Last week we had the privilege to try out Matthew Kinney’s new restaurant, Althea, in Sak’s Fifth Avenue, on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. We had dinner reservations, with a really nice view looking north to Water Tower Place and the building formerly known as the Hancock Tower.
We started the meal with the Blackberry + Sage , a mocktail of muddled blackberries and sage with lemon juice and rose water. There was supposed to be agave in there as well, but if it was, I didn’t taste it, and it could have used it.
We soon shared a Artisanal Cheese Plate, which included an excellent Harissa Jack Cheddar that really impressed me with its complexity and a delightful, earthy porcini truffle cheese that set off all the right bells. The macadami chevre wasn’t bad, either, but against the Jack, there was just no comparison.
We also tried the cashew raclette, which also wasn’t really one of my favorites, though that was because it veered a little too closely to a type of cheese that I don’t really care for, so I say yeah, good approximation. Also, the menu says this dish comes with an herb salad, but putting a piece of parsely on top, no matter how organic and well-sourced, hardly qualifies as a salad.
Next to share was a crunchy delicious chopped kale salad with avocado, red pepper, cucumber, candied pistachio and white balsamic dressing. This I rather liked and could have done with more of and I am pretty sure we finished all of it. Everything was fresh and cut up into nice bite-sized pieces that I like to do for something like this at home.
My entree was their kelp cacio e pepe, which was ironic to me, because I’d been wanting to make a cacio e pepe and hadn’t, and seeing it on the menu thus made up my mind for me. While there was a lot I liked about the dish, the flavors were right and the texture of the pasta was right, the dish being served cold was completely off-putting despite having been warned that it would be served this way. I thought I could get past it and just didn’t enjoy it. I seriously thought about just taking it home to be able to eat it heated up, but in the end I persevered and with the help of my dining companions, put it to rest.
Also on the table to try was the Kung Pao Cauliflower, which we all liked quite a lot. The colorful cauliflower had the right punch and was cooked just right. The sesame crackers were a nice accompaniment.
A bowl of the Spicy Udon was also added to the table. Loaded with a big chunk of tempeh, plump and juicy shiitakes, toasted cashews and a dash of togarashi, the Udon was a surprise hit that I and everyone else kept coming back to. The flavor of the broth surprised me with its depth of flavor and noodles had the proper toothiness.
Also on the table was the rather forgettable Butternut squash gnocchi with enoki mushrooms and a farro bolognese. This was all kind of mushy and indistinct. This dish needed a little crunch somehow. Maybe some toasted buckwheat or something for a little texture? Not to mention that the dish sort of looked a lot like a Japanese Curry-Rice, but then tasted nothing like it, just made it seem to me like they really didn’t know what they were doing with this. The enoki harken back to Japan, but then maybe a few chunks of potatoes or carrots might have been some nice additional texture to this dish to complete its transformation.
We also had the tacos and pizza, both of which were decent. We finished the evening splitting the Coconut Cream Pie and the Apple Pie, both of which were hits all the way around the table.
All in all, I loved the concept, but I think there were a few misses. I would love to see them get their footing and try them back in another couple of months. The view and the service were fine, word just needs to get out that there’s some seriously fancy plant-based food edging its way into this meat and potatoes town.
VegScore: 100% – fully plant based!