Spring or Green Zebra?

Okay this will be for a bday dinner (not till Dec so plenty of time to make a reservation) for a vegetarian who eats fish as well. I was thinking Green Zebra would be nice as it seems to fit the veggie bill, but also seem to think Spring does quite a bit of fish, correct (never been to either)?.
Which would you prefer, or would you recommend someting else in the Bucktown/Wicker/Ukie area??
I want it to be a special meal but that does not require a pretentious air or anything and neither of us will really care too much about a wine list.
Thanks-
Jamie

I am a fan of both restaurants and would highly recommend either choice. Here are a few more facts to help guide you:

-Spring serves primarily asian-influenced seafood dishes with a few non-seafood options.

-Green Zebra serves about 80% vegetarian dishes, all in a small-plate format. Figure 5-6 small plates for two people. Many of the dishes at GZ are also asian-influenced.

-Spring is slightly more upscale and slightly more expensive than GZ. I wouldn't call either of them pretentious. They both have excellent service that is very comfortable.

-Both have a calm decor, but GZ has more of a bistro-vibe to the crowd.

In my opinion, if you want it to feel more like a special evening, for the total-package, go for Spring. It's one of my go-to places for special events.

Best,
EC

For my recent birthday, I decadently treated my wife and I to both, on consecutive nights. We obviously think alike, as they were my two final choices. Here are some thoughts:
1. Spring has slightly more upscale atmosphere. It's a large and very nice room. Green Zebra is more compact and and a bit noiser.
2. Spring has a fairly standard menu, with Asian influenced French dishes. There is a heavy emphasis on fish and seafood. Green Zebra attempts to be more creative and challenging. There may be some grand slams, but there may be some misses.
3. As EC mentions, Spring is the traditional amuse, appetizer, main course, dessert style, while Green Zebra is all small plate food. We ate three each, and my wife had dessert.

Personally, I thought Green Zebra was one of the best meals I've had in years. My review is posted elsewhere here. I thought all the dishes good, and some were just amazing. I was not as thrilled with the my dishes at Spring, although my wife's were great. I had a fantastic appetizer, but a rather bland main dish and dessert. I think I just caught an off dish or two, because everything my wife had was great.

At its core, I think the choice is between more upscale atmosphere or more challenging cuinse.

Enjoy!

Lordy, shake-up in the McClain empire:

Via Chicago Magazine's Dish wrote:Shawn McClain’s foamin’ empire is getting a shakeup. McClain is replacing himself as chef de cuisine at Spring (2039 W. North Ave.; 773-395-7100), his Wicker Park baby, with Darin Biek, his old sous at Trio back in the nineties.

At Green Zebra (1460 W. Chicago Ave.; 312-243-7100), McClain’s veggie paradise, chef Michael Bulkowski has been replaced with Christine Kim, a former tournant at Spring. (Bulkowski went home to Ohio.)

And Richard Camarota, over from Cafe Spiaggia (980 N. Michigan Ave.; 312-280-2750), will be the chef de cuisine at McClain’s summer project, Custom House (Hotel Blake; 500 S. Dearborn St.).

As if all this weren’t confusing enough, Spiaggia’s Tony Mantuano says that he “traded” Camorata to McClain for Spring’s general manager, Jason Goldsmith.

Beth and I were planning on going to GZ sometime next week, so hopefully we'll be able to report on whether Christine Kim is filling the new role well.

I'm interested in this new project - does anyone know anything about Custom House, or the Hotel Blake, for that matter? I'm clueless on both counts.

Right! Seriously, I read Morsels today and thought to myself "what in the heck is the Hotel Blake at 500 S. Dearborn?" I think that is the old Hyatt and the old Printer's Row space.

The new restaurant is in the old Prairie space. I know I've read more about McClain's ideas for it..

Here we go. Dish from Feb 23:

When Shawn McClain (Spring, Green Zebra) opens a place, it’s an event, so we’re looking ahead to June, when his Custom House is scheduled to open in the old Prairie space (Hotel Blake; 500 S. Dearborn St.). “It’s not a steak house, but it will definitely have more masculine food than his previous outings,” says Jenn Galdes, the restaurant’s publicist. Keep an eye on this one.

I'll take a position and vote for Green Zebra over Spring. Mainly, because it's about time veggie is the main attraction, and executed so very excellently as well. I also am partial to smaller plates, which allows you to order a wider variety of dishes.

Hopefully, with the success of Green Zebra, other Chicago chefs will expand their veggie focus.

I am a confirmed carnivore, and would happily give up meat if all vegetable dishes are prepared as creatively and elegantly as those at Green Zebra.

