Miru — Restaurant in Chicago

I’m on the fence on how to best rate our experience at Miru. Let me start by saying the food was phenomenal. Every single thing we ordered (we were a group of four sharing lots of different dishes across the menu) tasted amazing.

The ambiance was pretty good too - we sat outside on the beautiful rooftop patio where the view is great.

But the service was where the experience fell flat. And while I can chalk up several things to maybe startup problems as they’ve been open for only 2 months, what bothered us is that Miru is clearly presenting themselves as a very high-end restaurant: prices are very high and the image that they seem to be projecting is that of exclusivity and luxury. And in that context, our experience was just not good.

It started with us arriving on time for our reservation, but having to wait 15 minutes for our table to be ready. We waited at the bar and ordered drinks despite the bartender making us feel like we were in the way/bothering them.

When we were escorted to our table after the wait, a group of people was standing around it, had used a couple of the napkins and glassware, and they took a while to leave, which made it very awkward for us to just stand around and wait, next to other guests and in the way for serving staff. Maybe that was more those people’s fault than the restaurant’s, but it was weird that they brought us over after a wait that long, without checking if the table was actually ready.

It then took more than 20 minutes for a waiter to come over and explain the menu (it needed some explanation to understand portion sizes, shareability, etc.), then another 10 minutes before they were back to take our order. We had a few questions/comments and the waiter seemed disengaged as her attention seemingly kept wandering off and she didn’t pay much attention to what we were actually asking - a strange interaction overall.

All the appetizers and shareables came in one by one and were all great. The crispy rice with spicy blue fin tuna was an absolute highlight and I could eat a plate of that every day.

We each ordered one entree for after the appetizer round, and when the first one came out the server apologized for not everything being ready at the same time because “the kitchen was a bit chaotic today” which we thought was thoughtful. But it then took 25 minutes between the first and last entree arriving and that was just not good. And not a single comment or apology after that first one.

We also had a couple of small incidents that just came across as weird/clumsy. We were still picking at one of the dishes and one of the wait staff suddenly removed my wife’s chop sticks without asking if she was done.

A little later a different person came to refill water glasses and poured water into her gin & tonic, and when we told him, he was clearly embarrassed, and didn’t really know what to say, but no apology (or a new drink) followed.

None of these things individually are major issues. And I can totally see that some of these things are because of experience, training and still having to find the right “groove” in the first few months of operations. But all of them together, in combination with the fact that our check was $400 before tip and the level of quality and luxury that Miru is trying to outwardly establish, this just left an unfortunate taste.

I’m hopeful they will work to improve and we might give them a second chance in a few months to see if things have improved, because again, the food was...

Miru (meaning to look in Japanese) had been on my wife's to go place for a while now. Had tried making reservations about 3 or 4 months ago for October but was told they only accept reservations 45 days ahead of time. Fair enough. I actually kind of like that. We had to reschedule our reservation twice and they were very accommodating for doing that.

So Miru, what is all the hype about eh? The food was all in all great.

We ordered the eggplant and pork belly skewers. The eggplant was good but I wish it had less sweet and a bit more salty feeling to it. The pork belly while good felt slightly chewy (I'm not going to dock any points on this simply because I have never tried a pork belly skewer before so it could be my lack of knowledge on this).

The Japanese cucumber hit the spot. Beautifully presented and well seasoned. We tried the avocado crispy rice; that I think needs work in my opinion. Fantastic attempt to recreate the traditional crispy rice but very very far off from the original. The rice used too seemed like it was not quite Japanese rice (though I may be wrong on this.) The crunch was good but a bit too much. Traditionally, the crunch is good yet not too much; you gotta try the original stuff to have a comparison point. This one's a bit hard to explain.

Finally we ordered one garden vegetable maki and one avocado maki both of which were ok in my opinion. Again here, not 100% certain they are using Japanese rice.

The star of the evening however was their amazing high balls. Probably one of the top 10 high balls I've had on the planet. The ice they used was a long brick ice that became invisible in the drink (since it was made of crystal clear water and was kept that way) but even as the ice melted, it didn't seem to take away from the strength of the whiskey in the drink. The first sip was almost equal to the last sip (and she took about 30 min to finish the first one) so I am very impressed with the drink.

Also has a great open area outside from where you have spectacular views.

Will I come again? Hmmmmm, myself I don't think so. I like the food much better at some of the other places I've been to especially the Japanese place in Denver (sorry, won't take the name but you can go through my reviews and figure out which one or dm me and I'll let you know). It was one of those places which has a hype so had to check it out and sorry to say, the hype was not for me.

Nevertheless, if you go you gotta have the...

I’ll start by saying my husband and I have been before and had the most wonderful food and service. That is the level of service we expected. Unfortunately, this second visit left a bit to be desired. When we arrived we saw the group ahead of us have their coats taken for them. Upon checking in, we did not receive the same service. Not a huge deal but definitely was noticed by myself and my husband. We had to wait a few minutes before they were able to seat us and when they did we were sat in the smaller side room near the bathrooms.

It took over 10 mins for the waiter to come over and the overall vibe was a bit weird - he started talking before he was even fully at our table (he approached from behind my husband so my husband couldn’t even see him). He gave us a rundown of the various menus without bothering to ask if we were celebrating anything (which we were) or if we had any allergies (which my husband does). We told him we wanted a few minutes to look over the drink menu which was a mistake because after about 15 mins he hadn’t come back and I had to ask another server to send him over.

During the time we were waiting for him to come back, a staff members & one of the hosts were chatting but the staff member was walking in a different direction than the host, and he started literally shouting over to the host. The staff member was right next to me and it actually hurt my ears and stopped my entire conversation. The host, whether from common sense or noticing my look of irritation walked towards the other person so they would stop shouting. I found this beyond unacceptable at a restaurant of this caliber. Never have I seen such a lack of awareness, consideration, and etiquette in a high end restaurant.

Eventually the server came back and we placed our orders. The food came out without too much delay and was 10/10. The hamachi was such a delicious and interactive experience, I cannot recommend it enough. And the tuna crispy rice was out of this world! It was truly one of the best dinners I’ve had.

Unfortunately, the service didn’t improve much. The server checked on us in passing a few times and would swing by to wipe down anything that had spilled on the table. Overall the service felt rushed and unimportant. Between the service, the shouting staff member, and being sat in a side room by the bathrooms, we were left disappointed- especially considering...