Restaurant Review – The Marq

I don’t often find myself in The Loop for dinner, but this week called for a Friday date night. We took ourselves to The Marq, located at 60 W Adams St. We called ahead and made a reservation. When we got there, there was a fair number of empty tables, so I’m not sure we needed it. You never know on a Friday night! The space is lovely, with a large central bar, warm quilted booths, and industrial light fixtures. The menu is relatively small, with starters, salads, charcuterie, sides, and main dishes. Even so, everything sounded so good, I had a hard time deciding! I finally decided to create my own little sampler plate. I started with the Marq Slider: house ground beef, Marq aioli, American cheese, and house-made pickles and pickled onion, all on a brioche bun. This was delicious! It was the perfect size for a slider and was delightfully simple. I also ordered the Shishito Peppers: beer tempura battered peppers served with sweet green Thai chili sauce and garlic chili oil. I love shishito peppers and these definitely stood out. The batter was light and crispy and the chili sauce was smoky and spicy, with just a hint of sweetness. I would order these again in a heartbeat! I also ordered a side salad- you can order a side portion of any of the dinner salads for just $6. I chose the Greek Salad: kale, red quinoa, grape tomatoes, pickled red onion, cucumbers, kalamata olives, crumbled feta cheese, grilled lemon, and a greek vinaigrette. I don’t normally like a kale based salad; I find kale to be very bitter. But this was so tasty! The kale wasn’t bitter at all, it had almost a buttery quality. I loved the addition of the quinoa as well, it was a lovely twist on a classic Greek salad. My boyfriend ordered the Marq Burger. It was almost the same as my slider, except it had two patties and came with fries. He is a burger connoisseur and said that it is one of his favorites in the city! The fries were very good as well. We can’t wait to come back and try other dishes here!

The Marq is open Mondays and Tuesdays from 11 am to 10 pm, Wednesdays through Fridays from 11 am to 11 pm, and Saturdays from 11 am to 10 pm. Find more information here.

RACHEL HOOVLER & DEAN’S TEAM CHICAGO