Venteux Brasserie, Cafe & Oyster Bar — Restaurant in Chicago

Since discovering Venteux last summer for oyster happy hour, I became pretty hooked, even celebrating my birthday at brunch in October. The service usually is amazing, as is the food. However this past Saturday ended that amazing streak. After waiting for about ten minutes for the hostess, who looked and saw myself and my cousin waiting, she chose instead to stay at a table with a server to give those patrons menus, even though the server was there. The beautiful young lady that assisted my table for my birthday happened to walk past, finally acknowledged us and again notified the hostess that we were waiting. We did not have a reservation and was told that the only seating was at the bar. We sit down at the table, it was 5:40pm, and happy hour ended at 7pm. The hostess did not provide menus and no one greeted us at the table or bar area even though there were two bartenders and a manager standing there. The hostess did not bother to provide menus either. After five minutes of being ignored, I asked the manager for a menu, mentioning that the hostess never provided menus. He stated that the server was going to bring them-- even though no one bothered to acknowledge our party. After we received menus, we waited until about 6pm before the aforementioned young lady noticed that we did not have drinks or food came by to acknowledge us and eventually take our orders. Our food took an extremely long time, normal wait time is maybe 10-15 minutes for a dozen oysters, this time it took 30 minutes. Neither bartender ever stopped by the table acknowledged our wait or anything. However when the young lady brought out the bill the bartender Jackson rushed to the table to take the check. He never spoke or acknowledged us, but made certain to grab the check. He allegedly ran my card and it was declined, which was shocking because the bill was only $70 for two, which at this restaurant is easily a tip. After he returned to the table with a look on his face as if me and my friend could not pay the bill, I called my bank to check if there was an issue and somehow the bank stated that there was never an attempt to run the card. I stood at the register and watched Jackson continuously try to tap a non-tap card and slide a chip card-- both of which will result in the charges not processing. Finally Jackson miraculously figured out how to run the card and the purchase was approved. He did not apologize nor did he acknowledge that the issue was his and not mine. I thought about reasons why this may have happened and I do not want to assume that the issue was a racial binary concern, as they do employ quite a few people of color, but I am very much wondering what was it about to Black female patrons that would elicit such an experience.

I hate to have had this experience, and I will certainly keep it front of mind when people ask me for suggestions of great seafood options...

I was here with a large group so my review may not reflect the service and quality smaller sized reservations may receive. Also, I want to distinguish, and start with, my actual meal versus everything else like the service, drinks and apps. I tasted almost everybody's dishes, which made up pretty much the whole brunch menu, and I have to admit, the actual brunch items were fantastic. I ordered the duck and waffle, which was amazing.

But now we move onto the venteaux seafood tower. I was pretty mortified to find sand in the oysters. Others in my group did as well, in almost every oyster. The server had earlier informed us that their west coast oysters weren't up to par so we would only be getting their east coast selection, which they deemed superior. Well, they didn't taste good at all, without even taking into account the sand. The lobster was also very disappointing, as it was clearly not very fresh. At a cost of $150, it isn't worth it at all. In fact, its offensive.

The service was OK. The guy was nice and attentive, but clearly inexperienced. I immediately tried to order a glass of champagne, which he repeated to me...but later forgot. It wouldn't have even mattered but what happened next was just annoying. After I put in another drink order, this time for the champagne split, I was brought a glass of some sparkling something. Usually a split implies a half bottle with about two drinks worth in it. His reason for the lack of a bottle was that he opened it at the bar and poured it. At this point, I just gave up and laugh.

It's hard to fault any particular individual these days, especially in hospitality. I understand the struggles because I've been dining out for most of my life and have eaten at thousands of restaurants, so it's pretty apparent to me that things aren't running smoothly for everyone. But the moment a restaurants reputation is damaged, it's very difficult to go back.

Had they just been honest about the seafood tower and not made it available for sale, I would have been a lot more likely to award a couple extra stars. And had the server simply informed me that they were out of the split, I would have easily given five! In the end, this all seems like bad management. The server was obviously not properly trained, there was no quality control in the kitchen and at no point did a manager even come to check in...

My husband and I were on a brief fun stay in Chicago, and he wanted to treat me to a nice French lunch (I am French.) He picked Venteux, mostly for its location - it is located between the Art Institute which we had visited in the morning, and the Chicago Riverboat tour we were going to go on in the afternoon. We could gave done much better.

The first glitch was that the front door to the establishment was obviously in some state of disrepair, and exceedingly difficult to open. But a staff member pushed it out for us, so we made it in. It was 2:00 p.m. (late lunch), and the place was close to empty, except for a table with three men next to ours.

I was seated on a banquette that was way too soft and too low, but I managed, as uncomfortable as it was.

Our waitress, Maria, was very nice, although it took a while to get the two beers we had ordered. My husband had a croque-madame, which he liked. I had the “beurre and ham sandwich,” which I thought would look like a traditional French “jambon-beurre” baguette sandwich. It turned out to be something like a baguette grilled ham and cheese sandwich - not at all what I thought it would be. It was edible, but certainly did not meet my expectations.

But the worst part of this dining experience was the table next to ours. The three men’s conversation went from loud to extremely loud. At one point, one of the three men stood up and walked a bit away from the table, and seemed to be in digestive distress - I thought that he might vomit right then and there. Thank God, he did not. Another one of those three men got on a video call on his computer and started talking very loudly to his interlocutor - which was disturbing to us, especially since this went on for well over twenty minutes - after his lunch companions had left. This guy was obviously using the restaurant as his own private office. My husband mentioned this to our waitress, who just shrugged her shoulders, as if it did not matter and she could do nothing about it.

Overall, this entire experience was not at all what we were hoping it would be. As I mentioned it in my opening paragraph, we would have been better off choosing...