Originally Posted by
SFflyer123
Or did they just use a similar play on words?
No relation that I know of. Girl and the Goat is the new restaurant of Stephanie Izard, the winner of Top Chef season 4. While I did like the food, I thought that there was a lot of hype around it. And the waitstaff were mostly clueless for the caliber of food they were trying to sell. Our waitress had no idea what was in the dishes we asked about and kept us waiting for long periods of time while she disappeared. The manager gave us some extra dishes for free without our asking.
I think--but I do not have enough evidence to support this--that Chicago will overtake San Francisco for world class dining. I think SF is great, but the restaurant scene here is somewhat stagnant. It's very "California" and fresh ingredients, but nothing terribly inventive. Don't get me wrong; it's excellent food, but it's just nothing new.
I think this happened long ago. When I lived in SF (2001-2003), Food & Wine magazine had just ranked Chicago #2 for fine dining in the country, edging SF down to #3.
The molecular gastronomy scene, which seems to be the wave of the future, really has not taken hold here at all. Chicago claims Alinea, which is one of the top 50 restaurants in the world (the highest ranking American restaurant), and it specializes in molecular gastronomy. Moto is another molecular gastronomy place.
To me, molecular gastronomy means a lot of gimmicky things that Moto does with making things taste like things you'd ordinarily not think they would taste like. I haven't been to Alinea yet, but my understanding is that it's all about fresh and well-conceived meals, not freezing things with liquid nitrogen and serving edible menus. I hope that my conception of molecular gastronomy isn't the wave of the future!