Every year, I take Brian out for his birthday to a fancy steakhouse here in Chicago. Chicago is known for its steakhouses, and there are no shortage of restaurants to choose from. GT Prime is one of the only ones we haven’t visited yet, and getting reservations early on a Tuesday evening was easy.

The restaurant itself has a very moody, yet bright vibe, with black-brown floors and tables and walls, but bright bronze-gold accents and lighter brown leather chairs and booths. When you walk in, there is a massive bar space with high top tables, and you can see the grill right behind the bar, which is super cool. The dining area is large, but cozy and intimate with large canvas paintings of different food items – mainly meat and seafood. Embedded in our table was a bronze/gold leaping pig, which was cute. We sat in a curved booth – an old school style booth, which I don’t 100% love since our legs are long and you just end up spending the entire time keeping your feet out of the other person’s space, but it was comfortable enough.

Our reservations were for 5:30pm, which was so early, especially on a Tuesday, that we were one of only two seated parties in the dining room at the time. Needless to say, our service was prompt and attentive, although I’m glad I didn’t order all of our courses at the same time, because our steaks came out seemingly less than 10 minutes after ordering – probably a record. I have to take note that even when a few larger groups came in, our server still did not ignore us, which takes an effort when you are only two and your competing table is 12 people. Our server was also super detail-oriented. He noticed that my giant knife had water spots on it and switched it out. I didn’t even notice the move! They also had personalized menus that said “Happy Birthday Brian!” on them – a nice touch.

The food and drinks here were generally delicious with few exceptions. The house bread looks amazing, but when you pull it apart, it’s actually a bit dry and tasteless apart from the salty-rosemary drizzle on the top of it. We started with a couple glasses of sparkling rose which was yummy, and paired amazingly with the appetizer we ordered.

To start, we ordered the seared foie gras, which was plated beautifully and with intention, which is not usually the case for steakhouses. It was served on a brioche toast with hazelnuts and berries, a celeriac cream and these super delicate butternut squash discs adorning the plate along the bottom. The foie gras was melt-in-your-mouth incredible, and the accompanying butternut squash, celeriac and berries were a really nice combination. We should have gotten two of these!

For the mains, we both ordered steaks (ribeyes medium-rare are our jam) and three sides. We also ordered a bottle of Barbaresco to go with our meal which was perfectly tannic with bright fruit and solid acid to balance out the richness of our meal. Brian had the 16 oz. Strauss Farms Grassfed Ribeye. I ordered the 14 oz. Morgan Ranch Wagyu Ribeye (USA). For the sides, we had the Mac & Cheese, Shishitos & Corn, and Roasted Four Star Mushrooms. The steaks were very good – we didn’t get any accompanying sauces or anything because we really like to taste the meat. I can’t say they were the best steaks we’ve had in Chicago, but they were delicious. The cap on my ribeye was actually really large compared to the rest of the steak, and was particularly good, but I feel like the filet part of it, despite it being from a USA Wagyu cow, was not as tender as I would’ve expected. This was fine, though, because the cap was enough meat to fill me up. Brian said that mine was way more tender than his. We complained to each other that our super large knives, while impressive looking, were actually not super sharp.

The sides were really quite good – although the first shishito pepper I bit into was extremely spicy. If you know shishitos, it’s pretty rare to get a spicy one, as they are usually pretty sweet, but we both seemed to get a few spicy ones which kind of ruined our tastebuds for about 10 minutes after. I pretty much gave up on the shishitos after that first one, but the corn was slightly spicy with more of a smokey spice flavor and really nice. The stand-out side though were the roasted mushrooms. There were some crispy shallots in there too, and the mushrooms had incredible umami flavor, and even a bit of toasty crunch on the edges. I declared these were the best steakhouse side mushrooms in Chicago! The Mac & Cheese was also perfectly done and super great even without some of the more fancy additions other restaurants add like truffle or lobster (though adding lobster is an option here). The sides really shined here.

We were both extremely full after this, to the point where Brian didn’t even want to order one of the large slabs of cake on offer – which is very rare for him. We opted for two scoops of ice cream instead, and boy, was this the CORRECT choice. Brian ordered chocolate ice cream (gross!) and also maple ice cream, which is the one I ate. I also declared that they had the best house-made ice cream of any steakhouse in Chicago. It was definitely more like custard; when you stuck your spoon in for a bite and pulled it out, it just expanded in this long, custardy strand that you had to gather up with your spoon like spaghetti. The ice cream was incredibly rich and super flavorful and was sprinkled with some brown sugar on top, adding a nice bit of crunch to offset the uber creaminess in your mouth. This was some seriously killer ice cream.

They also brought Brian a small piece of confetti cake with a candle to blow out, which was complimentary and super nice. We also ordered espresso martinis with our desserts which were very delicious. I am so glad espresso martinis are “back”!

While I can’t say that GT Prime is the best steakhouse in Chicago, it was super good. For us, the stars of the show, though, weren’t the steaks – it was the fois gras, sides and ice cream that really made this place special. Thanks, GT Prime, for a lovely birthday dinner!