Cellar Door Provisions — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

I had a great experience here back in 2019 and love following their exciting social media page, so I was excited to go. While there were some highlights, we were dissapointed and felt at times misled.

Unlike some reviewers, we received our food in good and timely increments, so we have no complaints about timing.

We were a table of 4 and it was suggested we order 7 dishes, or 6 if we ordered the chicken, particularly because of a generous portion of mushroom accompanying the chicken. When the chicken came, we were all shocked to see one single mushroom on the plate. As fun as we had cutting the mushroom into four pieces, this hardly felt like a shareable dish with a generous portion of mushroom(s).

The sharable nature of the dishes were generally misleading. The dishes were not served with any serving utensils and we spent considerable time trying to portion the recommended 6 dishes to each person. It is hard, for example, to portion one piece of tomato on toast and one piece of tuna with a single long cracker, particularly with just the cutlery at your place setting.

Unfortunately, the food did not overcome these issues. The lettuce was not properly washed and we realized pretty quickly the sandy, grainy bites were dirt. The server kindly took this item off of our bill, but I'm seeing in the comments this is not an infrequent issue at CDP. I cannot understate that it was not a slight graininess, but significant.

While the bread, pan con tomate, and cabbage topping of another dish were very tasty, the other dishes we tried were underwhelming and often one dimensional in flavor (flavors like cooriander and black pepper dominating entirely).

I believe that this restaurant is better enjoyed by groups of 2 than 4, and if you do come as a group of 4, consider ordering 2 of most items. I would approach lettuce dishes wish caution, as under-washed lettuce appears to be a chronic risk. The presentation of dishes is lovely, but extremely difficult to make shareable, particularly absent...

It wouldn't have been that hard for them to get it right, but they really didn't seem to care and that's what's more disappointing.

Showed up a few minutes early for our reservation, told "we're running a little late," ok no worries. "ok we'll grab a drink next door and come back in 30, ok?" "Ok." Came back in 30, "not quite ready yet, do you want to grab a drink at the bar? Your table will be ready in 5 minutes." Ok sure. 20 minutes later, still at the bar, "are you ready to order?" "Uh, yes, but will we be getting a table?" ....confers with coworkers... "We don't have a table, but maybe in 15 minutes?." It's now 40+ minutes past our reservation and we're now being treated like they're doing us a favor even trying to get us the table we reserved. We order -- after a good 20 minutes with the menu -- at which time (and not before) they tell us they're out of TWO of the things we ordered (one of which just got served to another party and maybe we'd have gotten had they actually seated us on time; the other, the allegedly phenomenal bread, we watched get served to another table a full HOUR after they told us they were out of it). This is the last time anyone even acknowledges that we ever had a reservation or that they were supposedly trying to get us a table. Eating a dinner of six shared plates hunched over a shallow bar actually kind of sucks! (I spilled salad dressing on my pants).

When we asked an hour into dinner, why another party got served the bread they told us they were out of, they said "oh that's different bread. You can have some if you want" -- this at the end of our meal. Thanks. Maybe you should have offered it to us when we ordered it.

From there, handed the check, no acknowledgement whatsoever of the crappy seating, late and inattentive service, half the menu unavailable.

Oh also every time someone ordered the pork belly when they fired it the entire dining room filled with smoke. I could smell it in my clothes when I got home.

Food they actually had was ok. Wine...

I wish I could leave this place a good review! I love the concept, and everyone that works there has always been friendly. But here's the problem...

I went on Sunday morning with three friends, and we ordered a total of five entrees (each about $13-14) and one small plate for a table of four people. I ordered two entrees by myself (garlic soup and the beet salad) plus an iced tea. The total came to over $40. Should be plenty of food, right?

Literally every entree we got was laughably small. As in, we were just looking at the plates in disbelief when they were dropped off. The radish salad (a $14 "salad") was maybe 10 thin slices of radish arranged on a plate with edible wild ramp flowers. I'm not sure there was actually a whole radish on that plate. Although nice looking, it was like they had literally only given the garnish for the plate. Where was the rest of it...

Every entree we got was like this. The garlic soup was maybe 5 oz of liquid in a 20 oz bowl with a fried egg at the bottom. It was like they barely had enough liquid to cover a fried egg. It looked like someone had already finished eating it and they had given me the leftovers. The $3.50 iced tea I ordered contained maybe 4 oz of iced tea and 3 oz of ice.

After spending $40 on two entrees and finishing both of them, I had to go home and order take out because I was still so hungry. I'm usually unable to finish a single entree at most places unless I'm exceptionally hungry. But at CDP either the portion size has to go way up, or the prices have to come way down. All four of us left brunch feeling like we had just been scammed.

The food was tasty, but every dish we got felt like just a sample from the actual entree. Very...