Where to Keep Resolutions in Chicago Restaurants
It’s that time of year again, when gym memberships skyrocket and salads take the spotlight back from pumpkin pie. But fear not, because resolving to eat healthier doesn’t have to mean sacrifice of flavor, as Chicago is chock full of restaurants with unique and tasty healthy alternatives. Here’s where to eat and drink with resolutions in mind:
Let’s get right to the point: OWEN + ALCHEMY is a great place for delicious resolution-keeping in Chicago. The chef-driven juice bar and vegetarian sanctuary in Logan Square features an entrancing array of fresh pressed juices, smoothies, salads, and bowls. The masterwork of Anne Owen, along with Element Collective and executive chef Jared Van Camp, O+A will have you forgetting all about pie with their spiced sweet potato juice, their heirloom pear juice laden with mulling spices, their bracing blueberry juice with basil and grapefruit, and so much more. Round out your meal with vigorous dishes like their cashew yogurt bowl brimming with coconut milk, banana, chia seeds, citrus segments, sesame brittle, and shredded coconut. You win.
As the name implies, Doc B’s Fresh Kitchen peddles a tasty array of fresh fare, much of which is conveniently diet-friendly without minimizing flavor. Sure you can get beef burgers and other indulgent items here, but the menus are riddled with healthful options like black bean soup, quinoa-based veggie burgers with kale slaw, shrimp salad, grilled artichokes with remoulade, and seared tuna sandwiches with ginger dressing.
A restaurant modeled after California might have healthier tendencies. At Lettuce Entertain You’s new Summer House Santa Monica, the white-washed, beachy restaurant feels like an authentic Californian vacation, complete with pristine, vivifying cuisine that the Golden State is known for, from ahi tuna tostadas and hamachi tartare to fresh Burrata, slow-poached scallops, grilled Atlantic salmon, grilled vegetable tacos, and a smorgasbord of offbeat salads.
Another Lettuce Entertain You spot offering a neoteric take on healthier dining is Beatrix. Morning, noon, and night, the River North restaurant offers a mixed bag of internationally inspired dishes and drinks, ranging from over-the-top indulgent to blessedly nutritious. Fresh-squeezed juice drinks are a solid choice for breakfast and brunch, along with ten-grain oatmeal and something called shakshouka, a medley of spicy tomato sauce, poached eggs, kale, feta, and warm naan. Lunch brings warm quinoa cakes, ahi tuna crudo, turkey-sweet potato-greens “neatloaf,” and a stellar three-grain salad with freekeh, millet, and red quinoa. For dinner, a lighter alternative to all-out gluttony is the chili- and chocolate-glazed salmon or the brioche-crusted branzino with roasted carrots, fennel, and parsnips. For drinks, fresh juice cocktails comprise a bulk of the beverage list, and even the dessert menu has healthy options, like chia pudding with coconut milk and pomegranate.
Chicago’s first locations of Lyfe Kitchen are up and running, one in River North and another in Evanston, and both are rife with nutritious fare. Vegetarian and gluten-free dishes play a huge role on the menus throughout the day, and each item comes with calorie and sodium information, so customers know what they’re ordering. Start your day with the morning tofu wrap or the farmers’ market egg white frittata, and later in the day progress to edamame hummus, kale Caesar salad, veggie burgers, and quinoa crunch wraps. To drink, Lyfe Kitchen has a bunch of refreshing Lyfe waters in flavors such as hibiscus-beet, ginger-mint-chia, and cucumber-mint.
Rogers Park’s Heartland Cafe has long been a bastion of good, wholesome food on the far north side, renowned for its vegetarian preparations and cleaner substitutes for comfort foods such as burgers, sandwiches, meatloaf, and mashed potatoes. All the innate comfort is there, just a bit better for you, so it’s a win-win. Under managing partner Tom Rosenfeld, Heartland Cafe updated its menu with a slew of dishes that adhere to the restaurant’s longstanding philosophies, but with more contemporary flavors. Dishes include fritters smothered in vegan gravy, vegan buckwheat pancakes, pumpkin seed- and sunflower seed-flecked porridge, buffalo chili, vegan seitan French dip, turkey meatloaf, maple-glazed tofu, and lots more. And those mashed potatoes you think you're eating? They're actually mashed root vegetables.
OWEN + ALCHEMY
2355 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago
(773) 227-3444
Website
Doc B’s Fresh Kitchen
100 E. Walton Street, Chicago
(312) 626-1300
Website
Summer House Santa Monica
1954 N. Halsted Street, Chicago
(773) 634-4100
Website
Beatrix
519 N. Clark Street, Chicago
(312) 284-1377
Website
Lyfe Kitchen
419 N. Clark Street, Chicago
(312) 836-5933
1603 Orrington Avenue, Evanston
(847) 563-8242
Website
Heartland Cafe
7000 N. Glenwood Avenue, Chicago
(773) 465-8005
Website
