Chicago’s best restaurant (at least according to our esteemed dining writers) is turning 10 this year! Monteverde, chef Sarah Grueneberg’s love letter to all things Italian, continues to get accolades year after year, and the restaurant is doing something special to celebrate its anniversary. I sat down with Grueneberg to talk about the restaurant, her plans for the future, and whether she plans to do any more TV cooking shows.
Grueneberg came to the attention of Chicago diners during her years at Spiaggia, the much-missed fine dining Italian spot on Michigan Avenue. Particularly, she gained fame by achieving runner-up status on Season 9 of Top Chef way back in 2012. But after Spiaggia, she struck out on her own to open Monteverde in 2014. And after many years of running the restaurant, Grueneberg actually gets to step back a bit and leave the day-to-day in the hands of others. “Our whole chef team has a minimum of three years with us,” explains Grueneberg. “Everyone on the team is cooking and operating in a way that stays true to Monteverde.” Just this week, Monteverde has appointed a new executive chef, Bailey Sullivan, and in a full circle moment, Sullivan herself is slated to appear on the next season of Top Chef. “It’s nice to be on the other side of the Top Chef coin,” Grueneberg laughs. “I can be a mentor and a shoulder to cry on.”
It’s been a bit surprising to dining insiders that, given the success of Monteverde, Grueneberg hasn’t moved to open any other restaurants. Apparently COVID is largely to blame — before the pandemic, Grueneberg had actually acquired an additional restaurant space and signed a letter of intent on a third space, but both projects fell through as the restaurant industry collapsed. Rumors persist of a new spot, but Grueneberg very carefully will neither confirm nor deny if a new restaurant is coming anytime soon. For right now, Grueneberg is focused on work-life balance, enjoying life, and (finally) learning Italian. She’s not planning to do any more cooking shows, though: “I realized the last time I did a culinary competition on TV, I just get too much anxiety.”
To celebrate 10 years of deliciousness, Monteverde is bringing back some of its most popular dishes that have fallen off the menu over the years. Grueneberg admits that a lot of these dishes disappeared because, frankly, they are just a pain to execute — but they are so delicious and so popular that they are making a comeback. Each month in 2025, another dish will come back, and it’ll be connected with a charity partner. Right now, the dish is a meatball ravioli, which actually was the result of a mistake — because Monteverde uses local pork, the meat was a little bit different each time, and one batch of meatballs came out too soft. Grueneberg couldn’t stomach tossing them in the garbage, so she turned them into ravioli filling, and it became one of the restaurant’s most popular dishes. The charity for the month is Pilot Light.
Other familiar dishes will make a comeback, including Grueneberg’s “whole chicken parm” which she beat Bobby Flay on his show. This dish comes from her time at Spiaggia, a restaurant hardly known for making things like chicken parm, so she decided to elevate it — the breasts are pounded flat, the thighs are ground and mixed with cheese, basil, and garlic and used to stuff the chicken breast, which is then cooked in a spicy red wine chicken liver sauce and topped with crispy chicken skin.
Monteverde’s actual birthday is November 11, and you should keep an eye out for some awesome events — nothing is nailed down yet, but Grueneberg promises fun things are coming.