Anelya — Restaurant in Jefferson Township

I had very high expectations from the restaurant, because of rating ,and Ukrainian cuisine very good.. …It’s none of my business - it's the owners' concept, but for whom it can suit? For couples? …this place is not at all romantic for a group of friends? …small uncomfortable tables and chairs …for families? …inconvenient for children... I would say the design is Very ! minimalistic …Food! I'm from Ukraine and the restaurant positions itself as Ukrainian cuisine... I wonder if you call dishes by their traditional national names, then I expect this traditional taste, come up with your own names, ! then food can have any strange taste ,which the chefs like.. In short, the few thing we liked -, chicken liver, hummus , pampushki but most of all cart with snacks it was very cute I'll note that the portions are not large at all, and the check was not small at all . But if the design of the cafe ( I can't call this place a restaurant ) the taste of the dishes, and the price are my subjective, opinion, maybe someone will like it, then the service killed us They don't know , how to give out dishes to the whole party at the same time, one person has eaten, second person waits another 20 minutes, the 3rd waits 40 minutes and finds out that his order doesn’t exist the 4th person is brought out at the same time two hot dishes,so that everything cools down True, the manager came and listened with pleasure to our suggestions ,that if we came together, then we would like to receive dishes at the same time and eat/ receive at the same time 1)appetizers 3)soups 4)main course 5)then dessert, ..regarding the dish , that we waited for 40 minutes and it doesn't exist , and no one even let us know, or suggest at least anything instead he did not even apologize but happily said that , they didn't bring it to us , because it was finished due to high demand, (he didn't even notice that we arrived first and the waiter persuaded us to order special of the day) …I would really like to say at least something good about this place, but I can’t think of anything except cart...

We had high expectations, being from that corner of the world and traveling to Ukraine on many occasions. I am quite familiar with Ukrainian food and dishes, and this "modern Ukrainian" is, unfortunately, hit ot miss. I give it 3.5 out of 5, but closer to 3 than 4. Quite cozy and pleasant place, warm and inviting decor. Ukrainian touches are tasteful, and authentic. Service is quite friendly and cheerful. Everyone is smiling and glad to be there, as far as I could see. Now back to the food, and it is definitely overhyped and overpriced, big time. Some of the "zakuski" (appetizers) on the cart are not authentically Ukrainian, and some prices were just raising eyebrows. Perhaps, we know too much about the origins of these dishes, hence, it was difficult to enjoy it. We did like sunflower seed hummus, I enjoyed trout roe tart (for $12). Bread was delicious, BTW. We passed on principle $20 borsht, as we eat very good home made borsht at home. Never seen $20 borsht in my life, for standard portion, and had it at least 100+ times in different restaurants around the world. Draniki (potato pancakes) were disappointing, as they were overfried and very salty. Serving it with feta cheese is a weird touch. I like draniki and feta cheese, but not together. I didn't particularly like sturgeon balls with mashed potatoes, less than inspiring. My wife thought that her chicken shashlik was too fatty and not flavorful. Wine list is purely Eastern European, eclectic and overpriced. We found decent bottle of Georgian wine from Imereti, Qvevri red, if you know what it is. If you don't, please find Qvevri Georgian wine, and try it! Nastoika called Pyanaya Vishnya (Drunk Cherry) wasn't very good, $9 shot. I had very good one in Riga, Latvia last year, and no comparison, alas. I doubt that we will be back, but you gotta make your own impression. I would recommend other Ukrainian restaurants in Chicago area, more authentic, and more approachable, and whole lot less expensive. By all means, support Ukraine and Ukrainians now,...

I was very excited to try a new restaurant especially if it had Ukrainian inspired food since I am married to someone who was born in the Ukraine and have spent my entire married life eating from my mother-in-law and other relatives great homemade Ukrainian dishes. I'd hoped to find a new place that would have some great go-to comfort food and unfortunately this was not it for me. I wanted to start with the atmosphere and how the lighting is just so horrible (IMO). Don't get me wrong I love mood dark lighting this was not it. This was a mixture of something you may find in a horror movie: red tones and green tones on food do not make it look appetizing. In addition the light fixtures were felt like material and to me would hang on to dust like crazy and those lights are over the table over my food That's just me and a little OCD with dust. Let's forget the decor and go for the food everything we had was excellent. New different interpretations of recipes that I recognize nothing for me that I would call comfort food because I like the original food from the Ukraine but this restaurant did some great work at reinterpreting classic dishes. One of the things that I found interesting is that they were no Ukrainian wines on the wine list plenty of Hungarian wine including some tokai which was very surprising but maybe I went to early and the spirits menu is still being developed. Nothing really stood out to me on the menu maybe because I could not get over the lighting. So I will be back just to try this again and put my mind on...