Arbella — Restaurant in Chicago

TLDR: Hip upscale bar perfect for date night drinks and happy hours. Decent happy hour specials and a plethora of old fashioned cocktail renditions.

Vibe: 5/5. Beautiful interior. The bar area features vaulted high ceilings and plush booths adjacent to the main bar. Towards the rear of the building there's a dimly lit intimate dining room perfect for after date night or large group gatherings. On the weekends, the bar hosts techno DJs in a room located to the left of the bar.

Service: 5/5. Bartenders and waiting staff were friendly and provided prompt service all throughout our stay. We had a reservation for 8 at 5:30pm on a Thursday. Once we arrived we were immediately seated and drink orders taken. We had a dinner reservation at 7pm, so our server was able to close us out ahead of time as we finished our drinks so we could leave as soon as we were finished, very convenient.

Food/Drinks: 4/5. Fun selection of cocktails, with an emphasis on old fashioneds. They have a section of internationally inspired old fashioneds that uses themed ingredients from around the world to put a unique spin on the classic cocktail. I was able to try the Nigeria Lagos, Tokyo and Oaxaca renditions and they did not disappoint. However at $15 a piece, they are a bit steep in price. Happy Hour from 5-7 offers a little relief on price for a handful of cocktails, dropping prices to the $6-11 range. Food is also on the pricey side ($22 for 4 bao buns, $17 for Korean chicken tenders) with no happy hour specials. All in all, worth a stop by for a drink or two...

Good cocktails. Horrible everything else. I only leave reviews when an experience I had was so horrible (or good), I feel like I might actually help someone by describing what happened.

My friend and I arrived at about 1:20AM on a Friday night. We were told that last call was about to happen, so we get three drinks between the two of us. I've worked in retail before so I am familiar with how annoying it is for people to come in and stay past close. We never planned on doing that. We simply wanted to sip some cocktails and chat for a bit at a bar that purports to close at 2:00AM. Yet we were told three separate times between 1:20 and 1:50 that they were closing up soon. The last time, their shmuck security guard said "you guys are the last 2 people here, let's go" a whole 10 minutes before close. Our drinks were practically finished; we had no other remaining glassware; and we were purposefully sitting at the closest table to the door. Ergo, it would have been 2 minutes between our leaving and shutting the place down, but the general manager and the security dude decided to be rude and rush us out anyway. The cocktails were good, but if you're going to pay over 20 dollars for a drink, you probably wanna go somewhere that won't literally kick you out of the bar long before they are supposed to close. I won't...

Food and drinks were good. I wish the server knew more about cocktails for a cocktail bar. I did a dealers choice drink and he didn’t know what the bartender put into the drink. If at a cocktail bar and there is a dealers choice on the menu I expect the server to be able to tell me what is in the drink, down to the brand of gin used. I’m a huge cocktail person and that was disappointing.

The food was good but the build your own bao is so unnecessary. It took up so much of the table, why not just have them come out put together. The fries were a fav and loved the whipped feta. The watermelon cocktail was good but again, why do I have to pour the cocktail into the glass? Pouring something into a glass isn’t a make your own cocktail experience it’s just a bit annoying.

Overall we had fun and we liked the vibe. But at exactly 8 pm (when we were just finishing our happy hour drinks + food) they turned on super loud club music. It’s 8 pm on a Thursday. We would have had another drink but I’m not trying to be at a club, we were trying to have a chill night at a cocktail bar. So we left when we would have stayed and had another drink. Are you a cocktail bar or a club? The music...