rice with toasted nuts, baked in pastry and broken open at the table.

Mandiمندي

Meat cooked slow over low heat with the rice beneath it, taking on smoke and fat. Cardamom, clove, black lime.

Maqloubahمقلوبة

“Upside down.” Layered lamb, fried vegetables and rice, inverted out of the pot in one piece.

Mansafمنسف

Lamb in fermented dried yoghurt over rice and thin bread. The dish you serve people you are trying to honor.

Kuftaكفتة

Hand-ground meat with parsley and onion, spiced and roasted with tomato.

Lamb Shawarma

Marinated overnight, shaved thin, dressed simply.

Roasted Lamb Head

For the guests who know to ask.

By request
Bone-In Lamb $32

Three pounds, on the bone. The dearest thing the kitchen sells.

From the guests

Photographed by the people
who came to eat.

An overhead spread of Old School dishes with yoghurt and sauces. An order packed for pickup: lamb over saffron rice. A roasted quarter over saffron rice with almonds. A full tray of saffron rice. Chopped tomato and cucumber salad.

Every photograph on this page was taken by a guest and posted to the restaurant’s Google listing.

For a crowd

Catering is half of
what this kitchen does.

Beyond the sixty to a hundred meals cooked for the counter each day, Old School caters — regularly for gatherings of a hundred or more. Ramadan brings four to six hundred meals a day out of the same oven.

Give as much notice as you can. Large orders are quoted by the head after a conversation about what you actually want, not from a package sheet.

Catering trays of saffron rice, lamb and salads.
A catering order going out
If you need a knife to cut the meat, you’re getting the food for free.
Mohd Mahd · chef & owner
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