Bien Trucha’s new Wheaton restaurant to dish up ‘homey’ style of tacos

A lot of meaning is packed into the catchy name of the upcoming Wheaton restaurant from the owners of the Bien Trucha tacqueria in Geneva.

The “Chilango” in Sweetchilango is Mexican slang for someone from Mexico City. Julio Cano was born and raised there, as were most of his business partners.

“What we’re trying to achieve here is to bring a different kind of taco,” Cano says, “which is tacos de guisado, which is very, very popular, if not the most popular kind of taco in Mexico City.”

As Cano sees it, the name Sweetchilango also is sort of a play on words, a combination of “sweet, chill and go.” That speaks to a new style of restaurant for Cano and his team, who have been elevating the taco scene in Chicago’s western suburbs for nearly two decades.

When it opens in downtown Wheaton, Sweetchilango will be the first fast-casual adjacent restaurant from the Bien Trucha Group. Renderings for the space show beachy light fixtures over a long bar. It will have both a service counter and tables. And the tortilla machine will be front and center.

“We want people to see what we’re cooking, that it’s fresh, that it’s been made there in front of them,” Cano said.

As its name suggests, Sweetchilango will take on Mexico City-style tacos de guisado.

“It feels very homey,” Cano said. “It’s something that you’ll find in Mexican homes, so that’s what we’re trying to create here.”

The essential elements: a tortilla, there could be a base of rice and then the guisado. It’s generally thought of as a stewed mixture, but a range of braised fillings go into tacos de guisados.

“It could be chicken in some kind of sauce, green sauce or red sauce or an adobo or mole. It could be pork. It could just be potatoes and poblanos,” Cano said. “It could be eggs, like scrambled eggs with hot dogs. That’s very, very popular in Mexico City, too.”

With so many options and combinations of proteins, vegetables and sauces, the menu will rotate. “It’s going to be very seasonal,” Cano said.

That’s part of Bien Trucha’s DNA. At a toda madre — their chic restaurant in neighboring Glen Ellyn — you’ll find tacos al pastor topped with a half-moon of pineapple. A wintertime special, pozole verde was made with pork shoulder, hominy, blistered chile toreado, onion, thinly sliced radish, avocado and cabbage.

“Part of our success has been staying true to what we believe is quality. We would never compromise quality,” Cano said.

His family started Bien Trucha with a Geneva taqueria in 2007. They added partners and kept growing.

“Mexican cuisine is very, very unique per state. I think over the past few years in the States, there’s more and more knowledge about Mexican food, which is great,” Cano said, “because I think before it was … perceived just like Tex-Mex.”

At Quiubo in Naperville’s Water Street District, murals by Mexican street artist Spaik brighten the concrete walls, and the tacos de pescado are showered with cabbage dressed in chipotle-morita aioli. The restaurant group just opened Nacho Burger next door to Bien Trucha on Geneva’s State Street.

“We always were looking for a spot here,” Cano said of Wheaton, where three of the Bien Trucha partners live. “We were just looking for the right opportunity.”

That opportunity arose at the vacant corner of Hale and Front streets, previously occupied by Muldoon’s Irish Pub and Yia Mas. Renovations are underway, and the city council this week awarded a full liquor license for Sweetchilango.

People will be able to order from the service counter, at the bar or from their tables with their smartphones. The restaurant is expected to open in June and be part of the outdoor dining scene on Hale Street.

Cano hopes to replicate the concept across the Chicago area. And that could make Sweetchilango a household name.