Chicago, IL Metro

Grass-Fed & Pasture-Raised Restaurants in Chicago

Covers Chicago proper, River North, Fulton River District, Andersonville, and the Beverly neighborhood on the South Side. Every listing is verified with a published source.

Cuisine
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Neighborhood
Big Jones
Big Jones
Southern

Sources: House-ground grass-fed beef, named dish

Andersonville Southern restaurant with a documented history sourcing from Tallgrass Beef Company, a genuinely grass-fed and grass-finished Kansas producer the chef began working with in 2006. The restaurant's own site blocks every direct fetch attempt we made, so this listing is sourced from a menu aggregator (allmenus.com) rather than bigjoneschicago.com directly: "Pimiento Cheeseburger: House ground grass fed beef griddled with onion and pimiento cheese topped with lettuce, pickled snack peppers and choice of side." A specific, named dish, capped at a lower tier than our other Chicago listings because we couldn't confirm it on the restaurant's own domain.

Gibsons Italia
Gibsons Italia
Italian Steakhouse

Sources: "Gibsons Grassfed Australian" beef program, named menu items

Fulton River District Italian steakhouse from the Gibsons Restaurant Group. Their own current menu states: "At the heart of the menu is a world-class tour of beef, starring Gibsons Prime Angus, Gibsons Grassfed Australian, Japanese Kobe and Miyazaki, and Carrara 640 Wagyu." A named, standing beef program alongside three other programs, though the menu doesn't add a separate grass-finished qualifier, so that's the claim we're reporting rather than assuming more.

Horse Thief Hollow
Horse Thief Hollow
Brewpub / American

Sources: Own-raised grass-fed cattle, whole-program claim

South Side brewpub and scratch kitchen in Beverly. Their own site states: "Horse Thief Hollow is the only restaurant in Chicago that raises its own grass-fed beef," describing Angus cattle raised two miles away in partnership with Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences. In the same words, the cattle diet is "tall grass, hay, and our spent brewers grain," a byproduct of their own beer production. We're reporting the claim exactly as the brewery states it, grass-fed, with a transparent disclosure of the brewers-grain supplementation, since that detail matters for readers judging the claim precisely.

RPM Steak
RPM Steak
Modern Steakhouse

Sources: Named grass-fed ribeye, sourced from Reidsville, GA

Lettuce Entertain You / Rancic modern steakhouse in River North. Their own current menu lists "Bone-In Grass-Fed Ribeye* 20 oz, Reidsville, GA" as a specific, named cut with a named place of origin, distinct from the menu's other conventional cuts. No supplier brand named beyond the town, but a specific and traceable own-menu claim.

True Food Kitchen
True Food Kitchen
Seasonal / Wellness

Sources: 100% grass-fed beef, chain-wide (all locations)

Fox Restaurant Concepts' wellness-focused chain, with a River North location on Erie Street. Same national program verified on our Los Angeles, Austin, Denver, Nashville, Portland, and Phoenix pages: a named, dated trade press report (FSR Magazine, Aug. 29, 2023) quotes Verde Farms' SVP confirming the beef across all True Food Kitchen locations is "100 percent grass-fed on pastures where cattle roam free 100 percent of the time, no feedlots, ever." Covers beef only, chain-wide policy, not scoped to one location.

Frequently asked questions

Are there grass-fed beef restaurants in Chicago?

Yes. True Food Kitchen (River North) runs 100% grass-fed beef chain-wide through a Verde Farms partnership, confirmed by a named trade press report. Gibsons Italia (Fulton River District) lists "Gibsons Grassfed Australian" as one of four standing beef programs on its own menu. RPM Steak (River North) names a specific Bone-In Grass-Fed Ribeye sourced from Reidsville, GA. Horse Thief Hollow (Beverly) raises its own grass-fed Angus cattle two miles from the brewery, in partnership with a local agricultural high school, though its own site discloses the cattle also eat spent brewers grain alongside grass and hay. Big Jones (Andersonville) has a documented history with Tallgrass Beef Company and lists a house-ground grass-fed burger, though we sourced that listing from a menu aggregator rather than the restaurant's own site, which blocked every direct check we tried. Several other well-known Chicago spots with sourcing-forward reputations, including Publican Quality Meats, Boeufhaus, and Girl & The Goat, use "responsibly raised" or similar language but don't make an explicit grass-fed claim on their own current menus, so we left them off. See each listing for exactly what's confirmed and by whom.

What does it mean that Horse Thief Hollow's cattle eat "spent brewers grain"?

Spent brewers grain is the leftover barley and grain solids from the brewing process, after the sugars have been extracted to make beer. Horse Thief Hollow's own site describes its cattle diet as tall grass and hay from pasture, supplemented with this grain byproduct, and calls the result "grass-fed beef." It's a different situation from a formal grain-finishing period at a feedlot, since the grain here is a brewery byproduct fed alongside ongoing pasture grazing rather than a switch to a grain-based diet before slaughter, but it's still a grain input, so we're naming it plainly rather than letting "grass-fed" stand without the detail. Judge for yourself whether that fits what you're looking for.

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