Green Zebra

My sister, mother and I went a few weeks ago to Green Zebra. We heard great things, but were extremely disappointed by the quality of service and mediocre food. It took a while to be seated even with a reservation. Our waitress Sarah was too distracted helping a larger/​higher tipping table next to us as she left half way into talking our order to clean it off. As a result, our drinks were not what we asked for. We intended to order more food due to the small portions but our waitress never came to check up on us so we paid and went to another restaurant. We do not plan on going back.

As a vegetarian, finding restaurants with innovative vegetarian dishes can be tricky at times, so I am very happy that I finally got to try Green Zebra! I have been meaning to check it out, and ended up going for the first time during Restaurant Week. Everything about the experience was great. The food was delicious — I shared the items with my date and thought every dish was really good. We tried the beets, fried kale, butternut soup, north indian stew, and for dessert the chocolate cremaeux and the stout cake. I would definitely order any of those items again. I also really liked the restaurant itself. It is very earthy and has great ambiance. I also appreciated that it was kept warm inside in case you want to dress up and not be buried under a sweater. Only downside-​the name of the restaurant is not marked on the outside so it was difficult to find. Other than that completely great experience! I will come here again for sure.

Seriously!!! Green Zebra what restaurant has their Restaurant Week menu posted in Choose Chicago’s website for the promotion and then totally changes it. Thank God I just checked it out because honestly nothing really interests me in your RW menu now, so I am going to cancel my reservation and dine elsewhere. Your original menu was so enticing that the first two courses I couldn’t decide which items I would choose. Additionally I was planning on ordering one of the two items left and that was an equally hard decision. I am not faulting you for changing your menu due to seasonal changes and availability which I can understand may have happened on your regular menu, however knowing that a seasonal change is on the horizon means you should have waited to post and publicize it. The moral of my complaint is, if you don’t have a menu prepared for Choose Chicago when they put the menus on their site in January then don’t post one. Not all of the restaurants that I checked had menus posted. However, I did notice that those that hadn’t posted them initially had them posted once they had complete them at a later date. Something YOU should consider instead of baiting and switching.

I was disappointed with the Green Zebra. We visited for dinner during Restaurant Week, and the restaurant was indeed cold. I usually eat vegetarian, and I’ve eaten at a number of vegetarian places both in Chicago and on the West Coast which offered more interesting and tasty fare. Strangely enough, my friends who are both meat-​eaters thought the dinner was good. Because I usually love beets, I had the beet salad, which was rather bland here. The red lentil soup was nice on a cold evening, but just a typical lentil soup. The risotto cake was my least favorite dish. It too seemed bland. Neither of the desserts was very good; they had a number of ingredients, but there was always too much of one taste and not enough of another.

Came for restaurant week and got to try a lot of dishes. Didn’t really miss meat at all which is key if I am eating a vegetarian dinner. Liked all the dishes I had and the 3 desserts we had were all fantastic. Service was friendly and great.
Only criticism I have is that the kimchi tofu dumplings shouldn’t be served deep fried in my opinion. I think they should be pan fried or steamed instead of deep fried.

We were here for restaurant week!
Everything we ate on the fixed menu was delicious! My favorite was probably the kimchi potstickers.
The service was amazing, very attentive and helpful, we really felt taken care of.
My friend I came with isn’t a vegetarian so bring your omnivore friends here without fear, the quality of the food is something anyone can appreciate it.
It’s really nice to have gourmet vegetarian food so I would really recommend this experience though it’s obviously pricier than your average meal.

Make sure you go out for some family style Italian food after this place because the meal is basically an appetizer. Went for restaurant week and the menu was very overpriced for what you actually got. I ordered off the regular menu and my husband ordered off the restaurant week menu and we were both very disappointed with the portions and price. The polenta was decent size and delicious though. The plates came out about 20 – 25 minutes apart from one another and we were there for almost two hours, kind of ridiculous for the price we paid. I’ve given Green Zebra a couple chances and won’t be going back.

I am so angry at myself that I took way too long to check out this place because now I want to go back always. It was amazing to have fancy vegetarian food that did not make you miss the meat/​seafood at all. I want to take all my veggie friends here and the omnivores to convert them to the wonders of fancy food made completely vegetarian.
The best dish was hands down the mushroom pâté — we came very close to licking the dish and ordering a second plate of it. Everything else (gnocchi, brussel sprouts, and other things I can’t recall for the overwhelming and glaring love of the pâté) was great too. I can’t wait to return.

