GATHER IN OMAHA

Hoppen Hierarchy:★★★

Inviting restaurant serving American classics

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

Standout Dishes: Elk Bolognese; Fried Chicken

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.”

This is an admirable approach, but it walks a fine line. Sometimes restaurants that cater to everyone result in menus so busy and unfocused, they don’t stand out to anyone. And to be honest, it makes Gather’s cuisine a bit difficult to explain to a newcomer. The appetizer menu alone has influences from Asian, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern cuisines, while the entrees include pasta, pork shanks, day boat scallops, and a burger.

Such eclectic offerings tend to make a restaurant decent at many cuisines but not an expert at any. And trying to sum up the menu in one sentence is no easy task.

But that doesn’t mean the food isn’t delicious. Quite the contrary, actually.

Everything at Gather is chef-driven and very well made. There are at least a few tweaks on every dish that add a special touch and make it a uniquely Gather offering.

That starts with the delicious Elk Bolognese (pictured in the header of this post). A rich tomato-based sauce clings to long, tender strands of pappardelle. The meats—a combination of elk, bison, and wagyu beef—insert a deep savory, smoky essence to the dish, and the grilled baguettes are perfect for sopping up every last ounce of the sauce.

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.

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.