Mini reviews: GG’s Chicken Shop, Itoko and Little Goat Diner, the new all-day dining destination in Chicago
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Stephanie Izard may be the best-known chef of the three who just opened a trio of new restaurants in a historic building in Chicago.
Then again, the concepts are not quite new. Little Goat Diner moved from its prominent place in the West Loop to a side street in Lakeview. Next door, GG’s Chicken Shop found a permanent home in the front corner space, after starting as a virtual pandemic restaurant out of a Michelin-starred kitchen in Lincoln Park. Then there’s Itoko, which means cousin in Japanese, and actually a new concept that could be considered a junior sibling to the well-established Momotaro.
I wouldn’t normally do mini reviews of three restaurants with two that really just moved, but these aren’t normal restaurants — or chefs for that matter. They’ve transformed more than the former Southport Lanes with their partners at the Boka Restaurant Group. They’ve changed the atmosphere on their corner of the Southport Corridor to an all-day dining destination. It’s a strange stretch, with $3 million homes in what feels like a faux city neighborhood set in the suburbs.
GG’s Chicken Shop, Itoko and Little Goat Diner could be an extension of the multimillion-dollar houses around the block.
Yet each restaurant is better than it needs to be, albeit with varying degrees of success.
They’ve done stunning work with the space inside and out, down to three distinctly designed outdoor sidewalk patios protected with umbrellas. It’s a bit bittersweet that no sense of the old bowling alley remains.
It was a brothel even further back, and I wish we could honor the people who were sex workers with more than a titillating mention.
The following mini reviews are listed in alphabetical order. They’re not starred, because while I did visit the restaurants more than once, typically we fully dine twice before rating.
GG’s Chicken Shop
Chef Lee Wolen, best known for Boka in Lincoln Park, named GG’s Chicken Shop for his mother, Geri Simon, and it’s even better than expected for a Michelin-starred son’s tribute to his mom.
The crispy fried chicken sandwich has become a fan favorite for good reason at the counter-service lunch and dinner shop. If you’re thinking, “Not another fried chicken sandwich (with breast meat at that!),” hear me out. Or at least try to, if the crackling crust isn’t too loud, giving in to juicy flesh, touched with spicy mayo and hot honey, shrouded by a cool cabbage slaw, on a bed of housemade bread and butter pickles, all held on a toasted brioche bun. It’s a Michelin-starred chef’s take on peak Popeyes mania.
But GG’s was always meant to be a rotisserie chicken restaurant. Get the whole chicken meal to best appreciate the impeccably roasted skin, especially across the back hiding the prized nuggets known as chicken oysters. The sauces are stunning as well — barbecue, chimichurri, garlic ranch and honey mustard — each made with the care of an Escoffier saucier.
Then there are the sides, quite frankly my favorite part of just about any meal. Here, almost every one is outstanding. GG’s mac and cheese holds an incredibly intense concentration of golden sauce. Crispy Brussels sprouts are beautifully seasoned with chile and lime. Sweet corn elote captures summer with cotija and chipotle. Even a broccoli slaw with almonds, raisins and lemon poppy seed dressing transcends what could be a fancy deli salad with too many ingredients by striking a refreshing balance.
The chicken drippings smashed potatoes on the other hand, sound like all my favorite food groups put together, so expectations were high. But they’re just nice mashed potatoes. A mixed green salad set no such bar, and sadly none were met without unsightly wilted leaves, my pet peeve with greens.
That crispy fried chicken sandwich can substitute cauliflower instead, but don’t do it. They’re generous florets, but so surprisingly soggy, losing the point of the lovely crust.
An oatmeal cream pie is an excellent excuse to eat two chewy cookies sandwiching a sweet creamy filling. The chocolate dirt pudding is seriously delightful, topped by gummy worms, with chocolate cookie crumbs over a deep, dark custard. It’s not just kid’s stuff.
Nor is the kid’s meal, with big crispy chicken tenders, cloaked in the signature fried crust, plus wonderful waffle fries seasoned with spice rub. There was no age limit on the meal (now 10 and under), so I wished the drink choices weren’t just apple juice or chocolate milk — maybe something a little more grown-up off the menu to toast the fantastic GG’s instead.
3325 N. Southport Ave., 773-819-7671, ggchickenshop.com
Itoko
Chef Gene Kato, best known for Momotaro in the West Loop, named Itoko for the Japanese word for cousin, but it feels like a more distant relation, who lives across some choppy seas.
The must-order dish at the dinner-only restaurant might be the TCD, or tuna chirashi don, which literally translates to “scattered tuna bowl.” But there’s nothing scattered about it. A precise puck of finely sliced toro, or belly meat, is crowned with a heaping scoop of Kaluga caviar and pickled onion cubes over perfect sushi rice, with a side of small nori sheets. After taking a moment to admire the presentation, it’s time for TCB (taking care of business, baby!) and that’s the making and immediate eating of exquisite DIY hand rolls.
I had originally meant to review Itoko alone, but after three attempts to order the 10-day dry-aged bluefin tuna, subject to availability, it just wasn’t available. But before the aforementioned DIY hand rolls, I went to wash my hands and realized all three restaurants were connected by a back hallway, a hint to the building’s past as a real speak-easy. It would’ve been an oversight to not consider the trio together.
