Restaurant Review: Step into a garden of fresh eating at Avondale’s Eden
With a “California coast meets European cafés” vibe, Avondale’s woman-owned Eden is a place where Chef Devon Quinn creates New American-fare with seasonal, locally sourced ingredients.
What makes Eden unique is its focus on a minimal use of ingredients, as their website notes, as well as curating farm-to-table creations using plants and flowers grown in their onsite greenhouse, or sourced locally from farmers and purveyors.
Open for lunch, brunch and dinner, start with such featured items as Pozole Rojo, which is oven-roasted chicken, hominy, cabbage, radish, and lime, served with tortillas. Avocado Toast has a medium-boiled egg, candied fresno, radish, pickled shallot, and toasted seeds on sourdough. Or, a Green Dreams Are Made of This, a healthy smoothieof pureed banana, pineapple, avocado, spinach, spirulina, and agave.
At lunch, all sandwiches are served with your choice of french fries, green city market fruit cup, or eden salad. Their Eden Market Burger has been recognized by Condé Nast Traveler’s Best Burgers in Chicago 2025, as well as a 2024 Judges’ Choice Award at Chicago Gourmet’s Annual Hamburger Hop competition. It’s well-deserved, served with American cheese sauce, dill pickle and grilled onion slaw, arugula, oven-dried tomatoes, and a black garlic dijonnaise. Other tasty options include Mushroom Lettuce Wraps with bibb lettuce, lemongrass, ginger, garlic, mint, cilantro, thai basil, sweet soy, cashew, toasted rice, and pickled green onions, or the Eden BLT with rosemary focaccia, heirloom tomato, applewood-smoked bacon, field greens, and sungold aioli. Their Cashew Crunch Sesame Salad is a citrusy, crunchy mix of cucumber, cabbage, carrot, bell pepper, cashew, crunchy wonton, orange, and pea tendrils, dressed with a sesame-ginger vinaigrette. Caesar Salad is made with gem lettuce and purple radish, and served with sourdough crisp and parmesan.
Dinner features such small plates as Squash Blossom Crab Rangoons,topped with a tangy-sweet strawberry sweet and sour sauce, parmesan, and lemon. Tuna Ceviche has leche de tigre (tiger’s milk,) celery, lacto-fermented green strawberries, black walnuts, stone fruit, smoked sea salt, lemon, and Los Comanches tortilla chips. Bibb Wedge Salad has green goddess dressing, adzuki and cannellini beans, purple cauliflower, watermelon radish, fennel, candied pecans, trumpet mushroom bacon. Wood-Grilled Carrots has a berbere vinaigrette, coconut yogurt raita, autumn 2024 apple cider saba, and pistachio. Crispy Potatoes are like none other, with salsa macha, peanuts, red pepper tahina, lime, and scallions.
Eden’s big plates include Red Crab Bucatini with greenhouse pesto, fava beans, miso-cured egg yolks, parmesan reggiano, and breadcrumbs. Chestnut Mushroom Stracci has mightyvine cherry tomatoes, olive breadcrumbs, and parmesan. Greenhouse Herb Gnocchi has sungold tomatoes, baby summer squashes, shallot, shoyu, ricotta, basil, and lemon verbena. Roasted Beet Salad is a mix of sourdough sikil pak, strawberry amba, and preserved lemon-sumac vinaigrette. Wood-Grilled Barramundi is made with peach piperade, lacto-fermented blueberry, cucumber, roasted corn, lime, basil, huacatey, and toasted sunflower seeds, while Wood-Grilled Skirt Steak is a 6-ounce cut with a mixed-berry and umeboshi marinade, lime, basil, and maldon salt.
But as we say here at Dean’s Team Chicago, leave room for dessert! Especially when you can have a Sweet Plate, festooned with a pine nut almond cookie, strawberry basil bonbon, and a unique puffed rice banana cluster. Peach & Apricot Cheesecake has hyssop compressed peaches, apricot and lemon olive oil coulis, cornmeal streusel and bee pollen. Wow! Chocolate & Hazelnut Cake has crémeux, cocoa nib streusel, toasted hazelnut ice cream, and marmite caramel.
“Everything was phenomenal. Appetizers. Entrees (the streak was noteworthy) and the desserts were a great treat (homemade mint ice cream from garden mint in a cookie sandwich). You can see their greenhouse from the restaurant, we’ll be back!”
“It’s a nice spot for brunch! I sat at the bar next to the pastry case, which by the way had a lot of options, and the staff were super friendly and attentive. The food is fresh and delicious, but what really won me over were the quinoa pancakes. I’m totally a fan! Also, they have free parking lot , which is a huge plus.”
Eden is located at 2734 W. Roscoe Street. They are open Wednesday and Thursday, 11am-3pm and 5pm-9pm; Friday from 11am-3pm, and 5pm-10pm; Saturday from 10am-3pm; and 5pm-10pm; and Sunday from 10am-3pm. They are closed Monday and Tuesday. Reservations are recommended, and can be made by clicking here.
Alison Moran-Powers and Dean’s Team Chicago
