Gilt Bar

We had a somewhat strange and slightly disappointing dinner at Gilt last night.

Gilt occupies the former Aigre Dioux space behind the Merchandise Mart. Before we entered to restaurant to take a look at the complete overhaul they've done on the space, we were stopped at the door by a bouncer-type checking IDs. I can't say that I've ever been carded when entering a restaurant at 8pm. Not the best first impression to make IMO. Make no mistake, although this place has the word "bar" in the name, it is trying to be a restaurant first (at least at 8pm on a Saturday night).

The room is an odd mix of large tables, small tables, couches with tables, benches, etc. Fortunately we were seated at a proper table since I didn't really feel like eating dinner on the couch (I can do that at home).

We ordered a number of dishes from each section of the menu. Just to be sure we didn't get everything at once we requested a specific order of dishes from our server.

First round was a pork and duck pate and a beet salad with some apples, mint, and I think a nut of some kind. The pate was really nice and was served with some toasty/charred bread. The bread was warm, letting the pate melt a bit when spread on top. We needed more bread to finish the pate and Gilt decided to charge us an extra dollar for the privilege. Classy. I also enjoyed the beets. They sort of reminded me of Passover.

Next up were a couple of pastas. Gnocchi with brown butter and sage and a pappardelle with scallops. I liked the gnocchi (opinions at the table were mixed). They had a little bit of crisp on the outside, but were still generally light. They walked right up to the line of being oversalted, but overall I thought they were good. The pappardelle was just ok. I like the texture of the pasta but thought the pasta itself (when eaten without the sauce) was sort of bland.

I didn't know what bland was, however, until we got to our next round of dishes. We went with the pork meatballs and what the menu referred to as a "pork breast". Pork breast is apparently just pork belly. The plate had three thickly cut pieces of belly served on top of lentils. I have never had pork belly as bland and boring as this belly. Completely unseasoned. No texture on the outside. Just a mouthful of bland and boring fat/meat. The lentils tasted like dirt. I never send dishes back because they're not to my liking, but there was just no excuse for this. The waitress took it back and we got the pot roast instead. The pot roast was good, but no different than any other good pot roast that I've had. The pork meatballs were pretty good...crispy on the outside and moist and porky on the inside. We also had a couple of vegetable dishes with this round...some blackened cauliflower and grits with cheese. The cauliflower was actually one of the highlights of the night. Served with pickled onion and some chilis, it was probably a successful dish because it didn't really taste like cauliflower. The grits tasted alright but suffered from being on the watery side.

We skipped dessert, as it didn't sound like a real pastry program was up and running yet.

Drinks are mainly focused on beer and cocktails. I had a couple of sazeracs with my dinner. I'm no cocktail expert, but they were damn tasty and hard not to drink too fast.

Overall, an ok but not great dinner. Some highs (the pate, cauliflower, meatballs) and one insanely low low (pork breast). I think this place needs to figure out what it wants to be. It doesn't really occupy the same space as Purple Pig, but I think that's what it's trying to do (even though the Pig could kick this place's butt up and down the street). Is it a bar or a restaurant? Is it locally focused or not? Is it going to highlight suppliers/farmers or not? It seems like it wants to do all of these things but doesn't fully commit (we asked what the source of an 18oz ribeye was and we were told "Iowa". Pass). I think unless Gilt gets these things figured out it will fall victim to its cursed location.

Gilt Bar
230 West Kinzie Street
Chicago, IL 60654-4908
(312) 464-9544

jesteinf wrote:We needed more bread to finish the pate and Gilt decided to charge us an extra dollar for the privilege. Classy.

It doesn't really occupy the same space as Purple Pig, but I think that's what it's trying to do (even though the Pig could kick this place's butt up and down the street)

The extra bread is one of those little details that doesn't seem big, but makes an impression...it's also one of the things The Purple Pig gets right. Not only was the extra bread free, but when the manager (or owner, perhaps...never figured that out) saw we had pork gravy leftover but were out of bread, he insisted on giving us some more (If I recall correctly, his words were, "Dude, you gotta have some more bread, seriously, it's no big deal"). Made us feel welcome.

jesteinf -

I was at Gilt Bar last night for a late meal and had a similar experience. I was kinda taken aback when I walked in and someone was standing in front of me blocking the door asking for an ID. Although it was later, around 10ish, it just seemed odd to me that I got carded to go into a restaurant. Or what I thought was a restaurant.

