Black & Caspian — Restaurant in Lake View Township

Disappointing brunch to say the least (cannot attest to most of the reviews that are based on the dinner experiences). The service was a solid 3.5 - 4, however after the experiences with our food, a 2 star rating seems fit.

After walking past this place many times during walks around the neighborhood, we thought to give it a try finally for brunch (as the menu posted on the window looked appealing). It was about 11:30am on a sunny Saturday and no one was eating inside or on the patio. We went in and after a minute or so had to call out "hello" for one of the servers to come out of the back and seat us. There were two servers and both assisted us during our meal, they were courteous but we did have to continue to ask if we could have our coffee refilled as they did not notice on their own (not many tables were seated so it was not a "busy" issue).

The true issue came with the food itself. We ordered the lemon shrimp eggs benedict, Caspian farm omelet and wildberry pancakes. They brought out the two savory dishes first. The shrimp in the eggs benedict (under the egg and under much sauce) STILL HAD THE SHELL ON IN BOTH SERVINGS. Cutting into a poached egg and then hearing a "crunch" when trying to get a bite on your fork, along with having to then peel the shell off ourselves, when it was covered in sauce, was not appetizing to say the least. If the shell wasn't on the shrimp still, the dish would have been OK, a bit on the cold side, which was strange since we were the only people in the place when we ordered and they should have started making the food... The omelet also had large uncooked tomato chunks and whole pimiento stuffed olives (seemingly taken straight out of the jar) which made it not super easy to eat, and the avocado that was $3 extra was not incorporated into the omelet and had many brown spots. The cook could have at least cut off the brown spots before serving.

Lastly the pancakes... the menu said there was a chocolate Chantilly cream, which was no where to be found on the plate that arrived to our table (there were only blueberries and a decent amount of syrup on the plate). When we cut into the stack there was an obvious texture issue as it was quite difficult to cut it in half to share. After taking a few bites it was obvious these were frozen (probably microwaveable) pancakes you can find in any frozen section of a grocery store. We called one of the servers over and told her about the pancakes and shrimp shells, and she said she would give the feedback to the cook.

After waiting a decent amount of time, one of the servers did come back to our table (strangely enough the manager who had been hovering in the back around the kitchen never even came to our table to address this feedback) and said they took the pancakes off our bill. It was not the servers fault for the way the food was prepared, and they were gracious for the feedback.

Overall, the fact the manager who was clearly hovering around (and it was not busy, so strange he could not take the time to address constructive feedback) did not even come up to our table to address the food issues, and that these food issues even happened, warrant no future business from us. Which is unfortunate because the music and atmosphere seems cute for dinner. Times for restaurants during COVID have been hard, that is understandable, but making fresh pancakes shouldn't break the bank, and having cooks understand to take off shrimp shells in a dish that the shrimp is incorporated in should be...

UPDATE: I did bring these concerns (and more) to the attention of the owner, Evelyn, when I returned to the venue the next day to retrieve my belongings. It's worth noting that my belongings were thrown into boxes and some were broken or damaged. While I was there, Evelyn raised her voice and began asking for more money and listing the number of reservations she turned down to host my party - as if she was doing me a personal favor and not simply operating her business as listed in the contract? At this time I also tried to speak to Evelyn and the manager about the open tabs my sister was asked to pay and their response was to print a bunch of receipts and letting me know if I could sort through them and let them know which were erroneous they could look into it. Note their were more than 40 guests ast my event and thousands in charges so I was not up to the task of doing this extra work. Instead, my sister disputed the charges with her bank and was refunded. I hosted my 40th birthday at Black & Caspian and this review has been sitting in the back of my mind for several months since. It felt a little too painful to write at first because it was unfortunately a dark cloud over what was a celebratory weekend for me.

While my event was a success, my experience with Black & Caspian was not a good one.

The owner, Evelyn, was late or a no-show to our final meeting which we confirmed the day prior and she was also late to our agreed upon time for setup the day of my event, which made me run late. The restaurant had also been re-set for dinner service the day before even though we had agreed on a floorplan so I had to rush to move furniture and clear dishes in order to complete our setup. Asking your customer who has paid for a full buyout to move furniture is simply unprofessional.

I had to provide all of the disposable dishes and cutlery for my event and then Evelyn did not use them in the ways as we had discussed. And while we had agreed to have her serve champagne that I would pay for, she didn't order it so I had to go to Jewel on the day of my party and buy 20 bottles myself.

The servers the night of my event were NOT experienced enough to handle the event. One of the bartenders was so painfully slow and made each drink differently and/or incorrectly. Some with one ice cube, some full, making shots instead of drinks, etc.

At the end of the night we realized they had opened more than one tab for several of my guests and then they asked my family to pay for the tabs that had been unknowingly left open. Absolutely outrageous to ask my guests to pay for other people's tabs because they were disorganized.

Honestly the list goes on... but I will leave you with this: I do not suggest hosting your event at Black & Caspian as you are sure to leave...

I will start by saying that I’m one of those people that don’t like to bad review places, but this time it was really toooooo much, I really don’t think they also deserve to get this one star, or really to be called a restaurant! On Saturday evening I decided to take my mom (that came to visit from France, to do an article on small restaurant in Chicago area) to try a restaurant that we pass by our neighbourhood. Let’s start by saying that my Mom will never recommend this place in her article. We started the evening with a basket of dry bread that was better not to serve. Then we ordered for appetisers a cheese tray and Salmon tartar, the cheese plate was supposed to arrive with fresh fruits, Fresh marmalade, greens and crackers. We got 3 small pieces of cheese a few (very very few) greens with no dressing, 3 grapes, one dry apricot and a few raisins and walnuts, with very bland crackers. For the Salomon tartare, we were served with an awkward looking tartar that was made from smoked salmon, when we asked the waitress why the tartar are being made from smoked salmon and not fresh salmon, she answered “people don’t like raw fish”😂 For mane course we ordered sole fish on rice and Artichoke hearts (need to be said that we asked the waitress before if the fish is fresh) The fish that we got was for sure not fresh, it was served on top of a mash potato and canned artichoke hearts, after one bite we stopped eating. The second main course was seafood risotto, let’s start by saying risotto was not there 😂 it was an overcooked rice mixed with canned carrots and peas topped with a few re-cooked frozen shell fish that had a rubbery texture, and unclean shells. Needless to say say that we didn’t eat anything that evening, and we didn’t think on trying the desserts. When we said that we want the check, the waitress came and ask why we didn’t Touch our food, we told her it was really awful. We thought she’s going to take all the courses from the check and charge us only for the wine and cheese plate that was the only thing we did eat, but surprisingly we were charged fully. After paying we asked to talk to the chef and the manager. The waitress started to argue with us about what happened, the manager was not helpful at all and the chef didn’t had the courage to Defend his food because he know we...