Azul — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

We’d passed by Azul enough to try it out for dinner. We’d heard that it was a little pricey but figured that must have been due to location and quality of food or some other reasonable explanation.

We were mistaken by a lot.

We discovered the following so you don’t have to:

The food is just okay; not great, but not awful. Everything is tapas-sized. Outside of the huge seafood platters, everything is sized to be shareable, even the entrees. To make a full meal, you have to order at least 2-3 dishes.

The prices were already high but what we didn’t expect was the automatic 20% gratuity for a party of 2 people, plus a 3% surcharge. Our server also asked if we would like to tip on top of these extras and the automatic gratuity couldn’t be removed from the bill. Our server did not let us know before ordering or even when bringing the check that either of these two charges would be applied nor are either charge listed or explained anywhere on Azul’s menu or website.

Our server was very slow and acted as if she did not care to be there in the slightest. She wasn’t rude, but she was very inattentive and barely around the whole lower patio so we struggled to get her attention for more drinks, a takeout box, and the check.

The cocktails (margs, sangria, etc) are all at least $17 on average. Our server confirmed our suspicion that the margaritas are made with fruit-flavored sugar syrup instead of any real fruit (not even as a garnish) and overall were way too sickly sweet. The red sangria was okay, but again tasted more like syrup than decent sangria.

The view isn’t nice like you would assume for the location. There’s a big tree at the end of the patio/parking lot that blocks most of the skyline view (pictured). Additionally, there’s also a boat rental in the parking lot and people cut through the patio and duck under the bars, right next to occupied tables, to get from the restaurant to parking lot, boat dock to parking lot, boat dock to restaurant, etc (pictured with markup). We thought we had an out-of-the-way table to enjoy a partial skyline view but with all the people moving around our table to duck under the bars, we could barely move in our own seats.

TL;DR: To describe Azul in a nutshell, I would say it’s exorbitantly priced for what it offers and shockingly underwhelming. There are far better places in the neighborhood, let alone in all of Chicago, for quality Latin seafood and city views and Azul fails to deliver in all aspects.

I’m giving Azul 2 stars because our busboy was great and...

I’ve been here multiple times on Sunday on the rooftop and enjoyed my time each time. Last night I went with my friend for dinner around 9pm. Let’s start by saying half the staff is very very welcoming, but the other half NOT SO MUCH!!! I’ve never had an issue here but it was my first time actually dining here. First of all, we get to the table and no one greets us for at least 10 mins. We ordered our food received our food from the food runner on the EDGE of the table! He left, we sat there for at least another 5-10 mins with NO silverware, no plates no straws. Just the food. And a water with Tajín in it??? no thank you. After we finished eating I pay the bill and the server first of all had no type of personality, no smiles nothing. They charge automatic gratuity and a sur charge!! So your $50 bill will become $80 😂🙄I’ve worked my whole life in the food industry since I was 15, so I know how this goes. When servers get an automatic 20% tip! They decide to act like they don’t care about their tables!!! I’vehaf a very similar experience before like this. Mind you it was a slowww day for them.just because you get automatic GRATUITY does not mean you have the right to act like you don’t care about your tables. mind you I still tipped an extra $8). Now I regret it. TODAY I look at my receipt and let me tell you that PAPER MENU HAS WRONG PRICING!! I got overcharged $3 for some empanadas that were already pricey to begin with. I honestly was so disappointed in the service last night so I called today to tell them they over charged me, the hostess who answered the phone was acting weird on the phone after I told her I got overcharged.. she stayed silent and was rude “the empanadas are $11 each” yes but your menu is wrong. I think I deserve my $3 back because YOUR menu pricing was wrong. She ended getting the manager and she was nicer. They refunded me my $3 and she was understanding. If you go here, I hope you have a better experience. Sundays are fun but not to eat 😂. Oh and the parkikg makes no sense to me. The valet really charged me for “valet” but said it’s self park now?? I made him park it for me because I didn’t want to. He said they aren’t keeping the keys bc he wants to go home early and not stay with the keys?? 😭😭😂😂I CANTTTT!!! How are you going to charge $17 for VALET WHEN YOU CANT...

Food was good, service was absolutely terrible. My girlfriend and I made a reservation at 7:30pm on a Friday night for dinner. When we got there we were told there’s a party so we will have to wait about 15-20 mins until the next table opens up. Well 30 mins goes by and 2 tables open up - one group that was waiting before us got sat first then we thought we were next. Nope, they sat a group that arrived after us first and told us “they had 4 people and the table sat 4 so we sat them first”. We let that slide. Within 5 mins another group that arrived after us got sat before us so we confronted them about this again. They told us “well that group had 3 people so we sat them first”. At this point I was ready to blow up on the little blonde girl in the front that was seating people. I told her I don’t care how many people are in there group, we got here before them so why are we waiting to be seated after them when we had a reservation?!?! Their whole reservation system is a complete scam, be prepared to wait even though you “made a reservation” (which defeats the entire purpose??). Overall we will definitely not be coming back, the manager sucked and was avoiding eye contact with us the whole time because apparently it was his idea to seat the 2 other groups that arrived after us first. To the manager that was working that night, I hope you see this and know you’re the sole reason we will not be returning because of your idiotic logic to seat people who arrived later first. On top of this, the waitress we had when we finally got seated about 40 mins after our reservation did not pay attention to our table whatsoever in the hour and 20 mins we were seated with her. She came to our table once on her own and every other time we had to track her down, yell to get her attention, or throw our hands in the air so she would come to our table. It was such an uncomfortable and stressful experience just to eat dinner. Do better Azul - and to the management: I’m sure you wouldn’t appreciate being skipped over a couple times for someone...