Orvieto

Reinvention is usually a restaurant’s last gasp, but in Green Dolphin’s case I don’t think there’s much to worry about. For years this dining room had the look and feel of a Marriott restaurant, and while the food was surprisingly good, it was also solidly generic, and it almost never made it into the Chicago restaurant conversation. So the place should reinvent all it wants—this is one case where the question isn’t whether a reinvention will keep the place alive, but rather how it has stayed alive so long without one.

Now with a new dining room, some new flat-screens on the wall and a new name (Orvieto), the Green Dolphin restaurant is being positioned as casual, artisanal Italian. But really, the place is mostly a pizzeria. The long list of dishes that come out of the shiny open kitchen may make it seem otherwise, but the entire first column of the menu is a wash. Nobody needs more fried calamari and tomato-basil bruschetta. Not even the hopped-up hordes at the Boom Boom Room.

But pizza never gets old, especially the white pizza topped with thin slices of potato, which is crisp and made aromatic with healthy doses of rosemary. The red-sauce pies aren’t bad either, but the main difference between the two camps—that is, the mild tomato sauce—makes the whole thing a little soggy. As it turns out, sticking with the white food and avoiding the red is a good way to navigate the rest of the menu, too. I found the housemade gnochhetti rubbery and chewy and the lamb ragù it was in boring. But the all-white plate of tilapia topped with artichokes and flanked by mashed potatoes and cauliflower, though stark, has flavors that are simultaneously bright and salty and creamy and rich. It’s actually the kind of dish that would have been served at the old Green Dolphin restaurant. But now that it’s technically not the same restaurant anymore, maybe it will get a little attention.

• More restaurant reviews
• More Restaurants & Bars articles