The Marq — Restaurant in Chicago

Good drinks. Decent service. Not good food. At least, not what I ordered. My coworker liked the salmon, so I gave a star more than I would have for their sale. I ordered the duck confit. They said it came with a cranberry gastrique. A gastrique is a sauce, generally reduced with sugary substances like fruit and vinegar (or wine, preferably wine) to make a SAUCE. The duck was confited properly, mostly, a bit too much salt, but that's usually offset by a sweet to go with the salty. The sweet should have came from a sauce, a gastrique in particular. But alas, there was ZERO sauce, and only dried cranberries horribly rehydrated with a vinegar. No sauce to speak off. And because the cranberries had no sauce, they just straight absorbed the vinegar, preventing them from having any sweetness at all. Cranberries are tart, with mild sweetness. With the vinegar reduction, they were absent of sweetness entirely and even the tart was mostly removed. So I had salty duck, in no sauce, with no sweet, an overly bitter tart, and was overall, just, not good. I didn't return it, I'm not about that life. But I didn't eat it either. I can count the number of times I've asked a restaurant to take an item off my bill on one hand, and I wasn't about to change that because of their subpar duck. It wasn't awful, I didn't want to spit it across the table, but I didn't want to digest it either. Very disappointed. Sorry, but it's not acceptable to serve subpar cuisine in a city like Chicago. I had to leave this review as a part time chef and food critic, and a lover of food in general. I've traveled around the world, and this was the worst duck I've ever put in my mouth. And I've eaten duck in the...

Today I had my first unsavory experience at The Marq and it was an opportunity to see how they handled it. Note, this is a 5-star experience. First, the background: I ordered the Poutine, "add short rib" which was one of the add-on options from the menu listing. I ended up with the Poutine without the short rib, which was almost as much as the Poutine, so I had to say something. They immediately acknowledged the error and offered to go back to the kitchen and get the supplements. I indicated that it wasn't a problem and asked them to remove the add-on charge. Honestly, the addition of demi glace in lieu of gravy is genius, and elevated this dish well beyond expectations!

A few moments later a manager came around and addressed me: "I don't mean to interrupt, but we recognize that we made an error in your order tonight. The order was taken as Poutine and an order of our Short Rib entree. To correct this, your Poutine is on the house." Totally understandable mistake. It was the middle of dinner service, the it was loud, the way I ordered "add short rib" sounded a lot like "and..." there was so much room for human error.

The area where they really stood out, though, was in everyone's reaction afterward. Nobody was overly apologetic. The bar back who made the error was jovial. In private conversation he acknowledged that the kitchen didn't scold him for the mistake. I felt like the whole operation handled the error with grace, and in the midst of peak traffic, nobody catastrophized this minute error. THAT is unique for...

I really did not enjoy my experience at the Marq. The service was slow, but once my mother and I ordered our food, I told the server that I had a peanut allergy. The server informed me that they use peanut oil in all their food (this is not listed on their website or menu), but that I could try something that isn't from the fryer. I informed the server that my allergy is life-threatening and that I cannot risk cross-contamination. My mother and I agreed to try another restaurant because we did not want to take any risks. When the server handed the menus back to the hostess, I saw the hostess roll her eyes. I wanted to just confirm with the hostess that we were not leaving because of service or anything, but because of my serious allergy. She was very disrespectful with me and tried to tell me that I could have just ordered something else.

I think that as a restaurant, your first and most important duty is to make sure that your customers feel safe when eating your food. In the food industry, you should be aware of the severity of allergies and also inform your customers before they enter the space. My allergy is airborne, and I had assumed since the menu had safe ingredients on it, and was more common American food, with no allergy warnings, that I wouldn't have an issue - as I never have before.

Please be more informed. Please also be upfront about the use of peanut oil (peanut allergies, of any severity, are not uncommon anymore) and treat your customers' needs...