GATHER IN OMAHA

Hoppen Hierarchy:★★★

Inviting restaurant serving American classics

Perfect For: Casual Dining; Upscale Dining; Drinks; Date Night

Standout Dishes: Elk Bolognese; Pork Buns; Truffle Pasta

With a name like Gather, expectations are immediately set: this is going to be a place worth getting together for. There is going to be an inviting atmosphere. There will be fun drinks. There will be something unique.

And most of all, there will be great food.

For the most part, Gather in Omaha delivers on these hopes. This large restaurant has plenty of room, and its various dining rooms and patios offer several different dining experiences. The open kitchen concept provides a peak into the inner workings of the restaurant, and the outdoor patios give guests a cozy space for people watching in the Old Market on a warm Nebraska evening.

The restaurant’s most well-known pull is the vertical farm in its basement. These towers of sustainably grown produce supply Gather with greens, sweet basil, arugula, kale, and much more. They use less water and no pesticides and allow Gather to grow fresh greens year-round. Plus, it’s just fun to travel to the basement and check out this concept entirely unique to Omaha.

But you didn’t come to this website to read about patios and gardens. You can for the food, so let’s dive in.

Gather, which started in Jackson Hole, Utah, offers a variety of modern eclectic cuisine. “(The Old Market) is a very touristy area, so you get all walks of life up there,” co-owner Christine Mara Hrupek Swain said in an interview with KETV. “We didn’t want to have one specific type of food. We wanted something for everybody. That’s how the concept grew into having a variety of food so you can come with a variety of people and everybody can enjoy the meal and not be trapped into having something that you don’t really like.”

Trying to reach such a wide audience can be a tough trick; with so much range, a kitchen can lack focus. Gather’s menu spans from burgers and fried chicken to housemade pasta, steaks, and Mediterranean food. And while they don’t perfect any of these varied cuisines, they turn out some very impressive dishes.

Any meal should start with the Pork Buns appetizer. The bao are perfectly squishy and chewy, and the pork belly has an intensely delicious fatty, soy flavor. It’s what bacon wants to be when it grows up. Another piece or two of meat and a squeeze of a spicy aioli would make these damn perfect, but they’re excellent as is.

Where Gather might excel most is with its pastas. The highlight is the Elk Bolognese, which combines the sweet, gamey elk and bison meat with rich wagyu to make a delicious, hearty meat sauce. That sauce clings wonderfully to the tender drapes of pappardelle noodles, and a shaving of pecorino finishes it all with a nutty note.

Rich and creamy, the Truffle Pasta is flowing with meaty, roasted mushrooms. The sauce adheres nicely to the noodles, while a soft cooked egg lends its yolk for extra rich bites. A little acid and heat would tie it together into a complete dish.

The steak in the Wagyu Flatiron is a bit of a disappointment. The steak itself is a bit chewy and lacks that rich, deep marbling that wagyu is beloved for. But the chimichurri os bright and refreshing, and the side of elote creamed corn is spectacular.

The Fried Chicken walks the fried food tightrope brilliantly, with a nice crispy exterior encasing juicy poultry inside. It’s placed atop a bed of cavatappi noodles and a 3-cheese mornay sauce, which adds a hearty richness. The dish could use more salt and it’s a bit dry, but the provided hot sauce adds a welcome kick.

If you want to start the meal with something wildly creative, opt for the Mediterranean Burrata Cheese. Four pieces of naan are folded together beautifully like a flower— peel one off and slather it in earthy babaganoush, sweet fig jam, and creamy, milky burrata and you’ve got yourself a few wonderful bites to whet your palate for what’s to come.

The Jackson Donut Holes in Omaha don’t quite reach the same level of success. Though they have good flavor, they’re rather dense and oily. The chocolate sauce is surprisingly bland, though the vanilla and cherry are welcome sweet accompaniments to the fried dough.

The menu’s varied cuisines do keep Gather from mastering one. Every dish is very enjoyable, but there are one or two notes that could bring the dish just a bit higher.

Gather is a fun restaurant with unique offerings that I would happily take friends to for an enjoyable night downtown. Given the level of culinary and design expertise this restaurant displays, I can’t help but wonder what it would look like if the menu were a bit more focused. If it lasered in on one cuisine, could it achieve higher heights than it does trying to please everyone?

That’s an unanswerable question, but I can answer a most important query: should you give Gather a shot?

Without a doubt, absolutely.

What I’ll remember most about Gather isn’t the food and drink, though they are good. What’s special is the space itself and how it makes people feel: inhibitions are left at the door at Gather, which is why this restaurant is so aptly named.