Peru Criollo — Restaurant in Jefferson Township

The place is very well decorated and inviting at first sight. Our waitress was a sweetheart! We live in the neighborhood, so we were very excited to try a new peruvian restaurant so close to home, but the experience there was something else. We had the jalea and anticuchos for apps. They were delicious, but then we ordered our main course, and it was the start of a disappointing night. We ordered the currasco peruano, which was more fat than steak. The only thing saving that dish was the chimichurri sauce. We also had the beef estufado. The meat was dry and hard, which is the opposite of what a beef stew should be. Finally, we had the aji de gallina. The flavor was completely off. We immediately called the waitress over to let her know this dish was not good in flavor. Her response was "well I can box it for you to take home." Why would we take something home that no one liked and no one will eat. The plate was over 90 percent full, with only 3 tasting bites missing. We spoke with the Cuban owner, who was overly aggressive, and ignored our critique of the dish. We were a group of three, and we all agreed the aji de gallina was disgusting. The owner seemed more interested in having a fight and telling us how the customer was wrong instead of trying to find a solution. I assured him we would pay for the whole meal, except for the dish no one would eat. He continued to speak loudly and aggressively telling us that we were " wonderful ppl for trying to sink a small business" sorry but if you have that tone with your customers you are going to sink your own business. He also had the nerve of telling us that ppl complained about the food weekly. Sir, if you are getting many complaints about your food, don't you think you should try and listen, instead of forcing the customers to eat a horrible dish. Please look at the comments he has left to other low ranking star reviews and ask yourself if this is the type of business you would visit, it's clear that the owner doesn't care to hear his patrons concerns or comments. He would rather antagonize them. I am truly saddened by this experience since we love supporting local businesses.

Not only does this owner continue to make remakes and tries to ridicule this claim on FB. He also blocked us from posting to his remakes. It just shows what type of "owner" he is. Over this, him and this place....

We went to Peru Criollo Sunday evening very excited to try a restaurant close to our house. We were welcome and seated promptly. The server asked what kind of wine we had brought and brought glasses and a chiller for our bottle of white wine. We placed an order for Ceviche mixta, Aji, De Gallina, and at the server’s recommendation, the Churrasco Encebollado. We were served bread and our appetizer was served. After taking one bite of the Ceviche, which was delicious, the walnut chicken was dropped on the table less than a minute after the ceviche was served, ( it has a yellow sauce, I wasn’t sure it was mine, because I expected a brown sauce) and then less than a minute later, the ribeye steak was served. I asked if they could serve the entrees when we finished the appetizer so they would be at temperature. The server apologized for the entrees being served too soon, that it was kitchen error, and returned the plates to the kitchen, and we continued to enjoy the ceviche. When we were done, we had to wait a bit for the table to be cleared and our entrees to be served, because the staff was having dinner at the back of the restaurant, but that was fine. The trouble began when they served our entrees. The chicken dish was fine, but the ribeye steak was now well done after sitting under a heat lamp for about 20 minutes. When we complained, the server explained the steak had been cooked to temperature but was now well done, because we sent it back to stay warm. They should have not cooked the food so early or they should have recooked the steak. Everything else held up fine. It would have been nice to get an apology and recooked the steak instead of telling us it was our fault for being well done, since we didn’t eat it when it was served with our appetizer. They removed the steak from our check, but we would have preferred to have the steak cooked right and have been charged. When we ask to speak to a manager or owner to convey our annoyance privately (rather than in a public review) we were told they were “too busy” to talk to us. There weee 3 other tables occupied in the dining room. We will not be returning and we could have...

Today we went to dinner at Peru Criollo and had high hopes to try this place and it was a let down. From seeing such a high Google rating I had high hopes for a great meal but it was very disappointing. From walking in to the restaurant, we were greeted by a guy and told him we had a group of 10. He showed us to two tables that were side by side but then didn't like that we were putting them together then it looks like he misunderstood us and tells us he didn't have room for us and we asked if we can sit at adjacent tables and he said no that everything was reserved. So we left. Then someone from my group went back in and spoke with a a waitress and asked we can sit at two tables and she accommodated us. The waitresses were very nice and welcoming, much better than the guy that was working there (not sure if he's a manager or owner since he was also in the kitchen) but he was very unwelcoming and if hes also in the kitchen hes probably ruining food. We ate the papa rellena, anticuchos de beef tenderloin (not actually beef tenderloin) Lomo Saltado, and Ceviche.

Ceviche was a 4/5 - overall good but didn't seem fresh

Papa rellena 3/5 - it was decent, kind of small and not very flavorful

Lomo Saltado - 2/5 its insulting to call this a Lomo Saltado the meat looks like this place was cheaping out on the meat and decided to pass off some cheap and rubbery meat that was not beef tenderloin and more like roadkill quality

Anticuchos beef tenderloin 1/5 - same low quality rubbery and chewy meat passed off as beef tenderloin and Anticuchos didn't have any flavor.

Overall this is the worst Peruvian restaurant I've ever been to and I've been to several all over the world. Especially for Chicago being such a big food city this was overpriced low quality and bland food. I recommend anyone looking a good Peruvian restaurant to go elsewhere there are much better options in Chicago. I gave it 1 star for the waitresses at least making an effort to accommodate us but other than that it was not a very good...