151 Kitchen | Bar — Restaurant in Elmhurst

Surprisingly low score, to be honest. My girlfriend and have lived in Elmhurst for about two years and finally decided to give this place a shot (we've been to almost every other restaraunt otherwise). Being someone that loves smoked fish, I gave the smoked trout appetizer a go and was really put off by it. They use pickle, celery and lemon a bit too liberally with dish; it was to the point where I could hardly pick up any smoky and/or trout flavor. We ended up not finishing it.

We then both ordered the Steak and Frites as our main dish. Both of us ordered the steak as medium. What we ended up receiving was a steak that was well done on the outside and medium-rare-rare on the inside. The steak was flavored wonderfully and the aioli sauce is fantastic! But the cut of meat was poor, and the insufficient cooking of it did not help it. Had the meat been properly cooked to about medium (a little rare is good for flavor!) id have given a 3.5-4 stars most likely.

One other observation worth noting was that they didn't have any ciders aside from a dry blueberry variety. A wider variety of ciders would be helpful, in my opinion

The fries were pretty good, but they do not provide ketchup initially and when I asked for some (both of us had half a plate of fries at the ready), the waitress brought back one, small metal saucer of ketchup that did not suffice for the amount of fries I had. I lucked out because my girlfriend decided her diet was, in fact, in effect for this visit and thus she didn't need ketchup.

Overall, this place comes across as self-important. They think that adding obscure ingredients makes their food interesting, but I genuinely believe that toning down the obscurity and unconventional matching of dishes/ingredients would serve this establishment well. Don't get me wrong, I have a decently sophisticated palette and appreciate appropriate mixing, but apple butter shouldn't be as prevalent on any menu as it is...

Disclaimer that I went here in early Nov 2016 which is shortly after their opening.

This place is a welcome addition to downtown Elmhurst. The decor and atmosphere is vibrant and fresh. A bit loud, but not terrible - could use a little more sound insulation. This restaurant is started by the owners of Pints Pub, which is just south of the tracks in Elmhurst - which is a big positive.

The food is very good. In general I think they are trying to be a higher echelon/trendier restaurant than they should. The menu is a good example of this. The menu is extremely frustrating to read. They are trying to be too cute with a single line for each item, a single bolded word for the name, and a list of the ingredients. Each menu item has no description which leaves you guessing what you'll receive. We had a party of six and everyone enjoyed their dish. The pork chops were cooked perfectly and clear effort was put into presentation. As I said above, it would be beneficial for the menu and dishes to be simplified.

The service was a good effort but has a lot of room for improvement. It seems that the service is mainly lacking restaurant experience (both management and servers). The hostess team bungled our reservation which had made online and confirmed by phone, but they did a good job of rectifying it. Our server was clearly inexperienced. Wait times were long, she wasn't really familiar with the menu, and her recommendations seemed like guesses. All drinks come from the bar and we're extremely slow... Even cans/bottles of beer. At this price point a better, more experienced level of service is to be expected.

BUT, my hope is that these are all kinks that can be ironed out. I'm very excited to have this place in Elmhurst as the are is low on...

My wife and I visited Elmhurst for the Umbrella Exhibit and stopped for a bite to eat late in the day. The downtown has a lovely strip with a ton of restaurants and outdoor seating.

We chose 151 Kitchen | Bar because it looked nice and we got parking right out front.

The name peaks your interest and is a little misleading. We thought they would have more upscale bar type food. However, the menu was light with options and very posh.

They had a bunch of servers standing around, two bartenders looking extremely bored, and two hostesses who just stood around staring blankly at the doors. However, not one of them offered us water when we sat down. I had to shake down a hostess on her way back from the restroom to ask for water. Btw, we sat for about twenty minutes before I did that.

Finally a server showed up and we placed both our drink and food orders with him as we had no idea if we'd get ignored again.

This server was johnny-on-the-spot with drinks, refills, and food.

My wife got the beet salad. It was huge and plentiful and as she stated, "probably the best beet salad she's ever had". And I got the cajun chicken sandwich but removed the cheese, aioli, and other fixins. The sandwich came on toasted and buttered sourdough bread. It was delicious! I'm glad I removed the fixins from the sandwich as it would have been overkilled with flavors battling one another for flavor dominance. The fries were good too.

Check the menu before you go because there aren't a lot of options if you're not a big veggie eater (like me), but definitely go try their cajon chicken sandwich as it's...