Za Za's Tavola Italiana — Restaurant in Lake Barrington

I have been the occasional patron at Zaza's, both dine in and carry out. The atmosphere is festive, the wine selection excellent and the food has been good. My son was home for the holidays and we got carry out. I am gluten and dairy free and I was told they would double check to ensure all was GF and DF. However, we were not contacted about the appetizer having gluten and dairy, but it was included in our order. Additionally, there was cheese on the sausage and peppers. I was unable to eat those items, but my son ate well that night. They were kind enough to provide a credit on my order, which I used for carry out. I just returned Saturday night with a friend from college. She, admittedly, has a strong personality but has a heart of gold. We ordered the salad (VERY YUMMY) and the halibut (to share). I had to head to the restroom and when I got back to the table she told me the halibut had to be sent back -- it was overcooked. The server told us that's why we needed the sauce (which was on the side and I could not have, so I was hoping for tender, moist fish). She definitely knows good fish after many years traveling around the world and living in the city, frequenting high end restaurants. She is also an excellent cook. I have been out to dinner with her and she treats everyone respectfully and tips well. Meanwhile, we had not yet received our settings and had already asked for them twice (we had already received bread and olives. I miss that bread as I have had before discovering my issues with gluten and can tell you that it is FRESH and DELICIOUS, as are the olives which I was enjoying by picking them up with my fingers). The 3rd request for settings was definitely in a tone of annoyance -- we needed napkins for the olive oil that was coating our fingers from the olives (me) and the bread (my friend). The fish returned and.... it was once again overcooked and dry. It needed a knife to cut through it. We complained again and the server seemed annoyed. We were starving at this point and decided to eat it. The green beans were the best part of the dish. At the end of the evening we happened to be standing with a woman outside while she and my friend smoked a cigarette. She said she was the owner. My friend said something along the lines of: I don't know how to tell you, but the halibut was overcooked. To that, the owner became quite defensive. My friend said something like: yeah, it was dry. And I said it took a knife to cut it. The owner said it has been a favorite dish for 19 years and stormed off after saying something else defensively. I have never experienced anything like this at ZaZas or any restaurant for that matter. SIDE NOTE: I was told the risotto was dairy free but after taking one bite I was suspicious. The server made the claim that yes, it was. I had stabbing pains in my stomach all night. I left a message on Facebook (not publicly) to say how disappointed I was and was hoping that whoever was responding would do so in a professional matter That was not the case. The favorite dish comment was repeated. I learned that my friend left a very detailed review and the response was that we were very drunk and rude and swearing. That is so not true. I am so surprised about Their response to our complaint. I will never eat there again and I am not sure I can even go back just because we were treated so rudely. It is so unfortunate as I have enjoyed meeting friends there. I live right around the corner and it is so convenient.......

To start my story. The end of our experience was left with a member of ownership threatening to fight me as I was leaving the restaurant. Came in to celebrate a birthday. My wife ordered a drink. Came with a fruit fly in the drink. Stuff happens. With having 16 years in the industry. I know this can happen time to time. Server was super apologetic and brought us a new drink. Great. Second strike. Water glass had lipstick mark on it. Again seen it before. Server was great, immediate reaction and remedied the situation. Food came. My wife ordered the twin filets with a grana crust. She ordered it MR. Came out over well done. Pointed it out to the server and she was super apoplectic and had a new one started right away. Next one came out basically raw. She was done. I had ordered a grilled prawn and octopus dish. The level of char on this dish was inexcusable. Felt like I was eating the grill itself. The server offered us a free desert but we didn’t want it. We mainly wanted an apology from management. During the experience we saw the server approach the manager, which we found out was the owners father, he did not move from sitting at a bar table sipping on from what I could smell was some sort of clear booze. So bill came and nothing was done for us, again whatever. Mainly wanted an a apology. At the end I approached the “manager” and started explaining the situation. He lied to me about not knowing the issues at first but we knew the server already approached him. Also later in the conversation he admitted he knew about the steak issue. So lied to me. I finally had enough and told him I was I done and proceeded to walk away. He told me he didn’t like my tone. I told him I didn’t like how I was treated. He then remarkably followed me out yelling at me and threatened to fight me. Even followed me into the parking lot threatening me. I’m truly at a loss here. I hope no one else goes through what we had to go through. The fact that he threatened to fight me is truly despicable. He even did so in front of the...

We came here on Valentine’s and had a terrible experience. I made reservations and we were sat outside in a corner table and forgotten about for 35 minutes. The only reason we got service was because my husband finally gave up and stopped the owner and told him that we had been sitting there since 630 without anyone attending to us. The breading on the fried calamari wasn’t cooked all the way. I got the lobster ravioli and thought it tasted too fishy. They offered free dessert and I asked for a cappuccino to go with the flourless chocolate cake, but they never brought it out. This was our Valentines date, honestly I just wanted to go home. I no longer cared. I didn’t wanna tell them how horrible the food tasted. Every time they asked we said everything was great because we wanted to get out of there because we felt like we were being treated like dogs.

There was also the weird questioning by our waitress asking if we were from the area. We told her we moved to Wauconda two years ago, that wasn’t good enough bc she kept asking us where we were from after that. My husband told her he was from Skokie which she didn’t even know where it was. And then continued to question me until I explained I grew up in Naperville.

Will definitely be telling all our neighbors in Wauconda where we live and my coworkers at a very large pharma company to...