Trattoria Gianni — Restaurant in Chicago

First let me say the food and cocktails were absolutely delicious. But the total dining experience—not so much. My husband and I had 6 pm dinner reservations before an 8 pm show across the street at Steppenwolf. We were greeted and seated immediately. Our server, Matthew, asked if we were headed to a show and we said yes, but we had plenty of time, so no rush. Apparently we weren’t clear about not being in a rush because while we were enjoying our cocktails he came by numerous times urging us to order. We finally ordered the Arancini appetizer and he told us the chef liked for appetizer and dinner orders to be placed at the same time. Huh? I’ve never heard this before and I thought he was kidding. Plus—we hadn’t decided on an entree yet. When I told him I thought that was unusual he said that I didn’t understand what goes on in a restaurant kitchen. He was clearly trying to flip the table and we were clearly trying to enjoy a leisurely dinner. After the appetizer, we placed our order and he made a comment about being a dentist because it was like pulling teeth to get our order. The entrees came out right away, so i guess the kitchen had figured out how to handle the disruption we caused by not ordering everything at once. I don’t think he came back to our table after the food was delivered. Someone else filled our water and cleared the table. Bottom line maybe Matthew was having a bad day, but he was a snarky server and definitely had a negative impact on our dining experience. There were other comments and behaviors that I won’t mention because they weren’t directed towards us. As I said, the food was excellent—I had the tagliatelle bolanese and my husband had the conchiglie. But the food is only 1 part of the experience which is why my...

Food: Risotto balls were pretty good. Order extra marinara if you like to dip a lot because they only provide a small condiment bowl. Soup: we tried both soups on the menu, the minestrone (seasonal soup option) and the cappelletti in Brodo. We love soups, but both these options were lacking impactful flavor. The broths needed something more, so I would suggest passing on the soups. We loved our main courses. We had the chicken marsala and the veal scaloppine. They were both tremendous and saved our experience, to be honest. They came with fresh vegetables. We suggest ordering a size of potatoes or something similar to go with it. We wished we had, but we're big guys. So my 3 stars is based on pretty good risotto balls, mediocre soup, and good main courses.

Atmosphere: Such a cute restaurant. Long and narrow with open brick walls. Nicely decorated for the holiday season. Our waitress was so nice. She was attentive and ensured a pleasant experience. Here's the one part we didn't appreciate. The host/maître d' was sitting at the bar in between seating people. It wasn't very busy as we were there at 6pm before a show. He started watching videos on this phone with the volume on full blast. I don't know if he is just that unaware or just doesn't care. Either way, he should be more aware he is impacting the experience of this guests. We were close to the bar and it so SOOOO distracting. It honestly ruined our experience. He did it multiple times throughout our dinner. So my 3 stars is based on a cute restaurant and nice wait staff, but horrible host/maître d'.

My 5 stars for service is directed at our pleasant waitress and bus-person who kept our water glasses full...

Hello, everyone and wish 🤞 😊 you all a 👍 good 🙌 blessed day 🙏 ❤️, OK this has to be noted ✅️ 👌 Friday 1/ 19 / 2024 ME and my Wife departed our parked car in hopes of attending this restaurant for lunch at around 3 p.m. not knowing their schedule at which point their was a worker on the sidewalk to the entrance shoveling snow as my wife walked pass him she entered the restaurant as I preceded behind her not knowing that they were not open for business the worker aggressive angrily accosted me and said stop what are you doing I told him that I was joining my wife for dining he then ran in to the counter and loudly abruptly yelled at wife get out we are closed and it's not our fault he left the door opened and there was no visible sign on the door stating open or closed he then went on to wave his hand towards Capri pizzeria adjacent to their store as if we couldn't afford to dine there at giannas me and wife believe this was a panic of a unlocked door without taking a security measure to put in place safety protocol also from his behavior this was definitely Racial Descrimination , For Me Being Afro-American/ and my Wife Hispanic. P.s. we went on to find other excellent dining and extremely well customer hospitality at Cafe baba Reba where our bill was $160.00 , we also tipped our waiter $40 ,the water guy $20 the server$20 , the female desk host $20 , The doorman$10 .... My Wife a🧑‍🍳 Nurse, I'm a Private 🕵️‍♂️...