Restaurant Review: Sable

This season on Top Chef (Texas), 6 of the contestants are Chicago chef’s. My boss is a huge Top Chef fan, so as a Christmas present we took him to Sable where chef Heather Terhune cooks up fancy soul food.

Sable is located in River North on the first floor of Hotel Palomar, which is just 4 blocks away from our office.

We had 5:30 reservations and by the time we got there the place was packed.

It’s a very swanky, upscale, modern bar with warm leather seating and an electronic fireplace. A perfect place to people watch and be a part of the trendy, hip Chicago crowd.

They had a table reserved for us right in front of the kitchen. Unfortunately, we missed Chef Heather by just a few minutes, but I liked the fact that we were able to watch the chef’s cook up all of our dishes.

The menu is made for sharing and is intended for you to order in rounds, rather than “appetizer, entrée, dessert”.

Our group started out with Wisconsin cheese curds and spicy ketchup.

The spicy ketchup sophisticated these cheese balls, but bowling alley’s in Wisconsin cook these babies up a little better.

Next up were the pomegranate short ribs and duck fat fries. The ribs were the crowd favorite. The meat fell of the bone and the glaze was just sweet enough.

The fries were cut too thick for my liking but had a really nice shaved cheese on top and were much better than your average fry.

Last round was The Ranch Burger and Bacon Wrapped Dates.

The dates were the biggest dates I’ve ever had. They were wrapped by thickly cut bacon, and while they were incredibly indulgent, they were almost too much – if that is such a thing.

The Ranch Burger ($16), was cut in 4 for us to share and was my favorite dish. Made on a pretzel bun, the burger had an avocado spread and a fried egg. It’s a very large burger though, so if you do order it, I would plan on sharing.

Overall, we had a great experience at Sable. It’s not calorie friendly or healthy – by any means – but the prices are fair and the food is far above average. I will be coming back again soon.