Since the beginning of time—or at least the beginning of industrial farming practices—one tiny detail has plagued proponents of the organic food movement: While undoubtedly better for the environment, and probably better for our health, it has yet to be determined that organic food actually tastes better.
So when a place like Crust, the Midwest’s first certified-organic restaurant, comes along, expectations are high. Organic pizzas, organic infused vodkas and acclaimed chef Michael Altenberg in the kitchen? Surely this is the proof everybody’s been looking for.
But no. Altenberg’s food sticks too closely to the tenants of the movement—that is, he keeps his food clean and simple—and the result is merely solid. (Indeed, the restaurant’s cloyingly earnest motto is “Eat Real,” not, say, “Eat Tasty.”) Vegetables here are impeccably fresh, but that doesn’t make the salads (even the carefully executed sweet basil salad, with its soft, housemade mozzarella) any less basic. Crust’s pizza (which appears on the menu as “flatbreads”) has a bubbly, half-inch-thick crust that is slightly, pleasantly chewy. When it is topped with bechamel, caramelized onion, bacon and caraway seeds—like the “Flammkuchen” is—it can be very good. Topped with feta, artichokes, tomatoes and kalamata olives—the “El Greco”—it can be perfectly nice. Topped with pepperoni and heirloom peppers, though, it’s strikingly mediocre—no more interesting than what you’d find at a conventional pizzeria. The sandwich I tried—tender pulled pork topped with crunchy slaw on soft housemade brioche, and flanked by sweet beet chips—followed this same pattern. It was good and simple. Or, rather, simply good.
And just in case Crust’s mission isn’t clear already, a dessert of raspberries drives the point home. Because these raspberries are not dressed up—they are not in, say, a lime syrup, like you might find at another restaurant. They’re not even raspberries with cream. They’re just plump, sweet berries in a bowl. Were they good? Sure. But more important, they were a fitting end to an organic meal. Because the entire point of the organic revolution is that food shouldn’t be revolutionary.