A new restaurant brings the urban dining scene with an ethnic twist to DeKalb.

Mel Whitmer, owner of O’Leary’s Restaurant & Pub, 260 E. Lincoln Highway, and Filo Spinato’s, 241 E. Lincoln Highway, has opened up his third restaurant in DeKalb, a tapas bar called Tapalaluna, 226 E. Lincoln Highway.

With such diverse demographics in DeKalb, Whitmer wanted to serve them with his restaurants.

“With such a distance from an urban area like Chicago, we’ve found that in a demographic of this size in DeKalb, we have to be all things to all people,” Whitmer said. “Our success lies in the fact that we can actually create a very contemporary menu like this and offer a wide variety of things.”

With high gas prices and “stay-cations” being more commonplace these days, Whitmer wanted to give people in DeKalb a reason to stay in town.

“People want to stay local and we want to give them a reason to so they don’t have to go 65 miles to Chicago or someplace else to find what we offer here,” Whitmer said.

The tapas offered at Tapalaluna are not exactly authentic as they have been westernized for a contemporary twist. Among the menu items that make up the diverse selection are of course tapas but also items like salads, bruschetta, sliders and sushi.

Jeremy Adkins, head chef at Tapalaluna, is confident of his creations and is not worried about entering a saturated restaurant market.

“I think having the diversity is great,” Adkins said. “People are getting so much more adventurous that they like trying different things, and that’s why it’s so great to have so many restaurants in town.”

While most businesses have been cutting back their expenses, Whitmer has been able to branch out with Tapalaluna due to the great success of his restaurants serving between 3,500 to 5,000 people a week at O’Leary’s and Filo Spinato’s.

All Whitmer could say to the declining economy was, “What recession?”

And the success so far with Tapalaluna bodes well for its future as no advertising has been done, yet many of the curious were still at the opening.

“It’s terrific,” said Alex Schwartz, the director of the publishing house at NIU. “I’m a big sushi fan and it’s a great place to have in downtown DeKalb where the people seem really nice and the aesthetics are great.”