Oliver’s — Restaurant in Chicago

There’s nothing technically wrong with the place, but we paid $260 for two people, including two drinks and left feeling completely ripped off based on what we receieved.

The oysters were great, and not expected to be cheap no complaints there. But otherwise, we basically ordered a salad, some bread, and a whole chicken… and somehow walked out with a $260 tab.

The shrimp appetizer was $36 for one shrimp in curry butter sauce! Good, but absurdly priced to only receive 1 shrimp!

My wife had bread and cheese loaded salad for dinner. The $17 bread was soaked in beef tallow and served with butter. It was delicious, I snuck a bite, and we had no issue with that

I told the server I was gluten and dairy sensitive, and made it clear that the bread and salad were for my wife, not shared appetizers. But they brought those out first and never even started my chicken. I just sat there watching her eat her entire dinner until we flagged the server to let them know they needed to prep my meal.

I ordered the whole chicken, which was fine but heavy and loaded with butter. Almost everything we were served was drenched in butter, tallow, or cream. I’m not anti-butter, but when it’s in every dish, it gets overwhelming. We had two drinks. drinks tasted great.

I had asked about the parmesan truffle potatoes but declined them after being told they were full of cream. They brought them out anyway. I forgot to check whether we were charged for them.

My wife felt nauseous about an hour after we got home. She felt better the next day, but it added to our overall disappointment.

Ambiance was nice, but $260 for 6 oysters, one shrimp, bread, salad, chicken, potatoes I didn’t ask for, and two drinks? That’s just absurd for what we got.

There are plenty of restaurants with better food, portions, service, and value. This one completely missed the mark.

*Update my wife ended up getting very sick from the food. I called and told the restraunt and they seemed unconcrned. very suprised by the high ratings...

Went to this restaurant as my friend who lives locally wanted to support local businesses. It’s a cute place having just like 4 tables each seating 2 people. I was initially surprised by the fact that they just had 3 main courses on offer and when asked, I was told that this was because the chef likes to do “simplistic but good” meals. In the end, we had a glass of wine (one glass was comp’ed as the food was taking longer than expected), a Sprite, shared a gnocchi starter (the best thing we tasted that night!) and then ordered 2 main courses with a side of potatoes, the chicken and steak. When I got the bill, I was surprised to see that this had run me to almost $250. This was especially galling since the week before we had gone out to Maple & Ash, had a few cocktails and starters and some of the best lamb chops I have ever tasted coupled with both a fantastic atmosphere both in the bar and the restaurant. That had set me back about $275 and both the ambiance and the food was exponentially better.

The food itself here was nothing special either. My chicken was reasonably well done and came with some puréed concoction and my friends steak came without anything on it. We ordered a side of potatoes and, yep, that came pureed too. The steak did not fare much better from what I understand.

This was meant to be a reasonably priced dinner in a local setting and it under delivered in a number of areas. It was, at best, a $120-140 meal all in so I left the restaurant with a sense of having been taken advantage of. Suffice it to say, I will not be going back here.

Some observations for the owners … my friend was excited to have a non-chain restaurant in the South Loop and we genuinely wanted to support local businesses. That said, my sense was that you have too many staff floating around for 8-10 place settings, the food menu needs to be expanded and diversified beyond puree and it needs to come at a...

I was reluctant to try Oliver's despite loving Entree since it seemed over hyped and American food usually isn't a go to for my wife and I. After hearing so many positive thoughts on it, we finally checked it out.

The fluke tartare was our favorite out of the dishes we tried--light but avocado gives it some substance and just a bit of sour. The gnocchi had a great truffle flavoring, cheesy and nice fluffy texture.

The quality of the beef in the cheeseburger was very apparent in each bite and the sesame seed bun was light and fluffy with an impressive amount of sesame seed. I know it's a burger, but I did find it a little greasy for my personal tastes; however, I'm not singing them for that since as an example of a burger that's perfect. Also not usually a fry person but the fries were very crisp and nicely salted so I actually ate 10% of them (a lot more than my normal).

Finished our meal with a slice of the coconut key lime pie, which thankfully just had toasted coconut and not an overwhelming coconut flavor. I enjoyed that although my wife (who loved the sour of the fluke tartare) found it too sour for her tastes so this might not be right if you want a sweeter dessert.

I didn't try the chicken but a neighboring diner had it and it was very large and smelled delicious (would have gotten it if I hadn't been eating chicken all week at home).

Cocktails were very strong and expertly crafted.

So while prices are on the high end and the limited menu may not sound exciting, it's all expertly crafted and well worth a visit (the quality is worth the price). Just be forewarned there is a 20% dine in fee addition that is not the gratuity (bothered my wife, I was ok with it as I've seen it at...