El Che Steakhouse & Bar — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

I was traveling from out of town for my daughter's graduation from the Navy. July 3 weekend. I came from Raleigh, NC.Im definitely disappointed for choosing this restaurant. Now to the point. The menu doesn't match what's offered, and the servers did not understand how their menu options were offered. they didn't want us to ask any questions at all, just order,very impatient individuals. I won't lie. The bone marrow was really delicious and of course, the french fries. OMG, and the rockefeller oysters delicious. Thats , the only thing I would give a 10/10.Now, would you believe a steakhouse doesn't offer mashed potatoes or a baked potato? I was very surprised. Then the broccoli was burnt. I said something about that, and my server did not care to change. I ordered a Pacific style salad because of my food allergies and when it came out, it was incorrect. I shared that with the server, and he did not want to change it.Then I had questions about other things because of my food allergy, and I did share that at the time of ordering. However, food still came out that I was not allowed to eat because of my food allergies.mind you, major of my table could not eat these things as well because of our food allergies. I asked for management, and oh my gosh. Very disrespectful response. They really need to do a deep dive on their full operation. Just a small breakdown of our order. My 2 girls got two aged streaks and to b 100% transparent.That was our first time eating steaks.That was aged 60 days, and it had a very bad aftertaste.I would never recommend that again.we asked to A1 steak sauce with the hopes of it, helping with the taste and flavor but no, it did not so I did share that with the server.He somewhat got upset and grabbed the plates. away before we could even fully address the issue.I think they only thought we wanted to complain.But no, that was not the case.We were really trying to celebrate. Then the tables are so dark and it's not good lighting.You can barely see the food so you can't tell if it is fully served well.To be honest now, the broccoli was so burnt that you couldn't eat .I wouldn't have gave it to a dog. The side of sausage that we ordered was fully burnt on one side, you had to dig the meat off the top. The bread that came out had so much oil on it that it was too soggy to eat. Honestly, none of the food was season properly, very poor excuse for a steak restaurant. After all the issues, you would think the drinks would be good, but no, they were watered down. But I still paid for the meal, and no, they did not offer to fix anything with the receipt. To put the eisen on a cake I did ask for too boxes , because we had so much food and I realized before coming in.There were a lot of homeless people on this block which I don't recommend to park on the side. Sidenote: Make sure you pay for parking because it did not seem too safe at nine o'clock at night. I asked for a togo bag and my server never came back and I asked 3 times and mind you my steak was $130 each. All and all . I won't recommend this restaurant at all. I wouldn't say that they are racist to some degree. It was shown in more ways than one that this was not the restaurant for my family. You must dress up not really wear casual clothes. I think this is more of a restaurant for someone that's trying to impress or maybe even engaged.But the food and service is horrible.I'm sorry to say it. Oh I forgot to share the manager is very condescending. and rude. He even pulled the server to the side and said some very distasteful.Things about my family, we're all very successful and will mannered. Overall places like this only receives such big hype because of certain small clips done on TikTok other than that experience is horrible.I hate I took my family here. This was supposed to be a really nice fun dinning experience .Sad to say we end up driving another hour away to eat somewhere else. Please don't...

I am not from Chicago but my son attends a local university there. I was planning a visit to celebrate his birthday and saw this restaurant featured on Sunday Morning (CBS). I was intrigued by the news story and decided to take him there for a special celebration. My son and I absolutely love steak houses and go to one any time we visit a new city. We were excited to try El Che as I had shared the news feature with him. So, I made a reservation for four guests. We were greeted and were sat fairly quickly. Our waiter asked for our drink order. We ordered 2 glasses of wine and 2 waters. After that it went down hill. I now conclude that our waiter must not have been impressed with our drink order because he was rarely coming to our table. There were 2 sommeliers that kept coming by to ask if we wanted anything else to drink, but, not our waiter. We got his attention for our appetizer. We ordered 4 empanadas. They were edible, nothing extra special. We waved him down again, mind you he also had an assistant or young lady he was training and neither person was attentive. We ordered 2 appetizers, 2 salads and 3 different steaks. One person ordered a steak at medium rare another was medium and mine was medium well. Now, if I am going to a steak house were all they do is steaks, I expect them to know how to cook them correctly. The medium rare and medium steaks were not cooked correctly. The medium rare was very over cooked and the medium was almost rare. We could never flag down our waiter because he spent all his time with the other 2 tables that were ordering several bottles of wine. I imagine he thought that was a better check/tip for him. We started to look at how much time he was spending talking with the other tables, it was well over 30 mins of conversation about the history of the restaurant, wines and other things. Yes, I know this because I was that close where I could hear the conversation with the other tables yet, he never bothered to ask us if our order was correct or if we needed anything else. It's like we didn't have a waiter. We certainly didn't get any history on the restaurant. We tried flagging down anyone to come help us with correcting our order and nobody came. The sommeliers would just walk around us, I guess that's not their job. Finally we got one of the sommeliers to come to our table. We told him about the steaks and he said he's bring our order back correctly. It was very evident that it was the same steak. Again, nobody came by to apologize or see if the order was correct. We finished our meal and flagged down the waiter for a dessert. He never asked if our order came out well or if we enjoyed our food...nothing. Our check was over $400. The service was absolutely awful and the food was not worth that price. It was truly a very disappointing experience, especially for a celebration. It was evident we were not a very important to anyone, the waiter, sommeliers (since we did not reorder wine) or any management. If you want to spend big bucks on mediocre steak and drink bottles of wine this is the place for you. If you don't drink alcohol and just want a good steak house try...

tl;dr version- Amazing. Can't give more than 5 stars, but I would if I could.

My husband and I have been wanting to try a Chef's Table experience for a long time. When we knew we were coming to Chicago (and it happened to be on my birthday), I looked up options for the experience in this area and found El Che. After reading some of the reviews, I decided to go ahead and book it- and let me tell you, from what I read off those reviews, my expectations were set pretty high (despite having never tried a chef's table experience before).

All that to say- I seriously couldn't have asked for a more wonderful birthday dinner. The food was incredible. Delicious, complex, flavorful, comforting while simultaneously challenging and full of depth, each bite was a journey into bliss, with an Argentinian twist. I tried food that I would have never tried on my own, and I have to say I really, really enjoyed each and every item.

From the chefs to the waiters to everyone else I met, the service was friendly, personable, knowledgeable, and professional.

Watching the chefs work to create dishes for the rest of the restaurant (as well as ours!), getting to ask questions about the food, such as how or why a particular dish or item was done the way it was, was so incredible. Alex, (and everyone else I bothered) were happy to answer any questions we had- no matter how silly they might have been. I learned a lot and have a bunch of new ideas of things to try at home!

We chose not to do a wine or beverage package, but we had plenty of amazing recommendations from the drinks menu to enjoy with our meal.

We didn't get to meet John Manion that evening, but to be honest (and no offense to John, I'm sure he's lovely) we never felt the lack.

I will definitely be back and I am so grateful I chose this experience for my Chicago birthday dinner! This is truly an experience I will remember for the rest of my life.

Please note, these photos are by me, a VERY bad photographer with absolutely NO training under my belt. Please excuse any photos where bites have already been taken- I had a hard time remembering I should photograph the food first, THEN eat!

Also, when you book this experience, they aren't joking when they say it gets warm. You're right next to the fire (which I LOVED) and all the action, but dress for it! Suit coats (or even long sleeves) would...