Girl and the Goat Menu and Reviews

In 2010, chef Stephanie Izard and business partners Kevin Boehm and Rob Katz opened the 122-seat Girl and the Goat restaurant in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood. Izard was a contestant on the Bravo cable network television show Top Chef in 2008.

She took the title, claiming a $100,000 prize and becoming the first female winner of the show. She was also voted “Fan Favorite” by viewers, earning her an additional $10,000.

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The chef’s favorite meat to cook is goat. Her last name, Izard, is also a French word for a goat from the Pyrenees mountains. Izard has thus used the goat theme in the names of her businesses.

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Prior to Top Chef, Izard attended the University of Michigan and earned a degree in sociology in 1998. She then enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Scottsdale, Arizona and completed her program in 1999.

After working at the Camelback Inn Resort and Spa and Fermier Brasserie in the Phoenix area, Izard moved to the Chicago area in 2001 and worked as a garde manger at Vong, a Thai-inspired French restaurant by French-American chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. She later worked at Spring and La Tache.

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In 2004, 27-year-old Izard opened her first restaurant, Scylla, in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood. It was a seafood restaurant that received strong reviews and awards. Izard closed the restaurant prior to her participation in Top Chef.

The Girl and the Goat has received numerous awards. Saveur magazine wrote its first restaurant review on this establishment, proclaiming it “America’s Best New Restaurant.”

In 2011, Girl and the Goat was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award for Best New Restaurant, and Food & Wine named Izard one of the country’s Best New Chefs in 2010.

Izard eventually won a James Beard Award for Best Chef – Great Lakes in 2013.

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The menu is eclectic, emphasizing Mediterranean influences and so-called nose-to-tail cooking. This means that all parts of the animals are used, from traditional cuts of meat to offal.

Though the restaurant is known for its meat dishes, it has also gained a strong reputation for its excellent vegetable plates.

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Two restaurants have sprouted from Girl and the Goat. The second restaurant, Little Goat, serves all-day breakfast and upscale diner food and is located across the street from Girl and the Goat.

Izard created Little Goat to grow Girl and the Goat’s bread program and give her bakers a separate space for baking outside of the original restaurant. Duck Duck Goat is the third restaurant, and it is located in the Fulton Market. 

Fulton Market is the center of Chicago’s meatpacking district, and it's around the corner from the main restaurant. The food is Chinese-inspired. Girl and the Goat will also be opening a second location in Los Angeles’ Arts District in 2019. It will be Izard’s first restaurant outside of Chicago.

The restaurant is open daily for dinner. The food is served family style, with the offerings centering around small plates. The menu is divided into food categories.

To pair with the food, the restaurant offers wines from small producers around the world, craft beers from mostly local Chicago breweries, and cocktails.

The menu changes often, but we have listed the most recent one below. Rather than running a restaurant that people only visit on special occasions, the chef intends her food to be enjoyed whenever customers wish.

Prices are not listed on the Girl and the Goat’s website. Our research shows that the pricing is in the moderate range, averaging around $30 per person.

Vegetable plates run between $7-$15 while fish plates range between $13-18. 

There may be occasional meat plates that run between $7-$12, but the most popular dishes, such as the braised beef tongue, the wood-oven-roasted pig face or the crisp-braised pork shank, cost between $15-$25.

Chicago is home to two other restaurants run by former Top Chef contestants. Like Girl and the Goat, they have also received accolades.

This restaurant is in the Avondale neighborhood of Chicago. Founded by Top Chef contestant Beverly Kim and her husband, John Clark, this 40-seat restaurant serves globally-inspired Korean-American cuisine.

The restaurant, which opened in 2014, was named Eater Chicago’s 2014 Restaurant of the Year, was a finalist for the 2015 James Beard Best New Restaurant Award, and has been awarded one Michelin star.

The beverage menu offers wines, cocktails, beers, and non-alcoholic options.

Monteverde is an Italian restaurant in the West Loop neighborhood run by Sarah Grueneberg and business partner Meg Sahs.

Grueneberg was previously the executive chef at Chicago’s award-winning Spiaggia restaurant, where she received a Michelin star for three consecutive years. 

She has also competed on both Top Chef and Iron Chef Gauntlet. In addition, she was recognized as Eater Chicago’s Chef of the Year in 2011 and received a James Beard Award for Best Chef – Great Lakes in 2017.

The restaurant has received numerous accolades from the Chicago Tribune, GQ, Eater, Bon Appetit, and Chicago Magazine. The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner and offers cocktails, beers, wine, and non-alcoholic beverages.

Image via Girl and the Goat Facebook Page

Because Girl and the Goat has been a popular restaurant since its inception, getting reservations is not easy and requires advanced planning. It is a noisy, crowded restaurant, but for good reason.

Most visitors highly praise the food and the experience, becoming return customers and recommending the restaurant to others.

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The restaurant space is large and always busy, featuring a full bar, an open kitchen, a wood-fired oven, and a wood-fired grill.

Chef Izard herself is often found in the kitchen, which prepares small plates that are rustic and casual. The combinations may be creative and unusual, but they are still approachable.

Izard’s cuisine stays within a certain realm and is not too challenging or pretentious. Her cooking experience helps her use complex flavors and carefully prepare high-end dishes.

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Despite this approach, the presentation and the dining experience are down to earth.

In Saveur Magazine’s review, Izard’s dishes are described as having layers of flavor with bold mixtures that are balanced, yet never forced or fussy.

While there are clear global influences on Izard’s food, it also has a local Midwestern attitude and ease, making diners feel like they are eating an abundance of comfort food.

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In reviews, customers felt that despite the hectic atmosphere, service was good. Some felt their servers could have been more helpful and seemed to lack interest in engaging with diners.

Customers also felt that they were getting good value for their meals and beverages.

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Not all dishes are successful. Some reviewers felt the portions were too small at times. Others felt the food veered toward having too much salt and being too rich and heavy.

The atmosphere is that of a closely-packed room with the sounds of loud conversations and music bouncing off the wooden floor and other hard surfaces. You will not have much personal space in this large place.

Sauteed green beans, wood-grilled broccoli, roasted cauliflower, chickpea fritter chaat, wood-oven-roasted pig face, goat empanadas, confit goat belly

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Servers generally recommend that diners order two to three plates per person. Some reviewers mentioned that this was too many and that they were too full to enjoy dessert after eating dinner.

Girl and the Goat is a large restaurant that serves small plates with big flavors. It has received accolades and positive reviews in the eight years it has been open.

Also, it’s considered one of the best and most popular restaurants in the Midwest, if not the entire country. The restaurant has been consistently busy since its opening, and it slows no signs of slowing down. 

The constant popularity of this place is due to several factors, including the likeability of the chef, the high quality and consistency of the food and service, and the good value customers get for their money.

The chef also makes the cuisine interesting by keeping proven signature dishes on the menu while experimenting with new items and making menu changes based on seasonality. The atmosphere is fun and casual, so diners can be relaxed while having unique and delicious food that continues evolving along with the chef.