Finding Permission to Break the Rules
At Spiaggia, Grueneberg created tasting menus rooted in regional Italian cuisine, yet some guests still arrived looking for familiar Italian-American dishes. When it came time to open Monteverde, she wanted to strike a balance between those two worlds. Her travels throughout Italy, along with conversations with Italian friends who encouraged her to experiment, convinced her she could break the mold.
"My two friends said, 'Sarah, we don't want to come to Chicago and taste our typical cuisine,'" she recalled. "'Celebrate being an American and being able to break the rules a little bit.' And that was what gave me the first kind of jolt of confidence."
That confidence, combined with feedback from Top Chef judges Tom Colicchio and Padma Lakshmi, helped her evolve as a chef.
"Tom and Padma would say, ‘When are you going to cook something besides traditional Italian food? Show us Sarah's Italian," she said. "If you go back and watch the finale, you start to see some of the different influences, some of the Asian influences in the food."
Those influences helped shape Monteverde's identity. The pasta menu is divided into tipica and atipica, traditional and not traditional, reflecting the balance Grueneberg has long sought between honoring Italian traditions and expressing her own point of view. The distinction represents something deeper than menu organization: Grueneberg's journey to find her own voice within Italian cooking.
The tipica section includes guest favorites like gnocchetti con pesto and spaghetti al pomodoro. The atipica side of the menu gives Grueneberg and her team more room to experiment. Dishes include the now-classic cacio whey pepe, made with fresh fusilloni instead of the original imported bucatini, and wok-fried arrabbiata, which reflects some of those early Asian influences. Then there's the potato-filled žlikrofi, which returns each winter as a nod to both baked potatoes and Chicago's Polish pierogi tradition, finished with brown butter, honey, and truffles.
"It's not a pierogi, but it's its sibling from the Slovenian/northeastern part of Italy,” she said.
Her grandmother's stuffed cabbage, served vegetarian with mushroom bolognese, connects her Texas upbringing to the present. The dish also marked a turning point during her run on Top Chef.
"That was the first episode I won, it was the Patti LaBelle challenge," she said. "That was my a-ha moment of, 'I don't need to be scared of who I am and my history and my rural upbringing and background.'"
It's a philosophy she's carried with her ever since, and one that continues to shape the way she approaches food.
Passing the Torch, Building the Future
If there's a secret to Monteverde's longevity, it might be executive chef Bailey Sullivan. A finalist on Top Chef season 22, Sullivan was also nominated for a 2026 James Beard Award in the Emerging Chef category. She has been with Monteverde for nine years, nearly as long as the restaurant has been open, and was promoted to executive chef in early 2025.
"She's done the work and has proven to herself, to the team, and to me that she is the driving leading force of Monteverde," Grueneberg said. "She is as much Monteverde as I am at this point — and she cooks Monteverde in her own way."
While they work in tandem, their approaches are different. Sullivan tests dishes extensively before they go on the menu. Grueneberg, by her own admission, is more of a "rip it off and throw it on the menu type of person." But that sort of confidence comes with time. "I didn't do that at Spiaggia. I tested. It’s just part of that rite of passage."
Future restaurant plans are closely tied to creating opportunities for Sullivan and the rest of the team. A second concept in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood is in the early stages, with Sullivan expected to play a major role.
"Bailey is really bright and she's got a really strong future ahead of her," Grueneberg said. "The goal now is to open a few more spots that still hold the root. I don't want to do something where I lose our essence of why. I want to open more businesses to help our team grow and ultimately to give Bailey the opportunity to have real equity and ownership in a restaurant."
Even after a decade of success and acclaim, including a 2017 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Great Lakes and being named Chicago magazine's Best Restaurant in 2024, Grueneberg continues to learn as Monteverde continues to evolve.
Today, the restaurant makes every pasta in-house. The menu changes with the seasons, drawing on ingredients from across the Midwest. Above the pastificio, barrels continue to age balsamic vinegar made specifically for Monteverde in Italy. Through it all, the restaurant's approach remains constant.
"Cook with your heart," she said. "And follow your food. That means knowing who made it, why they made it, who grew it."
As Monteverde looks toward its future, Grueneberg remains focused on building something that lasts.
"I'm grateful for hopefully the next 20 years," she said.
