Sufferers of phantom gluten intolerance, and those with legitimate celiac disease, had cause for excitement this fall when a New York-based restaurant landed in the Gold Coast promising to feed them free of that maligned mixture of proteins. The Little Beet Table is the formal offspring of a small fast-casual chain slinging healthy, vegetable-dominant food for people with any number of the usual assortment of dietary restrictions that can make the act of eating a lot of tedious work.
It also illustrates one of two fatal flaws across LBT’s menu: portion sizes are way too big, making even the best dishes intolerable by the halfway point. But the kitchen compounds that problem with a seemingly hostile resistance to seasoning, issuing a mound of overcooked and undercaramelized brussels sprouts with barely a hint of the lemon gremolata or sea salt it was said to contain. Same goes for three jumbo sweet-potato halves that seem to have escaped any seasoning whatsoever. Even the most seemingly complicated dish on the menu, a kabocha squash soup, arrives without any taste of the ginger and miso that might separate it from baby food. At least a large plate of broccoli draped with a carrot remoulade carries a hint of heat, and a pea guacamole is sweet enough. But if you plan to let vegetables stand on their own, they’d better be perfect. These are not.
Among the crass overgeneralizations about healthful dining that come true at Little Beet is that restaurants that cater to people looking for a healthy meal don’t put much thought into the drinks menu, which explains feeble cocktails like the whiskey-flavored water I expected to be a manhattan, or the margarita that could’ve been poured from the Skinnygirl profile.
845 N. State 312-549-8600thelittlebeettable.com/chicago
