Business school to cooking school
Stephanie Izard is synonymous with Chicago food from cooking at local restaurants—Vong, Spring, and La Tache—to her own popular eateries—Girl & the Goat and Little Goat Diner. Though she was born in the Windy City, she grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, and studied business at the University of Michigan but found “there was nothing that really interested me except the football games.” Because she loved to cook, her dad suggested culinary school. “The minute I walked into the [Scottsdale Culinary Institute in Arizona],” she says, “I knew I was in the right place.”
She’s been cooking and making a name for herself in Chicago for the past 15 years, starting when she quit her job as a sous chef and opened her first restaurant, Scylla, in 2004. She soon found herself competing on the fourth season of Top Chef, which she won (she’s the first woman to do so). Then the idea for Girl & the Goat started to come into focus. She teamed up with Boka Restaurant Group and opened the eatery in 2010, with Little Goat Diner launching a few years later. Since then, the James Beard Award-winning chef hasn’t slowed down, with Duck Duck Goat (interiors by AvroKO) set to open this fall.
First food memory
You could say it was a crêpe that changed her life. An 8-year-old Izard was on a family vacation to Epcot when a trip to France—Disney World’s version, at least—introduced her to a ham, mushroom, and cheese crêpe that she immediately recreated when she got home. “My mom always told the story that it tasted just like ones we had [at Disney World]. From that point on, I was always cooking.”
The Studio K Creative-designed Girl & the Goat features burnt wood walls.
On making guests happy
Along the way, Izard has picked up lessons from every chef she has worked with, and she “continues to learn from chefs everywhere I go,” but it’s her food philosophy that has earned her staying power in Chicago. “I just try to make your whole mouth happy, hit all the flavor points with bold, in-your-face flavor, and not forget to have a variety of textures in every dish.”
Big picture priorities
Successful restaurants aren’t just about food or service or design—but rather all of those things working together, Izard says, which she prioritizes when working with her partners and design teams. “The design sets the mood and gets guests in the right mindset for the food you are creating. If we suddenly painted Girl & the Goat white and closed the kitchen, it would completely change the experience. Even if we served the exact same food, it just would not taste the same. The hustle and bustle of the open kitchen, along with the reclaimed wood and burnt wood walls, create the comforting but fun mood that our guests should feel to enjoy the food.”
Chicago’s food revolution
It’s the people of the city who inspire Izard. “I am fortunate that I get to travel all over, but I just love the people that live in Chicago. Plus, the restaurant industry is very supportive of each other. We all want it to be the best in the country.”
What’s next
Chinese concept Duck Duck Goat “is going to give the feel of Chinatown with various areas of open kitchen so the guests can see the fire from the woks and the grill, watch the butchers prepare the Peking duck, and see the cooks making soup dumplings,” Izard says. “Having an open kitchen in all three Goat restaurants just helps make it fun. Plus, the cooks and sous chefs can see the guests enjoying the food, which is the best reward.”
Little Goat Diner, crafted by Toronto’s Anacleto Design.
Lessons learned
“You can’t do it all yourself. You have to find people you trust and delegate. Surround yourself with people who have the same passion for the industry, who you enjoy spending time with, who you can bounce ideas off of, and who you can work together as a team with—those people make everything work and make growing the business possible.”
