CHIReview
Included In
Picture it: Chicago, 2010. Randolph has yet to become “Restaurant Row.” Putting bacon in a dessert feels scandalous. And your server instructing you to “order two-to-three small plates per person'' is a novelty.
This is the space and time in which Girl & The Goat (located on, yes, Randolph) landed in the West Loop. Dessert bacon and family-style meals were happening here. The chef had just won Top Chef at the precipice of the “foodie” era, and the restaurant was suddenly someplace that both your Aunt in Florida and your torrid summer fling from Italy had heard of. It quickly became one of the hardest reservations to get in town, serving fusion dishes that the city hadn’t seen before.
The intriguing small plates menu read like a game of Mad Libs or maybe a ransom note—Corny Goat Bread, Roasted Pig Face, Yay For Apple. No one knew what they were ordering or what order it would arrive in, and no one cared. Dishes were complex, relentlessly rich, and often delicious. If a plate didn’t wow you, at the very least it was interesting, and there’d be another one following close behind.
But it’s been 12 years since Chicago’s most popular restaurant started serving goat empanadas topped with blueberries. And like our dating prospects over the past decade, the landscape has changed. Not only are small plates and inscrutable menus ubiquitous, but so are Goat restaurants. Now there’s a diner, a bakery, a Chinese spot, and a Peruvian rooftop restaurant perched on top of the Hoxton Hotel. They’ve become as prolific as films in the Fast & the Furious franchise, even releasing a Girl & the Goat sequel in LA.
So, is the original still a must-visit?
The post-pandemic menu is shorter compared to earlier days—like what we imagine a Girl & The Goat in O’Hare might serve. But there are still some well-executed dishes. The goat liver mousse comes with delicious butter-soaked crumpets, and a zingy craisin relish that cuts through the fat. A stern glance is enough to make the fatty pork shank fall off the bone, and it’s glazed with a sauce that has us licking our fingers. Tender duck tartare glistens with sesame oil, topped with acidic gooseberries, and tastes delightful when scooped up by flaky housemade crackers.
And Girl & the Goat remains wildly popular, though now you have a better chance of getting same-day reservations. But it’s still likely to be slammed, even during the week—with tourists, awkward dates, and out-of-towners escaping their work conferences at the Hyatt downtown. Service is as attentive as ever, taking and replacing your two-to-three small plates (per person) with efficiency without ever rushing you.
photo credit: Sandy Noto
But many of the convoluted small plates, the ones which have always been a cornerstone of this restaurant’s whimsical charm (sweet corn potato pierogies with bok choy cream and smoked tomato rhubarb chimichurri? Why not!), are no longer well-executed.
A meal here is now more confusing than charming. You’ll still find the goat empanadas. But the empanada shells are soaked in too much oil, and filled with a teensy amount of goat meat. The only thing you taste is corn from the shell and the smoked blueberries, which add a rubbery aftertaste reminiscent of a pencil eraser. The overly salted salmon poke is dragged down by a heavy miso-brown butter aioli, and unnecessarily topped with smoked beets. Why does an aioli need an injection of brown butter? Because it’s Girl & the F*cking Goat, and dishes are built to make you scan the room for a defibrillator.
The roasted oysters are swimming in sausage butter that adds no discernable porkiness to the mollusk. The wood-fired broccoli is on a mound of blue cheese dressing, and sprinkled with rice crispies that have no chance of retaining their snap, crackle, or pop against the onslaught of dairy.
Unless you want the specter of Tom and Padma from 2010 looming over your table while you ask yourself “Is this it?” during your meal, Girl & The Goat is no longer a must-visit. There’s nothing happening in the kitchen that makes it a place to prioritize over other restaurants. We prefer Giant for exciting small plates, or Rose Mary for fans of Top Chef. But, if you’re determined to cross a famous spot off your list, or want to split a pork shank with colleagues while avoiding Morningstar Investments’ keynote speaker, then by all means, make a reservation.
Food Rundown
Goat Liver Mousse
Duck Tartare
Roasted Oysters
photo credit: Sandy Noto
Wood-Grilled Broccoli
Goat Empanadas
photo credit: Sandy Noto