The 'King of Tapas'

One might assume that as the owner of five successful restaurants -- two in Chicago and three in the suburbs -- tapas virtuoso Emilio Gervilla would be content.

Instead, he is preparing to open his sixth restaurant and fifth Spanish tapas joint, "Emilio's Madrid," in Lombard.

With the exception of Sunflower Bistro in La Grange, which is a regular dining restaurant, Gervilla's tapas restaurants feature similar menus that include longtime favorites like dates with tocino, oven-baked goat cheese and peppered grilled tenderloin of beef. In addition, each restaurant offers different specials every day.

"Tapas in Spain is a part of social life, and I try to bring that into my restaurants," he said. "My grandfather told me, 'If you work for someone else, you have to go in happy. If you work for yourself, you have to go in happy."

Gervilla, 59, doesn't spend too much time in the kitchen anymore but makes daily rounds of his restaurants, supervising menus, consulting with chefs and greeting customers.

Longtime employee Crispin Plata, now executive chef for Gervilla's restaurants, said his boss worked seven days a week from opening until closing to ensure his first restaurant, Emilio's Tapas in Hillside, would take off in 1988.

"He is always working. He can't stop," he said. "He's in the office. He's in the restaurant. He's like that -- always working."

Gervilla is also a talented chef who has an innate sense of flavor, Plata said.

"He's very creative," he said. "He just goes to the cooler and creates something with whatever we have. He doesn't need recipes, he just makes everything up."

But the man once named Chicago's "King of Tapas" admits to one weak spot -- pastry, which he happily leaves in the care of others.

"I'm very bad at pastry," Gervilla said. "You have to have a lot of passion to weigh everything and measure everything."

Gervilla and his seven younger siblings grew up in the province of Granada, Spain, accustomed to helping out in the kitchen and in their grandfather's tapas bar and bakery. During the traditional yearly "matanza," or pig slaughter, they all pitched in to make sausage, salami and morcilla.

"Everybody had a little part -- somebody would take the wine, somebody would add the spices, we all did something" he said.

Although he attended cooking school in Spain, Gervilla said he learned more on the job, watching and mimicking talented chefs.

"You learn from other people who are doing it," he said.

Gervilla moved to Florida in 1970 after a one-year stint as a chef on a Caribbean cruise ship, which in turn was the result of a casual conversation with a friend in Spain.

"He told me it was a good opportunity, so in two weeks I got my passport and I left," he said.

During his eight years in Florida, he worked at Spanish and French restaurants and met his wife, Annmarie. The couple have two daughters and four grandchildren.

Although he never regretted moving to the United States, leaving his family, friends and familiar customs behind was difficult, he said.

The couple moved to Chicago's Beverly neighborhood, where Annmarie had grown up, in 1978 and Gervilla worked for the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant conglomerate for a few years. He became executive chef for Chicago tapas restaurant Café Ba-ba-reeba!, where he first met Plata, when it opened in 1985.

That same year, the family moved to Brookfield into a small ranch house where Gervilla and his wife still live. An avid gardener, Gervilla grows basil, tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, garlic, potatoes and other vegetables, plus flowers like tulips and Black-eyed Susans, in his "beautiful garden."

Gervilla took the plunge and opened his first restaurant in Hillside by taking a second mortgage on his home. Over the years, he has opened and sold other restaurants throughout the suburbs, his strategy always to find an existing restaurant, and convert it into a bar-and-dining area combo with Spanish decor.

"When one works for one's self, it's hard, but it's worth it," said Gervilla, who in his spare time likes to go hunting with his buddies and cook holiday feasts for friends.

In the nearly 20 years since he opened his first restaurant, his menus have featured about 9,000 tapas items, he estimated.

"Some worked better than others, and some people like to expand, and others don't. I always tell them to try it and give them a sample," he said. Items like kidney and liver, however, are simply just not popular anymore and are disappearing from his menus, he said.

Gervilla routinely participates in charitable initiatives to benefit Meals on Wheels and Ronald McDonald House Charities, among others.

"It's gone very well for me in this country, and one has to give to receive," he said. "One has to give to those who can't."