I just posted a mini-review of Spring on the site that shall not be named and thought to re-post a slightly-altered vs. here:

I dined at Spring this past Saturday. Wow! They're running on fumes. The waitress didn't know the small wine list and made innapropriate amusing(?) remarks. I was underwhelmed by the oxtail wonton/Thai broth app.: the filling tasted desultorily of middling pot roast and and the broth was hardly Thai---bland, vaguely citrusy...a bit of a shrug. Friend's app. of tuna tartare fared much better, but I'm over tuna tartare---still, that was the one to order. Out of sheer perversity I chose the chicken dish(chicken skin crisp, chicken planks, trumpet mushrooms, pork belly, chicken jus, polenta cake). Not good. If they got rid of the oversalted, dry chicken meat and bizarre polenta cake(it was coated in something granular and displeasing) leaving the chicken skin crisp, pork belly, mushrooms and broth they'd have an excellent appetizer.

This was an unfortunately middling meal chosen by a visiting friend who wanted to try a Shawn McClain restaurant(we steered him away from Green Zebra and Custom House). To spotlight matters, he enjoyed a supposedly stellar meal at Scylla the next night.

...my fellow diners all chose seafood and fared better if not still circling mediocre...

we dined at Spring last night. After much deliberation about where to go for our anniversary, this won out...we had been wanting to try it and it fit the budget. I made reservations and told them the occasion - could they be sure to give us a quiet table? To which they said "of course we can".....I will come back to this point in a minute.

We walked in to the hostess dealing with very unhappy customers who were choosing to leave - while we didn't hear the whole event, it wasn't the best thing to witness first. Another host asked us to sit at the bar, our table would be ready in a minute. 25 minutes later and one very slow bartender who forgot one of our drinks, we finally sat down. Our "quiet table" was next to the wait station, where there is, obviously, a lot of activity and clinking/clanging. The place was packed or we would have asked to move, but really the whole restaurant is quite loud.

We shared the tuna tartare, which was good. Not much to remark. We shared two entrees, one being Maine scallops with roasted-eggplant filled raviolis and roasted tomatoes. Very nicely cooked scallops, not overdone. Duck with figs and proscuttio and mushrooms was alright. The whole plate was esentially the same tan color and soft consistency; when I think about it now I want to cry. It could have been much better.

We had a bottle of pinot noir, and to finish it we ordered two cheeses. I can't remember their names but they were good and came with the usual accompanyments.

After tip, 210$.

Oh Well.

leesh wrote:While I love Green Zebra, I've had issues with the service at both GZ and at the Custom House (both restaurants of Chef McClain). I went for dinner with friends to GZ on Friday night and had the same personality-less, seemingly bothered-by-the-customer waiter that I had the last time (it appeared to be a chore for him to bring the soup spoons that didn't arrive with the soup, among other requests). Tho at this reataurant the food so shines that I can overlook a mediocre server. On Sunday friends and I went to brunch at the Custom House. The room is indeed nice - modern and modestly decorated (think crate and barrel modern). The service however was terrible. the food was good, flavorful, but when combined with portion size, price and service - this is not necessarily a standout restaurant imo. The server had such a thick accent that we had to ask someone else to repeat the specials, he forgot to bring out a few items that had been ordered as sides (there were only 3 other tables in the entire restaurant - so not a busy day by any means), and when he spilled an entire pot of coffee- a portion of which landed on one of our dining companions - he immediately tended to what spilled on him (the coffee was a nice warm temp - not a scalding hot temp) without assisting her, and when another of our guests directed the question "are you okay" to our friend, the waiter responded - "yes, i'm okay - I'll be back in a moment". we fetched napkins to clean up our friend. no apology from anyone. it wasn't a major upset to our brunch, but we all thought it should have been handled better than our server did.

the only reason i would ever justify going there again would be for drinks with an old friend who's a bartender there.

Messycook - I posted the above info on another thread - tho I was referring to Custom House. But it doesn't surprise me that Spring, another of Chef McClain's restaurants, has the same problem with service. It's such a shame, as I think his food is creative, and I honestly love the food at Green Zebra and would recommend the restaurant to anyone. The service does leave something to be desired, especially when taking cost into account.

I ate at Spring about a year ago and service was bad. I ate some kind of Tuna roll ( I think it was a special) and as I was finishing, I noticed a piece of plastic (saran wrap I believe) I put it aside and waited for the waiter to come back. I pointed the plastic and he was just like" mmm sorry" and walked away; I was already annoyed by the server since he was not even trying to be polite or just do a good job. Anyway, I decided not to let it bother me too much and continued my dinner. After a couple of days I go more annoyed by the service and the lack of professionalism ( specially since the meal was about $175 or so for two people) so I emailed the restaurant and explain in a nice way what happened...never got a response. So, I never came back.


PS: Hi everyone!!! Long time lurker, first time poster.