Opera
Hours
Profile
Neighborhood
- Loop
Smoke-free?
- No
Reservations?
- Accepted
Wheelchair Accessible?
- Yes
Accepts
- Checks
-
$$$ - expensive
Chinese
Chinese Restaurant with Vegan Menu
Opera is a former warehouse that is now an elegant restaurant. It features classic Chinese cuisine and has a completely separate vegan menu. Opera is also in the middle of the theater district downtown, so it's a great place to go before catching a show.
- Large Group-Friendly
- Private Rooms
- Quiet
- Romantic
- Valet Parking
Added by Eric Purdy on Aug 14 04 (updated Apr 18 08)
Reviews
We got to Opera pretty late (10:45 p.m.), so I was happy that they're open late. They recommend making reservations, as it's a popular place in the theater district. The decor is pretty cool and artsy-unusual, and the service was friendly and prompt.
I also love that they have a separate vegan menu, however small it may be, and however confusing (it's not separated into traditional groupings of appetizer-entree-dessert, so make sure to ask what's what).
Now onto the food. The morel mushroom wontons were pretty good but nothing spectacular. Morels are delicate, so I wasn't sure that deep frying them in batter was the best cooking treatment. The portion size was kind of small considering the price ($9).
My Mapo tofu was also decent, but nothing special. The portion size was much larger, even though the price was only $8, so I'm not sure how they set prices. The flavors were a strange mix of sweet and spicy, but I found the dish became boring after ten or fifteen bites.
There were two other vegans in my group and one of them was greatly disappointed by her "vegetable rice noodle stir fry" which she found to be overly sweet with low quality noodles. I tried her dish and concurred---it was almost sugary, rather than savory. Finally, the last vegan in the group enjoyed her "spring vegetable muushu."
So while I must give the restaurant kudos for having a vegan menu, and having hip decor and nice service, I was not impressed by the food. Quite honestly, I probably won't go back here unless I'm desperate. It just doesn't merit a second visit.
This review is from a vegan / vegetarian perspective.
The decor in Opera is almost surreal! If you go, take a tour of the restaurant and delight in its visual pleasures. As a vegetarian, this is a real bonus -- it's hard to find 'nicer-casual,' intimate vegetarian dining. Add to this a separate vegan menu, and my partner and I were ready to add '5 stars' to the many geometric shapes found all over the restaurant.
We were impressed by the complementary pre-appetizer appetizers: spicy, sticky, sweet peanuts, and tangy cucumber-onion salad. They matched each other well enough that we asked for seconds :) Our wait staff was friendly and accommodating, and our food already very quickly (admittedly, we went during a slow time).
My partner and I ordered ma po tofu, and a spring vegetable / pancake dish. Although presented well, neither dish was unique or extraordinary. The garlic-black bean sauce in the tofu was very tasty, but after 5 minutes with dish, I was secretly pushing it to my partner's side in favor of the more blandly flavored spring vegetable dish.
The one vegan dessert on the menu is a mango sorbet / coconut custard combo, which is served in a sweet, thin syrup with fresh berries accompanying it. The justifiably expensive ($7) dessert we shared was tasty, and the coconut custard was the sole unique thing we had at opera. It had the texture of silken tofu, but was rich and coconut-flavored; barely sweet.
Opera would probably be worth returning 1 or 2 more times for its 4 remaining vegan dishes and repeat experiences of its design. However, I'm not sure I would crave any dish a second time.
P.S. To our surprise, these dishes were less than $10 each, so I guess we got what we paid for. Other meat-dish prices are in the $15-$25 range. This is one of the few omnivore places I've seen where the vegan / vegetarian items are significantly less than the meat dishes--a long-standing myth I've heard about, but rarely confirmed first-hand.
Opera definitely delivers for the money you pay. I can confirm that the morel mushrooms are definitely worth the trip, and they also make this sinfully delicious fried corn dish. For the entree I had a very interesting rice and veggie dish wrapped in some sort of leaf. Their Ma Po Tofu is fine, but it's like Ma Po Tofu you can get at any other Chinese place. The servers made a really big deal about their mango panna cotta - to be honest it good, but not as fantastic as the hype.
The vegan morel mushroom wontons are worth the trip alone. The one vegan dessert is the only one you'll ever need. I wasn't super impressed with either of the two vegan entrees, but they were OK. This is a really nice place for a special night out. It would run you about $60 for an appetizer, 2 entrees and 2 desserts without drinks. It's an aesthetically-pleasing, funky, young and energetic atmosphere.
Opera is a fancy and trendy way to get vegan Pan-Asian food that's remarkably good, if a bit expensive. The bar selection is quite nice and the fabric rich interior is a nice change from many lower rent places that have Vegan food. Definitely a nice place for a date.
Unfortunately, as good as the items on their (seperate) vegan menu are, they don't change and there aren't enough to make this place a frequently repeatable meal without boredom. However, they did say that they'd be redoing the menu soon, including the vegan menu.
I was pleasantly surprised with Opera, a vegan friendly pan-Asian restaurant in the South loop. They serve what may well be some of the most elegant vegan food in the city. An entire separate vegan menu, with dessert, is available, and our server was very conscious of the different dietary needs at the table. Many side dishes on the regular menu can also be made vegan.
Unfortunately none of us saved room for dessert, but the food was filling, tasty, and well presented. The atmosphere is trendy, something of a pleasant departure from typical chicago veg friendly restaurant surroundings. The lychee martinis were especially delicious. This would be a great place in Chicago to take a vegan date.
As many of the other reviewers have commented, Opera is a great place to go on a date (or with non-vegan family members). While many of the dishes at Opera are quite expensive, the vegan dishes tend to be very reasonably-priced. The decor is stunning and the bar makes really good drinks. I am a huge fan of the vegetable rice noodle stir fry. The desserts tend to vary (they used to have really good homemade sorbet but recently the vegan dessert has been a mango panna cotta that I am a little less enthused about). Still, I have to give major points to Opera for having a separate vegan menu. It's a pretty rare occurrence in Chicago.