Food was mediocre at best, served lukewarm, and unnecessarily salty. Way too expensive for what you get, especially with tapas style dishes at $ 10−15/plate. Ordered 3 dishes per person and went home to eat second dinner. Really disappointed.

The food was fresh and very complex with wonderfully balanced flavors. The ambience is very welcoming and upscale. The only qualm i have is with the price compared to the portion. It is rather expensive for small portions.

Neighborhood gem
I recently moved across the street from Green Zebra and couldn’t be happier to be their neighbor. I will definitely be a regular. Everything about our meal was outstanding! Easily one of the best meals I’ve had this year! The presentation was gorgeous and the flavors so bold you don’t even miss the meat. The mushroom pâté and pumpkin cheesecake were to die for! Wish they did carry out.

This place is a real treat but it’s another place that I feel could go to the next level in terms of vegan cuisine in Chicago and start making their own vegan cheeses as I think they have the expertise to do it well. Going completely vegan would make this place a five star place easily. This is also a romantic place with a great environment. All of the menu items I had a vegetarian were stellar but, since going vegan in August, I can eat much less of the menu. I still can find some things but again they should move up to the next level of cuisine given their caliber.

order the tasting menu for black truffle! you will be amazed! Everything is very flavourful yet not too overwhelmingly rich. I like the truffle icecream the best! I never thought you can infuse a rich truffle flavour into ice cream, you need to try it out, truly amazing.
Other than the tasting menu, I would suggest the mushroom pâté, I read the reviews on Unilocal about it, and decided to give it a try. There is a reason so many ppl liked it, you will definitely not regret!!!

Food was very good, but I would expect more at this price point. They have several (10) main dishes and (3) side dishes that can be made vegan. So I would recommend this spot for a «nice date» if you are vegan.
My favorite dishes were the Lettuce Salad, Somen Noodle, and Spice Tofu.

Oh Green Zebra, what high expectations I had of you. I was so excited to visit and taste this vegetarian cuisine but was truly disappointed by the entire experience. Let’s start from the beginning. The ambiance is enjoyable, although a little warm. We waited no longer than 10 minutes for our table, with a reservation. We never received our waitress’ name but she did ask if we had ever been before. Both my date and I had not been. She did not tell us anything we could not read on the menu, no recommendations, etc. The drink menu is decent and I ordered «It tastes like fall» which was delicious just pretty weak alcohol level speaking and my date ordered a beer.
As a vegan, I inquired about the vegan options, if the non-​vegan ingredient was omitted from the dish or if there was a different version. I learned that the ingredient was omitted which struck me as odd because as short yet specialized their menu is, it seemed strange they would want to omit for example, horseradish yogurt from a dish when that flavor should have been the star.
With that in mind, we ordered the Beets by Dre and it was ok. My non-​vegan date thought it was good without the horseradish yogurt. The Marinated Kale salad (V) was quite delicious, the best thing I had.
The Smoked red bean dumplings just tasted like mashed, unflavored red beans in a dumpling. Super disappointing.
The Country flatbread, again, was OK, but seriously lacking flavor. I was most excited for this because I am a huge fan of curry flavor but I could make something better at home. My date had the mushroom risotto and thought it was very good.
When the check came, we told the waitress we were debating on having a port or not. No recommendations and didn’t give us a minute to decide, she just brought the check. There was absolutely no up-​selling or anything. It seemed as though she didn’t care to be there which really affected our visit.
The kicker is that our bill was around $ 85 and we put a $ 100 bill with the check. The waitress came by to pick it up, did not ask if we needed change, said nothing actually and NEVER RETURNED. Let me just say that having had been in the industry for years, I tip very well for good service and food so had it been a good experience, she would have gotten a 20%+ tip, but this was the bare minimum I did not feel badly about leaving her. Sadly I do not believe I will return.

My darling fiancée took me to Green Zebra for a romantic night out. I felt as though the place were incredibly overpriced for essentially tapas style plates (which is not mentioned on the menu), and the waitress never let us know. I figured they were standard size meals based upon the pricing but no. I was incredibly disappointed, and it felt light this vegetarian restaurant had its nose in the air and is trying too hard.
The beverage menu is satisfactory.