Last night was actually my 2nd visit. I was there on Thursday night and things seemed nice. A cool space, not very crowded, no 'bouncer' and got a table right away. The service was great, not particularly fast, but knowledgeable and pleasant. Although I didn't eat a full dinner that night, I did have the roasted bone marrow small plate. I thought it was quite excellent. This being my first time having marrow but always wanting to try, I can't really compare. But from reading other posts on it here, I think it was how it is supposed to be served/roasted. It wasn't runny, it more gelatinous, sort of like a deliciously melting fat. I really enjoyed it. It came with the same bread that you described above and it was 3 really big pieces of bone sliced in half. I've usually seen it as round little bones that you scrape out. But this was a bone sliced in half. Not sure if this is better or worse but it did make it easy to scrape it out onto the bread. My buddy had the croque madame of which he gave me a little sample. It was also quite good and HUGE. There's was 2 eggs on it I think and the 'salt pork' as described on the menu was little chunks of pork. The pork bits were a little over done, maybe just overly crispy, but still tasted pretty good. Overall the sandwich had some really great flavors. The only downfall was even with my little piece, the bread got extremely soggy. Which I guess is a given if you pile eggs, gruyere, pork onto some bread. Again, still tasted very good.

The GF wanted to try it last nite as she lives nearby. There was a bit of a wait as the place was pretty packed. We decided to stick it out and a couple seats opened up at the bar. Being really into cocktails lately I was excited to try theirs as the bartender from the Whistler was a consultant on the cocktail menu. I ordered a sazerac, kinda my go to right now and the GF got the Death's Door Daisy, which is Death's Door Vodka, St. Germain, grapefruit maybe, a couple other things thrown in, can't remember exactly. The only vodka they serve at Gilt is Death's Door from Wisconsin. Both were really excellent and right up there with cocktails I've had from VH and Deville. The bartenders were very cool and outgoing and we started making small talk. He started talking a little bit on how business has been this week. He said that on Friday, the bar was 4 rows deep waiting for drinks. The bar is pretty tiny, about 15 ft. long and there's usually 3 bartenders and he said it's getting tough for them to make the cocktails fast enough and people are starting to complain. They are not slow by any means, they make the drinks as any other cocktail bar would, but I think it's the clientele that is the problem here. Think about what's around there, Bull and Bear, some other clubby places, these are the people that are starting to go to Gilt Bar and I think this is where its indentity is getting confused. Hence the 'bouncer' and people complaining the drinks take too long. They actually started premixing some of the cocktail and juices as to speed up the process. Which I don't really agree with, but if they want to survive and this is what type of people are coming in, you gotta do what you gotta do I guess.

For food the GF got the Parpadelle with mushrooms and truffle oil. Now I'm no pasta connoisseur, But this was some of the tastiest pasta I've ever had. I never order pasta in a restaurant and don't really care for it too much but this was damn tasty. The mushrooms were just tiny little bits mixed in with truffle oil that lightly coated the pasta. The trufflle oil was pretty heavy which is probably why it was so good. You could put truffle oil on an old dancin' boot and it would be tasty. I got a house salad, which was basically, salad, tasty dressing, but nothing special. For $5 it was a pretty big plate o' lettuce. We also split the chicken which is Gunthorp and it as very good too. It was basically spiced, S & P with lots of roasted garlic just sitting right on top of the meat. Although it was good, not something I was blown away by, not even close to Publican's roast chicken. The GF also got the roasted brussel sprouts which she liked. They were nice and crispy with a good amount of salt. I only had a couple bites as I think brussel sprouts are vile.

All in all, I think it's a decent place for that area. I'm not dying to return and eat but it's nice to no that there's a place around there to get a good cocktail. But as jesteinf said, it needs to figure out what it wants to be. It was in every publication last week which is probably why it was so packed last weekend. I guess we'll have to wait and see it it figures itself out or gives into the Location of the Damned.

I went Friday night with my partner and some friends from our building. No bouncer outside, and felt very much like a restaurant--sort of a gastropub and Violet Hour mixed. My martini made of Smalls gin was great--the wine person had been the asst. sommelier at L20 and very knowledgeable.

We went crazy ordering--in fact, our server put in our orders (5 persons) in five courses. The bone marrow was great (reminded me of Minetta Tavern in NYC), as was the gnocchi and also the burrata. The rib steak was very good, but believe it or not, the hands down winner was the swordfish steak. Apparently they have a charcoal grill and it had a very smoky flavor that I loved. We had so much stuff, I can't remember, but I thought things were of very high quality.

This is still their first week of a soft opening, so I'll give them a month to get it all together but overall, I was very pleased. Living in the area (Kingsbury/Ontario) I will go back and back.

