The Gage, Chicago

[BryanZ]

I actually had a very good meal at The Gage earlier this week. The whole gastropub concept is a little bit conceited, as this isn't so much a true gastroput as it is a New American restaurant with a couple Irish-influenced bar items.

Still, I found myself enjoying the food here more than the food at most of the Chicago restaurants I've been to. I also sampled a ton of stuff and wound up spending about $120 on just myself, so this wasn't really a cheap meal.

Started off with a cocktail--Maker's, orange and pineapple juices, brandied cherry-- and also tried my friend's Sacre Bleu--Stoli Blueberry, citrust, ginger. Both were fine, but the cocktail list does skew toward the sweet. The drinks I sampled, however, exhibited pretty good balance, so it seems not all is lost in the cocktail program.

The menu is divided into four sections: snacks, seconds, thirds, and fourths. From the snacks section I tried the Scotch egg and the fondue. Both were very tasty and made for a solid, if very heavy, start to the meal. The Scotch egg was actually quite undercooked such that the ground meat mixture was not fully cooked. This didn't really bother me because the it tasted good, but squeemish diners would have undoubtedly been turned off. The combination of egg, mustard, seasoned ground meat, and crispy breadcrumb coating is too good to resist.

From the seconds category I had the scallops with jalapeno, lemon, carrot, sesame, spinach, and chile sauce.. This was a very ambitious dish that I appreciated. It lacked balance, but was well-suited to my tastes. In a fine-dining restaurant the aggressive components of the dish would've been too assertive, bordering on offensive, but here the dish worked. I also tried my friend's beef tartare. It was fine but nothing special.

My main was black bass with carrots, baby summer squash, and a light cream sauce. This was a simple but satisfying summer dish that I thoroughly enjoyed eating. The skin was not fully crisped across the fillet but not to the point where it detracted significantly from the dish. A light bodied pinot noir went well with this fish dish and my friend's seared tuna.

For dessert I had the very interesting French toast dish. It's like a cross between funnel cake and those French toast sticks you get in the frozen aisle of the grocery store. Beneath the log of pillowy fried goodness were a couple sheets of a caramel-like gelatin. An dish I'd like to try again, just in a smaller portion. A very large glass of dessert wine, and I was done for the night.

Service here was pretty good. Silverware wasn't replaced after the snacks although it should've been, but other than that there were no other notable faux pas. Our server was a cool guy, even if the back wait was kind of clueless.

I should also note that after all the food and drinking I left my credit card at the table. I called the next day and they found it for me without a problem. I appreciated them making getting my card back as painless as possible.

The Gage is the kind of place that Chicago needs more of. I'd hazard to compare it Avec, serving interesting eclectic food that more often that not tastes good. The Gage is more a full-service restaurant, and can be much more expensive, but has a pretty unique appeal.

[leahiu2000]

I had been wanting to come here ever since it opened- so disappointing. I went here with a friend who's a chef, we couldn't believe how off the food was. Got the fondue for an app- good but not great (hard to mess up melted cheese). Also got the smoked haddock cake- very dried out and over-salted. My entree was the semolina dumplings, which had a flavorful mushroom, tomato, and pecorino topping, but the dumplings themselves were bland- my friend agreed. He had the sausages which he said were almost inedibly overcooked. Also got a side of baby carrots- again, oversalted and underseasoned; we barely touched them. We did go on a Monday night- maybe the chef was off and the kitchen hasn't gotten things down yet- go for the location, not the food.

[Barbara Moss]

I like the Gage a lot. It is not the most fabulous food on the planet but most of my meals have been enjoyable. We really like going there before Symphony. The mussels a few months ago were much spicer than they were the last week. I guess people complained but I really loved them. I also like the chicken.Fish is fine. They have a very broad menu that makes it easy to bring people that have food issues. If noise bothers you make sure you sit in the back.

[Fat Guy]

I was at the Gage for an event on Monday night, and we got to try about a dozen items, some of which are from the regular menu and others that seemed to be specifically for the private event.

To the extent "gastropub" implies "better than average food for a bar" I guess I agree. I don't think anything was extraordinary. The Scotch egg was quite good, the shrimp with aioli were not of particularly high quality, they did some nice vindaloo hot pockets -- very spicy, and great with beer (excellent selection of bottles). It seems that the basic argument for the place is that it's better than what was in the neighborhood before. Maybe so. I would not make it a destination, though.