Great spot overall. Accomodating but slightly spotty service. Lovely chef. Fantastic food.
I tried:
beet salad
kale salad
bread with jam
eggplant and cauliflower flatbread
chai tapioca pudding
All were phenomenal but the chai tapioca pudding was out of this universe. Possibly the best desert I ever had, for real.

Standout Dish: Burrata alla Panna– creamy burrata cheese is offset by pumpernickel croutons and cut by a strawberry jam. oh so tasty.
Green Zebra is a necessary destination for Chicago vegetarians. The food is high concept and tasty even for non-​veg standards. The dishes are small plates that run between $ 8– $ 14 a plate, so a full dinner with wine can be quite pricey. The restaurant recommends 3 dishes per person, but you can get two per person and leave full, but not stuffed, especially if you get dishes on the rich side.
The salads on the first half of the menu are tasty, but small. They burrata and mushroom pâté are musts– Well constructed dishes with great compliments in the pickles and moustardas. The kale salad was tasty, but a rather small serving.
The fuller dishes are great. The side of Foraged Maitake Mushroom is great– they are meaty and served with a dressing strong on the soy sauce. The polenta was creamy and glorious. However, here is my criticism– the full entrée-​style dishes seemed to rely on heavy uses of butter and soy sauce to substitute for flavor or overpower the vegetables presented. The polenta was tasty, but so creamy that it felt like eating a stick of butter. So you can bring your non-​veg friends here, but don’t expect it to be some health food journey.
Service was spotty and inconsistent. I think we had three different servers check in on us over the course of the meal. It also seemed that they dragged out the service of the first course so that our table would finish and then order a bottle of wine (conjecture, but they asked about that bottle of wine twice before serving any food).

My caveat to this review is that I was there for a rehearsal dinner in the upstairs function room and attendees were given a choice between two items with wine pairings for three courses, followed by a cheese plate, and then a choice of dessert. The food was excellent but the wine was even better. Go for the wine pairings; these people know what they’re doing with wine.

Green Zebra has nice ambiance but the food falls short. In an era when vegan food reigns supreme and where restaurants like Vedge in Philadelphia, Sutra in Seattle, Shojin in Los Angeles and even NEXT in Chicago offer delicious and cutting-​edge vegan foods, the retrograde, pedestrian vegetarian (not vegan) menu of Green Zebra seems hopelessly dated and sad.
We started with the «chilled somen noodles» ($ 10) and the «beets by dre» ($ 10). The somen noodles was the best dish of the night, featuring a delicate balance of soybeans and hearts of palm in a nice ginger soy sauce. The beets by dre had golden and red beets with greens in a sauce that was just too sharp for my likes.
Next we had the mung bean potstickers ($ 10) and the spicy marinated tofu ($ 11). The potstickers were dry and starchy and didn’t hit the spot; the spicy marinated tofu was a simple stir-​fry, and tasted okay, but wasn’t particularly fancy or interesting (the Chinese take-​out joint down the road could do the same dish for half the price).
We also got a side of foraged maitake mushrooms ($ 8) which came in a generous portion size, but its soy sauce marinade overpowered the dish.
We passed on dessert because the only had a vegan sorbet (honestly, in 2015 sorbet is the best vegan dessert you can come up with?!) and a peanut butter panna cotta that didn’t look too interesting.
The service was mostly efficient but not particularly friendly.
All told, if you’re looking for a good, hearty vegan or vegetarian meal in Chicago I’d look elsewhere.

We were pleasantly surprised by our meal and the wine at Green Zebra this week.
The mushroom pâté is as creamy and flavorful as all others have stated. One suggestion would be that they serve it with toasted bread and not soft slices so that there is more of a mouth-​feel contrast. The pickled fennel was a bit too strong and overpowering.
The marinated spicy tofu was well seasoned and flavorful — a rarity with tofu dishes!
The Grilled Gem Lettuce Salad was very flavorful and filling with lots of avocado and a fire-​breathing garlic dressing that was almost (not quite, but almost) too strong.
The Chilled Somen Noodles were a real disappointment. There were perhaps two bites of this dish that were correctly seasoned with the dressing and had flavor — the rest was a cold and slimy pile of overcooked somen that literally was hard to eat. We cannot recommend this dish. We asked for salt and the server never brought it. A shame because it might have helped to like it a bit.
The frittatta again was lacking flavor — salt mostly, however the sauteed potatoes and other veggies under it were well seasoned and helped carry the dish.
The Creamy White Corn Polenta was one of the best dishes we tasted. Extremely creamy — almost like farina in texture with bits of sauteed veggies on top it was a comfort dish for sure. It had the right amount of seasoning.
For dessert the Rich Vanilla Custard was all of that and then some. Very rich with good amount of sweetness and a visually pleasing presentation with the honey tuile strip rising to the sky.
The chocolate fudge-​like bar with hazelnut ice cream was rather 90’s. The shredded cake pieces looked odd and had little flavor. There was not enough ice cream for the amount of other items on the plate.
Overall we thought the place had vindicated itself after the very underwhelming sparkling wine dinner a few months ago.