Oh, BYOB...we brought two bottles of wine. BYOB was no corkage but a requirement we shared a glass with the next table, which we did. They ended up ordering a bottle and shared a glass back.

For me, I liked it.

In spite of the mixed reviews here about the food, the involvement of The Whistler's Paul McGee in the beverage program puts Gilt Bar at the top of my list of destinations. The man is a master, as far as I'm concerned.

=R=

Any connection between this place and the over-the-top bar of the same name in NY at the Palace? If not, hmmm.

ronnie_suburban wrote:In spite of the mixed reviews here about the food, the involvement of The Whistler's Paul McGee in the beverage program puts Gilt Bar at the top of my list of destinations. The man is a master, as far as I'm concerned.

=R=

My sazerac was certainly one of the highpoints of the meal.

JeffB wrote:Any connection between this place and the over-the-top bar of the same name in NY at the Palace? If not, hmmm.

As far as I know, there is no connection.

No relationship at all.

I'm probably going to go back for dinner (although the menu looked unexciting to me), but I was also taken aback by the "bouncer" at the door last Friday when I went for after dinner drinks at around 8:30. I'm not really sure what Gilt wants to be - a bar or a restaurant? The restaurant portion takes up a significant portion of the space, so I would assume they would want to be an eating destination first, then a drinking one second. So why the bouncer checking IDs at the door? I also wasn't impressed by my sidecar. Pretty weak and unmemorable.

Gotta be honest that I was underwhelmed with my visit. Fun bar with Bristol-like drinks (a good thing). Creative and exciting corkage policy. I loved the foie-mousse and the truffled pasta, but the rest of the meal was fairly unexciting, with the most disappointing thing being the chicken that was burnt-charred on the outside and fairly cold and pink inside. They brought us out a new one, which was better but still tasted of char. I think they need to take it easy on the grilling as a couple of dishes had the same charred flavor that I found overwhelming. By the way, service was very good. Will probably give it another shot given the corkage and service.

Met some friends at Gilt Bar last night and I thought the food was spot on



Foie in a jar

loved the bone marrow

the parsley added a much needed sharpness to the marrow & sweet onions

only had a bite of the pasta but it was well done

really enjoyed my pork belly but I had to bring the third slab home

I skipped dessert, too full, I did have a bite of the mint chip ice cream
and it was very well made with great fresh mint flavor and I don't like mint...

Fiancee and I had dinner at Gilt Bar at 9pm on Wednesday. To my surprise, the place was packed with 20-somethings. All the ladies wore dresses and perfume, and the gentlemen in suits and cologne. I felt a little queasy as soon as I walked through the door - akin to getting smacked in the face when entering a Bath & Body Works store. Once we were sat the smell dissipated.

tenderloin steak tartare with slow poached egg yolk, shallots & capers


ham & cheese fondue with toasted sourdough & fried farm egg

REALLY heavy. This almost put me down for the count.

slow roasted duroc pork belly with french curry braised lentils & parsley salad

I had a different reaction than jesteinf - I thoroughly enjoyed the pork belly - very tender and well seasoned.

spoon tender beef pot roast with red wine & glazed root vegetables

Once again, I had the opposite reaction than that of jesteinf. If I was going to send something back, it would have been this. I didn't hate it by any means, but it was definitely the more bland of the two. The meat was well cooked, and despite the dish swimming in sauce I didn't taste anything.

We decided to go with a side of cornbread because we had heard amazing things.



Wow. They were amazing. The highlight of the meal. Moist, buttery, and sweet.

All in all, it was an enjoyable dinner and I would come here again, but before the night crowd.

Are they still checking IDs at the door?

Well, they didn't check ours.

I go to Gilt Bar on the order of once or twice a month since they opened and I've never had them ask for my ID (I've only gone for dinner, not to sit at the bar).

incite wrote:Well, they didn't check ours.

DutchMuse wrote:I go to Gilt Bar on the order of once or twice a month since they opened and I've never had them ask for my ID (I've only gone for dinner, not to sit at the bar).

Perhaps neither of you have Josh's baby face? Seriously though, they checked my ID at the door, and I look at least 27.
--Rich

You've got a point on that one, RAB.

I AM 27, and despite my facial hair, I'm sporting an 18 year old baby face. I guess it comes down to how many people are there to dine and how many people are there to drink...?

In fairness, I went right after they opened so the policy may have changed. I hope it has.

Thanks for the beautiful pictures, Incite. I was doing some research because I'm going to Gilt tonight. I'm hoping we have a good dinner since the reviews are mixed. Definitely getting that corn bread if it is on the menu.

toni d.