Wilde & Greene a Delightful Hodgepodge

After more than a year of construction, Wilde & Greene is open at Westfield Old Orchard Mall in Skokie and it was worth the wait. Just don’t expect it to be a new food court.

The structure of Wilde & Greene will be familiar to anyone who has dined at foodlife in Chicago’s Water Tower Place. Patrons enter and are given a card, which is swiped when ordering food or drinks at any of the restaurant’s 16 stations. At the end, the cashier uses the card to determine to resulting tab. They also add in a 10 percent gratuity, which is an unpleasant surprise given it's a counter service restaurant.

A server finds customers a place to sit, flipping a placard from available to reserved, which also indicates not to clear the table as it remains in use. Servers also provide a floor map, which can be helpful since the space is big, often crowded and filled with too many options to try in one visit.

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After getting our table, my fiancé and I split up to explore. He went for the pizzeria, while I stopped at the sushi bar. Menus are posted on flat-screen TVs, and I found myself staring at the selection of signature maki I didn’t recognize. Then a woman working at the sushi station pointed me to a printout listing what was in each roll. She also showed me a volcano roll ($15.98) that had just been made and said it was very good. It looked great, so I went with her recommendation.

While the sushi chef worked on my order, I grabbed a seat at the bar. I saw a woman sipping a martini, so when the bartender came by I asked if he had a cocktail menu. He said no but that he was a “master martini mixer” who could whip something up depending on my tastes and what I was eating. I told him I was waiting on sushi and that I liked tropical flavors, and he made a delicious blend of Malibu, pineapple juice, mango puree and cointreau ($10) that worked great with my light meal.

Despite his creative skills, when I asked him to mix an Old Fashioned for my fiancé he confessed he didn’t know how. When I gave him the recipe, he said they didn’t have any bitters. After perusing their draft list, I grabbed a glass of Leinenkugel Summer Shandy ($5) instead.

There was a much bigger crowd at the pizza spot, so my fiance’s herb chicken pizza ($11.98) took a solid 15 minutes to prepare despite the original 10-minute estimate. There was some complaining from customers hanging around the station about how long things were taking and the backup seemed to have been caused by a shortage of toppings, leading one chef to snap at another: “Where did you learn how to chop?”

We were both very pleased with our food. The volcano roll was packed with big chunks of spicy salmon and tuna and perfectly ripe avocado wrapped in rice and covered in tobiko. The roll is served on top of excellent spicy mayo that adds more kick.

The pizza was also great, with a very crispy crust topped with a pesto sauce, feta cheese and big strips of chicken. My fiancé had planned on taking half of the small pie home at first, but wound up devouring it all at the mall.

For dessert, I dropped by the gelato station and grabbed a scoop of grapefruit gelato ($2.49). I had never seen that flavor before and I loved it. It was a light, slightly tart treat with fruit pulp mixed into the cream.

While I enjoyed myself, I can understand why many of the early reviews for Wilde & Greene on Yelp have been negative. The restaurant is still going through growing pains. Much of its staff is inexperienced and it feels new and disorganized. The space is a little cluttered, which can make navigating hard when it’s busy.

But I think the biggest problem it faces is one of expectations. Wilde & Greene replaces the mall’s food court, but it is a different creature entirely. Diners may order at a counter, but the food they get is more akin to a nice sit-down restaurant, and it’s priced accordingly. The food is made to order, which improves the taste, but makes for a poor option for people in a hurry.

If you know what you’re in for, Wilde & Greene does offer a great dining experience and is a wonderful place for any group of people craving very different things.

I’ll be back soon to try more of the options.

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