We took a trip all the way to West town to try this vegetarian restaurant and all it had to offer. I was glad it was restaurant week because we were able to order several dishes off the special menu. Here is what we tried.
First/​Second Courses
* Roasted Red Beets — Even though this dish sounded delicious — I wasn’t too delighted with final product.
* Israeli cous cous salad — This dish was just perfect! I loved the combination of cashew cream, carrots and raisin with cous cous and quinoa. We just could not get enough of this dish
* Carrot Ginger Bisque — I found the soup to be good but more bland than I would have liked. I wish it had a bit more flavor to be honest to take it up a notch. A girl can always wish! :)
* Adzuki bean potstickers — This was just okay. Almost felt like Spring rolls to me. I had a bite and didn’t feel compelled to eat rest of those fatty calories.
Entrees
Our Entrees were Marinated tofu with rice and Potato Gnocchi and unfortunately, I didn’t love them as much as I loved my first two courses. I wished I had tried the pot pie — Hopefully next time.
Finally moving on to desserts — We got Brownie Sundae and Mango sticky rice. My husband loved the sticky rice and I will admit that it was good but Brownie Sundae — especially black sesame ice-​cream was just too good. I loved every bite of it and it was so worth the 1000+ calories it probably had :)
Overall, I loved the most of the dishes and the dessert even though we didn’t love our entrees. But I will admit that service here is top notch. Our dishes were promptly removed and water was refilled before we realized we needed more. Our server was friendly but not too intrusive so I loved the whole dining experience. This is definitely one of the more creative vegetarian meals that I have ever had.

Hmm. Pretentious vegetarian restaurants aren’t my thing.
At first, I was really excited about coming here for a friend’s birthday. I had heard about Green Zebra for awhile and all I knew was that it was some kind of vegetarian restaurant with locally sourced food and a rotating menu. Sounds good to me.
Once our group was seated in the swanky dining room (with so many tables arranged so couples had to sit really close together — I almost felt like we were intruding upon their privacy), we were handed menus and given a run-​down of how things worked.
Green Zebra’s menu is all small plates, intended to be shared with whomever you’re dining with. Eek. We hadn’t expected that. The menu is incredibly pricey to start off with, so knowing that the portions were really small didn’t help. After discussing the menu for awhile, our group finally placed our orders and waited for the food to arrive.
I started off my meal with an orange and fennel crème soda. It sounded amazing but was incredibly small for the price and tasted… meh. Not a great start. Onwards… our meal was pretty much a six-​course meal, starting with the smallest of the small dishes and ending with the heavier, filling plates. The dishes were brought out slowly, stretching our meal to a nearly four-​hour long dining experience. Eek, again.
From that night, I tried:
+ Pumpernickel bread with housemade garlic-​thyme butter and carrot marmalade.
+ Acorn Squash Potstickers with soy caramel, carrot sesame purée, shaved radish
+ Fresh Stinging Nettle Fettuccine, fava beans, Bordeaux spinach, Parmigiano Reggiano
+ Country Flatbread, heirloom tomato jam, warm herbed goat cheese, Cerignola olives
+ Artisan Cheese Selection (chef’s daily selection of assorted cheeses)
+ Malted Banana Ice Cream with banana bread, salted caramel, macadamia nut tuile
+ some kind of veggie mushroom hash with egg
+… and something with brussels sprouts.
+… there was another dish too, but I forgot what it was.
Everything was… delicious. I was quite pleased with nearly every dish I tried. Yay!
Yet… they were small. For some of the plates, we had to order more than one so we could have enough to share at our table of six. To top it off, we were still hungry at the end of the meal. It added up and our bill was kind of ridiculous. A long meal with expensive dishes that still left us hungry at the end? Not cool. We were all mildly disappointed with our experience.
Lesson learned: do my research before heading to an over-​hyped restaurant.