True Food Kitchen — Restaurant in Oak Brook

Ample parking, fresh, clean, and not too loud (high ceilings with dampening boards) ambiance, window wall brightens the room. Interesting lighting accents make me want to redo the lighting options in my own home.

I wasn't sure how much I would like this place as it isn't one of my typical haunts. Everything at True Food is made with utmost care and health of people and the planet in mind (their words, not mine), but it works. And it works extremely well.

They have a seasonal menu and we ate off their "Summer" menu. Truthfully, I think most of the items are year round, but there are enough changes to warrant different menus. throughout the year.

We started with their Wold-Caught Tuna Lettuce Wraps. It's not a dish for me, so my wife and son indulged. They said it was really, really good and that the pineapple relish was extremely good and made the dish along with the fried rice. I would have been fine with the fried rice alone as that was very tasty.

My wife was recommended the Ancient Grains bowl. There is nothing in it that I would eat being a picky carnivore, but if you like this sort of thing, she says it was crazy good and it's a large enough portion to bring home and have for lunch the next day (as she did).

My son got the Grilled Grass-Fed Steak cooked medium rare. It's been a long time since I've seen steak cooked to such perfection. He ordered an additional portion of steak as well and it really wasn't mush more that a slab a meat on a plate found at a regular steakhouse. This was sliced up and placed atop a bed of asparagus, sweety drop peppers, regenerative black rice, with a black garlic vinaigrette. He ate every last bit with gusto.

I ordered the Pot Roast Beef Dip sans the carmelized onions. It's 100% organic grass-fed beef, with a horseradish aioli, parmesan and au jus. There was extra au jus on the side but wasn't needed at all. The combination was insanely juicy and flavorful and the roll was light, slightly crispy, yet somehow melts in your mouth. I also upgraded my side to get their umami potatoes (I think umami is a house thing for them). Umami is basically salt, pepper, and olive oil. Which coated the potatoes and gave them a crispy texture when cooked (baked, whatever) and it comes with a side of the black garlic vinaigrette as well. It has a slight spiciness to it, but the vinegar cuts through it and leaves the flavor and not the over-spiciness of what garlic and black pepper can almost always overdo when added to food.

They don't serve any type of cola so I ordered a peach lemonade which was perfectly sweetened but not overly so. The peach cuts down the tartness of the lemonade and gives it a nice sweet kick that one doesn't expect when peaches are mixed with lemonade. The true kick is that True Food uses agave straws to help the environment, not hinder it.

At every turn, True Food finds a way to make everything about helping the people they serve to the environment around them. The use of lots of windows instead of utilizing extra electricity on lighting, to the agave straws, to organically sourced food.

While there isn't a location closer to me, we will definitely return and try other dishes. Their sourdough pizzas...

(UPDATE: my partner believes he got diarrhea from his meal here. He did not eat anything else the rest of the night).

Our group was truly so excited to try out a new, health-conscious place, especially given the mostly wonderful reviews. It's unfortunate to report that the negative reviews that other people have made (at least about the food) are absolutely correct. The food was truly so lackluster, it made all of us confirm to never come back (and honestly kind of soured the evening for us once we realized we could have easily gone to another restaurant for the same price but way more satisfaction).

We got other foods/drinks, but I can't remember exactly what they were called, but from what I can remember: Charred Cauliflower: decent, had flavor at least Loaded Fingerling Potatoes: the best thing we got, and it's potatoes. Literally the best thing we got, so it made us excited for the rest of our food Margherita Pizza: not even the ranch could save it, tasted like something you could get in the frozen aisle of a grocery store The Ultimate Pot Roast Beef Dip: good, but again you could get a bucket of frozen Buona roast beef and make this at home Lasagna Bolognese: my friend seemed to enjoy it in the moment, but when we left the restaurant, he said the food was a joke for that price. Mac and Cheese (as a side): by far the worst mac and cheese any of us have ever had at a restaurant. It was truly so horrifically bland we were literally stunned into silence, and none of us could figure out what to do to hypothetically fix it. We even tried putting the ranch from the pizza on it, and even then, it would have taken the whole saucer of ranch to make it slightly more bearable.

I'm not sure if the restaurant advertising itself as a health-conscious brand means they have to make their food bland and their prices worse, because I know places like Sweet Green (another health-conscious brand) definitely have delicious food AND they have more of a fast-food/Chipotle model, so the prices are more reasonable. I can't think of other health-conscious restaurants off the top of my head, but it was quite sad to end such a previously wonderful day on such severe disappointment.

(That being said, our waitress was such a sweetheart and was very attentive to our needs. Gave us time to look at the menu, didn't make us feel rushed, but still came back to check on us with a...

Summary: There is something refreshing to say when the quality of the food your eating is part of the flavor. The green and sunny ambiance of the place definitely fits the food they offer and I would definitely recommend this place to anyone looking to have a nice day date. Nothing romantic here but the quality of drinks and food say otherwise.

Food: The freshness is a flavor of whatever you eat. To start, the spicy tuna spring rolls were great when paired with their peanut sauce. A little light on the tuna portion but for an appetizer it was decent.

The poke bowl and shrimp tacos were great entrees! The poke bowl definitely lacked flavor, but once again the freshness helped a bit. The saving grace for the poke bowl was definitely the jalapeño sauce they served with it. After adding the sauce to the poke bowl I was able to devour it all.

Cocktail: Get the apricot bourbon cocktail! I typically have old fashions and manhattans where possible, but the presentation and flavor were next level. I ended up asking the bartender for the bourbon used but of course I forgot 😒.

Dessert: And now for the reason I gave 4 instead of 5 stars. I am a die hard Keylime pie junkie and will easily give up my diet for a good piece. Their "take" on a Keylime pie was absolutely horrible. It looks absolutely beautiful but boy o boy was this a letdown. To start, it's not sweet or sugary. Best way i can put it is that I easily said after one bite that I was going to keep my calorie goal after all. The crust had a nice buttery coconut flavor, but that's all it had going for it. This dessert was such a huge bummer....