Astoria Café & Bakery — Restaurant in Lisle

2/27/25 update:

I ordered a pizza burek and hurmasica to go. Pizza burek was a great size, and you can easily break it into two meals for lunch. Tastes just like real pizza, it has cheese, mushrooms, looks like ham, and pizza sauce. Breading was flaky, careful because it is very hot. The hurmasica came from the display, it is a Bosnian dessert. It is not sweet, very moist, and you can definitely taste that syrupy flavor. I should have ordered more of those. I recommend people order their food and the Balkan desserts.

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I finally got to try this place out since it’s so close to me. I would say this place is great for lunch and snacks. Most women come here for the desserts and for ordering cakes. I wanted to try their Balkan menu. This is probably the 6th Balkan place that I have been to. Balkan food portions are always generous for the prices. Prices are more than reasonable. You order the food at the counter, then find a seat if you choose to dine in. I ordered komplet lepinja and euro crepe. This is the only place that I have found that has a variety of different bureks. The other place I went to only has cheese and meat. Service was good. The owner was very pleasant. It did not take long to receive my food. Seating can be limited, about 8 tables. Parking is shared and it’s not a huge parking lot.

-komplet lepinja 5 - I like the presentation of the bun with the top, with eggs and roast pork. There is kajmak mixture. Eggs were cooked well. Roast pork was tender and soft. The bun itself was crunchy and easy to cut. It’s a very unique dish. -euro crepe 5 - it has eurocrem (hazelnut and sweet milk chocolate) and plazma (biscuit). It’s not sweet. It’s well balanced....

I'll focus on two things in this review: food and service. Food overall not too great: we had "komplet lepinja" which did not have any traditional serbian ham/prosciutto ("prsuta") but rather somewhat cheap meat that looked like pulled pork. Crepes: descent size, however could be more generous on toppings for the price. Food is the only reason the ratings is not one star. Now, one thing that is DEFINITELY the reason we will not be coming back: it appears that this place has ZERO ventilation ! I mean, the SMELL coming out of kitchen's oven was simply unbearable ! Our clothes STILL smell like we were the ones cooking ! Horrible, horrible SMELL of cooking oil or whatever coming out of kitchen ! The place is small so NO escaping fumes! We felt like we were in the middle of a chimney ! Service: way too long of a wait. Although, the owner, who was the only one working as far as we could see (maybe she had help in the kitchen), did apologize for wait, but we could also notice her frustration. She did however acknowledge that we came on a day of the week that they are typically busy - well, if you KNOW you'll be busy, doesn't it make sense to HIRE additional staff ? I could even overhear the owner discouraging guests from ordering items that "will take too long to prepare" ?! Overall, if you want to get average quality food at a high prices and immediately after leaving the place visit dry cleaner to clean your smelly clothes, then I...

I placed my order with this bakery after following their page on instagram for over 3 years (I started following when I noticed they make beautiful number cakes!) My sister’s birthday was coming up and my usual cake girl wasn’t in town to make a special cake for her so I decided to call Astoria and choose their Berrylicious cake which looked and sounded phenomenal on their website! The crew was very knowledgeable and friendly and made sure to explain the need to refrigerate/keep the cake in the freezer until serving (this particular cake had layers of ice cream hence the need to be in the freezer.) now I’ll be honest I picked a bad day to get an ice cream cake when the temperature outside was in the negatives! Nonetheless, my sister was so happy and satisfied with the cake, presentation and flavor! Very light, not overwhelmingly sweet, the Berrylicious cake is a fresh cake with wonderful whipped cream frosting, assorted berries, and the fruit filling between the layers was so delicious! If you/you have someone that isn’t a fan of crazy sweet cakes, I highly recommend this cake and the bakery! Homemade feel and the cake was freshly made the same day. Please stop in or call ahead your cake order! I’ll definitely be back to order more cakes in the future😊 (for reference photo this was posted on my sisters story on instagram. Please disregard the...