The Foxtail On The Lake — Restaurant in Maine Township

We’ve been waiting for this place to open and we were surprised to find them lit up and staffed on Sunday October 5, 2023! They had their GO on Wednesday so it was wonderful to dine with them during their first week!

First, as you might expect, the building is astoundingly beautiful to begin with, but what David, the co-owner did with the interior is classy, private and perhaps most importantly, he carefully selected ergonomically correct chairs and tables!!! This is a place you want to savor your time and tastebuds, so physical comfort encourages that! Go see with your own eyes, there’s nothing I can show you or say to properly describe the experience of being inside.

There is a patio and you can see the lake but of course at night the reflections make it hard to see. If you’re lucky enough to get the right table, there’s 2 high tops at the bar and a row of private booths behind it in the restaurant. All of the seating was arranged cozily so this is a great (and impressive) place for a date!! I opted for the bar high top.

My Background in F&B and my college degree was perfecting my chef skills. However I have always been in sales and service. So, taking proper care of customers is very first thing I look for when visiting a new establishment, and this team understands how to make every single person feel like they are the most important person in the room! I mean 5 star ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ service - from front to back. Many people checked on us but it was never intrusive. You can tell management and the owners are on the floor and that they have high standards! No one was ever pretentious, I never felt out of place, or like I was bothering them when asking questions or for something. Really, every employee genuinely appeared happy to be there. They either pay well or hire the right people or both.

On to the food. See the menu

We ordered “Hell Froze Over” and “The Lakeside”

Both outstanding. The cocktail menu is unusual. Automatic extra points!! Thank you for something more than “your take on the classics”- a mule, margarita, vodka something etc.. No, this cocktail menu is special. Perfect place to impress a business associate as well. Close to Ohare…

We eat mainly vegan with some fish and chicken, avoid dairy and raw fish. We were disappointed most of the menu contained dairy to some degree. However don’t be fooled- unless it states, it’s likely olive oil!

We talked with the other owner, Chef Maya. It’s her menu and her second location. She said they’re happy to customize. She was delightful and we appreciated her stories about how she crates her amazing food and put this project together on the lake, in a church! Thank you Chef, see you again soon!

We had the cauliflower appetizer- a bit undercooked and hard to cut with the butter knife. The browned and blackened portions were 🔥!! I wish it was grilled/browned/crisped up more, then it would be also cooked a little longer to be more tender. I like it crunchy but this was near raw. That’s ok, I like food just like nature serves it. A steak knife would help. The sauce though- omg- only feedback is put more sauce!! It was so so good. It came in a sizzling skillet and the server asked if he could pour a white sauce over it. Dairy conscious.. we declined but had him leave it. I think it’s a yogurt tahini concoction and it was excellent on the side. The cauliflower and sauce is something special as is. It doesn’t require it.

We also had the veggie tangine. it was texturally and flavorfully perfect! My concern is 1 protein-chickpeas. You can add chicken or shrimp. I’d love quinoa, but if you want to do a table shared veggie, this could be a nice split for 3-6 people.

They have a nice selection of oysters and shrimp on ice! There is some upstairs seating that looks interesting….

The place is stunning, the service is on point, the atmosphere reeks of class, yet it is welcoming and the food is fantastic!

I wonder if I should write this review since this brand new hidden gem may just become the new hottest spot in town!

Yes, it’s...

Beautiful space, meh food, lousy service.

We chose to celebrate an 85th birthday with an afternoon meal here, largely due to the (now confusing) overall good reviews and a menu that seemed to accommodate multiple dietary restrictions. The space is lovely. We ordered beverages and appetizers, which arrived and were all ok - not great enough for their high price, but ok. Coffee was barely lukewarm and one of the drinks ordered by one of our party had a really abnormal taste. Which we would have easily dismissed had those been the only anomalies.

Shortly after finishing appetizers, while we were still waiting for our waitress to return to take our entree orders, the hostess appeared at our table and told us she needed our menus back. We explained that we hadn’t ordered entrees yet, and were told brusquely that they weren’t serving brunch anymore. She took our 7 brunch menus and gave our party of seven 4 dinner menus instead - odd. Several of us had planned to order brunch entrees and had ordered appetizers accordingly. Our reservation was for 2:15, and apparently brunch service was supposed to end at 3 - it was now 2:45. We would have been fine if we’d either been presented dinner menus to start, or if we’d been told the menus would be transitioning shortly, or if our waitress had come to take our entree orders within 30 minutes of arrival, or frankly if anyone had recognized the oddity of switching menus on a party midstream and offered an apology and/or an offer to accommodate the few brunch orders in our party. None of those things happened.