Back at Itoko, the haru yuzu nonalcoholic cocktail began the evening with promise. Haru means spring, and it thoughtfully reflected the season’s greenness with a perilla leaf set against the flavors of yuzu, an Asian citrus fruit.
A pair of hearty robata grill sliders with beef tsukune, more flattened and elongated than meatballs, served on housemade bao buns, held no aroma of charcoal or grilling, and could’ve been steamed alongside the strangely sticky spongy bread.
The three-piece set of hand rolls with tuna, scallop and salmon were artistically composed, with so many elements that clearly took time, from puffed soba to avocado mousse to my ultimate weakness, crispy salmon skin. But time is the enemy of hand rolls. When they hit the table, I could see the nori had wrinkled, becoming tough and choking to chew.
The donatsu, or doughnut, is served in two parts. The warm pastry ring with chocolate ganache sits on a plate over a bowl of matcha semifreddo. They are delicious separately, but seem disjointed together, and a heavy option among just a few desserts, for a dinner that’s otherwise light.
The junior yakitori don on the kids menu (no age limit!) has the better dessert with semifreddo. But first excuse my squees from just a memory of the kawaii-cute Totoro bento box holding grilled chicken thigh, a soft poached egg, gai lan and rice. That meal ends with a matcha taiyaki, the fish-shaped cake.
Speaking of fish, if you’re wondering, the menu states, “All of our tuna is ethically and sustainably sourced from Bluefina.” Bluefiná is a farmed tuna company. Wild bluefin tuna remains on the avoid list of the Seafood Watch site by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
But the farmed fish is also controversial regarding questions of sustainability. It’s complicated and I can tell you from experience that what’s supposed to happen on the ocean isn’t always the truth of what ends up on your plate. But I don’t want to fixate on tuna, like we did on foie gras, as an easy distracting target.
At Itoko, one of the real prizes is the perfect pearlescent rice, so valued in Japan that the best grains never go over any seas.
3325 N. Southport Ave., 773-819-7672, itokochicago.com
Little Goat Diner
Stephanie Izard, best known for Girl & the Goat in the West Loop, moved her beloved Little Goat Diner from its original corner on the restaurant row of Randolph Street. (The chef’s obsession with goats, by the way, goes back to the Pyrenean chamois, a goat and antelope called an izard or isard in Catalan and French, respectively.)
The new diner is truly little, a fraction of the size of the old location. And it’s stylishly retro, inspired not by the ’50s, but the ’70s, as the chef told me when we spoke about the opening.
But Izard seems to be in her chile crisp era, sometimes resulting in too many flavors that are somehow not enough.
Don’t get me wrong. I love OG Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp, with the vintage photo of founder Tao Huabi watching from the label. But it’s best when there’s a neutral flavor played against it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wolfed down nothing but big red spoonfuls over bowls of hot white rice.
This Little Piggy, an all-day fan favorite breakfast sandwich from the original diner, made the move to Lakeview, with its Sichuan-spiced pork sausage patty, a sunny-side-up egg, scallion cheddar biscuit, blackberries and chile garlic chive sauce. It’s a sandwich in name, but better as a fork-and-knife dish, or possibly a spoon. But I want one more flavor buffer between that buttery biscuit and spiced patty, the latter of which reminds me more of Cantonese steam minced pork, (not that that’s a bad thing, since it’s the nostalgic meatloaf of my childhood).
Do note the breakfast sandwiches, including bacon kimchi and chile crunch biscuits, are solely available between 7 and 10 a.m. at the Grab N’ Goat walk-up window.
My plan was to get some sandwiches from the window, then sit down for service too.
I got there with 15 minutes to spare, but stood outside ignored by the busy staff inside. Was the window working? The chef had said they were waiting on a part. But signs on the sidewalk said it was open?
After too many awkward questions with myself, I just asked for a table from the friendly host, and was rewarded with terrific hospitality from a super server.
But in that time, we learned the lesson that it was too late for some of the breakfast sandwiches, which surprised my server as well, since he usually works dinner.
The Little Goat latte consoled any loss with soothing warm spices and judicious sweetness.
The new cinna-monkey bread was all about the icing, according to the chef. But the pull-apart cinnamon biscuit bites are kind of a simple genius, negating the need for utensils.
The Ribeye Sammie, with havarti cheese, mashed avocado, caramelized onion and caper herb dressing on ciabatta bread was generous, but just had too many big flavors jammed into one sandwich.
Broccoli with Sichuan everything crunch, which my server said was one of his favorite dishes, was overwhelmed and again obsessed with chile crisp flavor.
Delightfully oversize banana and blueberry muffins, the kind where the tops wear a skirt begging to be bitten into, should have us sending one clear message: Bring back Sugargoat bakery, please! A peanut butter cookie holds a hint of bold, almost burned flavor that’s nostalgic and elusive, which I love. Izard’s own favorite cookie, the spiced pecan brown butter, crumbles in bites of brave and balanced flavors.
The Sugargoat fry pie, formerly known as the chocolate French fry pie, was inspired by what’s become the classic flavor combo of dipping Wendy’s fries into a Frosty, of which I am not a fan. This pie though, takes crunchy chocolate-covered potato matchsticks, over a silky malted chocolate filling, in a French fry crumble crust far beyond its fast-food origin story.
And in a slice, it shows just so many flavors can be enough.
3325 N. Southport Ave., 773-819-7673, littlegoatchicago.com
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