Girl and the Goat: the West Loop culinary empire

Part II

Girl and the Goat

The next, and much delayed, instalment of my Chicago food-tour once again centres on the West Loop. This was an almost accidental rediscovery. I step out of Au Cheval, burger and foie gras sitting heavy in my stomach, and dragged my now-corpulent self across West Randolf to catch my Uber (or was it a Lyft? I can’t remember now – insert generic alternative brand here). I looked up at the parade of store fronts and bustling restaurants and bars to find the Girl and the Goat.

I’ve heard of Girl and the Goat before. Monsieur Bourdain mentioned it and I had a booking with my two host friends later in the week. I was just surprised to see it so close to another one of my stops. In fact, most of the good food and dining experiences I had were around West Loop and Fulton Market this trip. More stories on the $35 for 35 oyster challenge next time…

Fast forward a couple of food-filled days, we finally arrive at Stephanie Izard’s local food joint. She heads up a veritable culinary empire in the district, with both Little Goat Diner, and Duck Duck Goat within (talented) spitting distance of Goat HQ. The Crittall-style windows are black. The un-plastered walls are naked brick. The supporting beams of the apartment upstairs are bare for all to see. The pipes for the central forced air are exposed (bloody hipsters). Looking around, it’s exactly what I’ve come to expect of food joints in this part of town. Understated, no fuss and ultimately perfunctory. The walls hide stains, the floor is just the right shade of brown to disguise any spilled wine, and the tables don’t have any excess linen to strip and iron onto the surfaces. Just like Chicagoans, this place just does what it does best and gets the f*ck on with it.

We sit down to a landscape A4 menu split into three columns; vegetables, fish and meat. The concept for this place is sharing dishes, so there isn’t really anything in the way of starters and main courses (appetisers and entrées for those of an American persuasion). This is good. Sharing means variety. There is also a second smaller supplementary sheet. When I start to read it, my inner glutton starts to do his little happy dance. There’s an entire menu. An entire menu…dedicated…to goat…

In my experience, goat in the UK is found in a curried form in either Caribbean or Indian establishments. It is nearly always delicious, but you rarely see it outside of this context. I am, of course, discounting the numerous cheeses you can find, which vary in quality and tastes. This celebration of goat however, with no fewer than six offerings of the tastiest of beasts, is the first time I’ve seen the animal presented in such a way. Goat liver mousse, carpaccio with trout roe, empanadas, confit goat belly with lobster and crab, goat shank and goat shoulder. I’d say the list goes on, but that was it.

We opt to have a variety of dishes, less goat-centric than I would have liked but I came back for a second visit to nail the ones I didn’t get the first time (as usual). From here, the narrative will be amalgamating both visits into one. Fear ye not, the atmosphere were pretty much identical and the service impeccable and friendly.

We kick off with goat liver mousse with pickles and goat bread. I ask what the goat bread is, to which our server describes them as scone-like in texture but finished in a frying pan with rendered goat fat. This description was on point. By now, my frequent readers will know how much of a sucker for animal fat I am. Upon arrival, the pot of mousse looked disappointingly small to be shared between three diners, however it was allegedly rich enough to silence any complaint. It was. The bread was buttery and crumbly with a structurally sound crust. It had that grassy musk that both goat and lamb have, and had a good texture combination of crunchy pickles, crispy flat bread, crumbly scone and soft mousse. The mousse was pretty much a liver parfait, but the goat undertones were enough to distinguish it from your average pâté.

Next was the signature goat belly with lobster and crab. The meat hid under a wig of sliced fennel and a moat of, what I supposed was, vinaigrette to cut through the fat of the goat belly. Turns out, that moat was some of the poaching butter from the lobster and crab… It was surprisingly well-balanced; the fennel was coated with a dressing with enough acidity to counteract the butter. The lobster was poached well, not underdone but similarly not chewy. The crab flaked well under the pressure of the back of a spoon. Surf & turf usually puts me off but this seemed to work; I’d never thought I’d say that about goat and crustaceans.

Lamb ribs with a blueberry-tamarind glaze were up next. These ribs came out blackened and charred, possibly enough to put off sensitive diners with Daily Mail subscriptions. The meat was soft and tender, and pulled away from the bone easily, leaving a glossy sheen on the plate. The glaze was sufficiently tart and fruity to offset any fattiness and fresh crunchiness cleansed the palette in the form of sliced spring onion.

Pork shank followed, with a Green Goddess (the herb, rather than Linda McCartney) dip, ‘naan bread’ and stone-fruit kimchi. This pork was braised low and slow before finally crisping up, much like good crispy aromatic duck in Chinese restaurants. This, I am told, was the inspiration behind the dish so I feel it is an apt comparison. The shank was subtly spiced with aniseed, a flavour that goes with pork oh so well. The downside was once the pork started to air out, it began to dry. I guess we should have scoffed it faster.

We had a side of green beans with cashews and fish sauce vinaigrette. I say side, but really it was a dish all on its own. The vegetables were treated well, enough so for me to find them delicious. I usually don’t find green beans that appealing given their rubbery jackets but these were particularly flavoursome. The fish sauce had that umami grenade-like quality on the first bite and acted as a warming reminder during subsequent mouthfuls.

After my two visits to Girl and the Goat, I had a chance to reflect on what it was that made it so moreish. Fat was always going to keep me coming back, but ultimately it was something else that makes this place awesome. It was more tangible than the farming-ethos, which was well-handled in its own right. The celebration of an ashamedly-underused animal is probably key. Goats can be so much more than cheese-machines if you let them, and probably deserve more than being resigned to curries for all eternity in the UK, incredible though these are. I’m keen to see more chefs in the UK utilise goat in such a varied, diverse way.