Feeling it important to share the experience, I asked to speak with a manager. My tone was polite and pleasant, just expressing that the menu swaparoo wasn’t good customer service, that this was a meal for an 85th birthday occasion, and that several of our appetizer orders would have been different if we knew entrees would not be from that menu. Honestly, all we wanted was a recognition and an apology, along with maybe offering to let our party order what they’d planned to from the brunch menu. Instead, the manager didn’t really listen but was oddly defensive and characterized me as ‘really steamed’ - which I absolutely wasn’t not was I expressing anger in any way. He did come back and tell us he would be knocking 50% off of our bill. Kindness and accommodation would have been better, but that was a generous offer and we thanked him.

Ultimately most of the food was just ok. Two entrees were legitimately bad - a tuna tataki that was neither seared nor rare, but just kind of rubbery, and a tartare with a really odd flavor. We were grateful for the discount and made no complaints. Our waitress was rude, snobbish and largely not present for the entire meal, even though everyone in our party was gracious and smiling during every interaction. No one bothered to check in on us.

When the bill arrived, there was no markdown. We were put in the position of having to follow up about it, which felt yucky. We flagged down a busboy after waiting a bit for the waitress, and had to rehash the promised markdown with a different manager in order to get the correct bill.

After getting the correct bill, we waited 15 more minutes for our waitress to come so that we could pay. She never did. We ended up leaving cash to pay the bill and left.

Maybe if the food is good enough, customers can forgive arrogance and poor treatment m from the staff. Unfortunately here,...

I used to work in the area and would often bring my lunch to the area to eat in warmer weather as it is a beautiful park and the water with the fountain is a very nice backdrop when looking for a break from the workday. There's a walking path around the water and a fountain that is lit up in the middle at night.

Which is a great feature as The Foxtail on the Lake's deck area looks over the water and the fountain is also a beautiful backdrop for any occasion. There are heat lamps on the deck area for cooler evenings, but as witnessed last night, you'll still need a warm sweater or jacket to be comfortable out there.

The drive up at night is very unassuming. The sign makes the place feel as if the restaurant is an attachment to a local golf course or park district building. We were able to find a spot in the lot, but there is valet available if you prefer to not bother parking yourself.

Once you walk in, the music hits you. The host stand is in the middle of the lobby area and offers mints and old fashioned boxes of matches. We gave our name and was ushered to our table immediately.

One of the coolest things I've seen is a coat/purse rack at each table and it certainly came in handy.

We were seated at a small two-person table along the windows looking at the deck and water outside. It was definitely an intimate setting, but the tables are a trifle close to each other and if someone is sitting a bit back from the table, it's hard to pull out your chair and sit down (the lady behind me refused to move her chair in a bit so I could sit down - very rude!).

Our server was extremely friendly and was always coming by our table to bring drinks, refills, take our appetizer order, main food order, and dessert order. She was constantly coming by our table and offered up recommendations on our food choices or answering questions on what to order.

We ordered the Chicken Shwarma Rolls to share. They come with fries as well. They were delicious! The dipping sauce is a red pepper cream sauce which was very tasty.

My wife ordered the Brick Oven Roasted Cauliflower and Shrimp Saganaki as her main entree. Both were large portions that she took home. She said both were very good and can easily be shared by two or three people. I ordered the Brick Chicken which has one bone that doesn't affect the breast of chicken that was insanely juicy and flavorful. It comes with a thick garlic sauce that is smothered on the chicken. I'm not a huge garlic fan, so I got it on the side. Truthfully, the seasoning on the chicken is so good, that it really doesn't need the sauce. The potatoes were really good as well - eat them as is or dip them in the garlic sauce.

Lastly, we ordered the Tahini Stix (looks like Twix Bars) and taste like them, too. Comes with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

The ambience as pretty awesome as the church now restaurant is a really cool restaurant. The only takeaway though is that it is loud in the restaurant. Maybe it is less loud on the deck, but it certainly is loud inside. The table across from us were five young women who were screaming and swearing loudly to one another (almost too loud) so it made the evening slightly less enjoyable.

I would state that due to the noise levels, it is not good for larger groups (at least inside). Other than that, the food is great, staff is friendly, building is beautiful,...