Chicago Prime Italian Steakhouse — Restaurant in Schaumburg Township

The best way to describe Chicago Prime Italian is that the concept, cuisine, and overall spirit of this establishment is that it was. . . unfortunately “off.”

The decor is slight upscale and the dim ambiance is definitely on the right path, but the non-romantic electro dance track playing didn’t match the ambiance that could be …and subsequently, the music detracted and subtracted from the what-could-be old school high class ambiance.

Growing up first generation Italian and being exposed to some of the most amazing Italian and Southern Italian cuisine in the world from the hands of my parents’ and family’s cooking, you would think when my father took our family out to an Italian restaurant, that he would tell us to look first and foremost for “A, B, then C” to qualify it as an exceptional establishment.

No.

He would always tell me to go first check out the bathroom! Lol! He said you could often tell a lot about a restaurant about the design and maintenance of the bathroom!

Funny, at Chicago Prime, the men’s bathroom was slightly above average but had a chandelier that had approximately 3 out of about 6 bulbs out. Also, the divider of the two men”s urinals must have been bumped and loosened up in the past, and someone repaired the area on the wall with Elmer’s white glue-looking caulk without painting the repair area. Thus, the management had not afforded the time to keep even the bathroom up to first class status.

For the inception of the dining experience, the BEST part began and ended with the service via the two friendly, engaging, respectful, and professional servers.

From there, a basket of bread and what we figured out to be focaccia were served. Both seemed day old “stale” and hard, non-moist, cold, and in the case of the focaccia—VERY dry and crumbly. Fresh baked warm bread should have been served along with fresh and moist focaccia with the right chew.

The best part of the meal was the pasta fagiioli soup. It was delicious with smoky overtones.

The baked clams we ordered as a precursor to our meal were probably the least enjoyable we have ever tasted. They were soupy, uncharacteristically fishy, and were apparently made with tomato sauce mixed in the bread crumbs—-a characteristic not normative from all the baked clams I grew up with. I cannot prove that there was tomato sauce in there, but believe me it was red and tasted like tomatoes and maybe the chef decided to try something different that night. Well, tomatoes and the presence of them adds “soupiness” to whatever you add if it’s not cooked down enough first.

Finally, we ordered the Land and Sea, asking for the filets to be medium rare.

One of the filets came out medium with an end of the piece almost medium well. The other filet came out near medium rare.

The filets had decent flavor, but they were not consistently cooked.

We each got one tiger prawn which were just about overcooked.

The garlic mashed potatoes were dry. It’s as if the food was made and left in a warmer where it overcooked until it was served to us.

Overall we cannot recommend this restaurant.

We do recommend that the good servers should get jobs at the Capital Grill where the highest standards are kept.

2.7 of 5 stars

This is a want to be upscale restaurant with the overtones of a chain feel.

We so wanted this to be an...

2.5 stars so rounding up to be nice. Very mixed feelings about this place. Group of 5 on a Saturday night and some food was great, some not so much. My fettuccine Alfredo was not crunchy but cooked a bit less than al dente. The sauce was not Alfredo at all, but a reduced and thick cream with the slightest flavor of parmesan. Sauce also had zero texture so either they forgot most of the cheese or used something highly processed. Reminded me of jarred stuff which is not an exaggeration. I included chicken but it had no extra seasoning at all so it did nothing to improve the dish. Fairly certain the chicken was boiled or maybe sous vide. It had only the slightest dark mark on the outside as though they tossed it on the broiler for 10 seconds of n an attempt to finish it off. Not grilled like my waiter said it would be. Others at my table got the rigatoni or steak and those were so much better. I usually judge an Italian restaurant by their Alfredo since it is my favorite and this was one of the most memorable I've ever eaten. That's not a compliment. I had leftovers on my plate which is unusual in itself, but even more when I did not want to take it home.

Soups, salads & sides were nothing amazing but still good enough for us. Their clam chowder did taste homemade but had a somewhat spicy element I was not expecting. Would have been great otherwise. All our portion sizes were not small but not very large either, from salad to main dishes. A little too small considering the inflated prices.

The service was great and the wait staff highly attentive most of the time. Our main courses seemed to take a while and we did hear a few 'food will be out soon' remarks. Not an unusually long wait but it was noticable.

The place was incredibly loud with no sound dampening measures. I could not fully hear my father across our table, nor he hear me so the 5 of us had less conversation than we normally would have. Too many tables too close together caused a cramped feeling instead of cozy. The ambience was highly off putting for a higher end restaurant and one of the main reasons I would go to a place like this.

FYI, look at the menu first if you have kids or 'particular' eaters as there are no kid friendly or simpler items on the menu.

Final take: Attentive wait staff was the best part as my glass of ice water was always filled and used dishes were usually taken care of quickly. The food was mostly good outside of mine. Too loud and felt too cramped in our section. For the prices I expected a lot better as a whole. I will not be going back for myself. Only if I am with someone who is really interested and pushing for it will I...

When you walk in no matter how big the crowd the hostess should greet you with a smile. Do not expect that here....and not just this visit every time we have gone to CPI we are not warming welcome. It almost felt as if they were doing us a favor by spending our money to eat their food. Anyways I digress.......we were seated 30 minutes pass our reservation time..no biggie since its Saturday night and we know they are busy. Right off the bat we were notified that two waitresses would serve us since we had 10 people so I was thinking great we will get good service! I was wrong....when taking drink orders they didn't ask everyone, food arrived 90 minutes after it was ordered, two steak orders were not cooked at the right temp, eggplant parm was cold, ordered grilled veggies we got steamed, one drink came in a cracked glass, one salad was sent back since it was wrong, missing sides such as mash potatoes/asparagus, and missing entree that showed up after the poor hungry guest ate half her mash potatoes. Once we paid our bills half our party had to leave while a few of us finished our drinks. During at which time someone started to clean up the table while we were still sitting there, no biggie until he pulled a napkin under my wife's arm and didn't even bother to say excuse me. We all have kids and busy lives so when 8 of my close friends take time out of their busy lives to spend some time with me on my birthday and we get this type of service at a "amazing" restaurant it is very disappointing. Ohh yea forgot the best part, the manager came by once i complained and said to make it up he would send over two cannolis when i mentioned to the waitress that no one eats those send over a tiramisu over instead she brings over one small slice for 10 PEOPLE to share!!!...