Elia Chicago — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

Went to Elia last night (10/25/24) and the service was terrible. It took the waiter 30 mins to bring drinks out and in that time he never introduced himself. After that we didn’t see him for over an hour. This was a common theme for him as other tables had to reach out to other waiters for any type of service. One table got up and ordered their own food and drinks at the bar. Finally he came back and the drink orders were wrong, which took another 20 mins to fix. After I requested another drink as I didn’t know when we’d see him again. I asked for a single modification for my drink and was turned down, he then came back with a similar drink no one at the table ordered. He tried to give it to me under the guise “he felt bad” but I watched that drink sit at the bar for 20 mins and he tried to offer me that. I declined. After that it took quite awhile to get food and come to see the head chef was at the front of house during our entire dining experience. He was barely on the kitchen helping his staff, he was at the front of house talking to tables where he knew guests. Never once came to our table to even introduce himself. Additionally, I and one dining guest of mine ordered rice and sauces, they never came after talking to 3 other waiters. At the end I was not going to wait for him to come back so I went up to the manager to have him run my card. He apologized when I asked him to run the card and how we hadn’t seen our waiter most of the night and wasn’t going to wait longer. I watched the manager sit at the bar the whole night, not helping his staff, drinking wine. He never came to the table to apologize and ask about our experience. Elia will not be seeing us again and I wish them luck in whatever it is they’re...

Walked in for lunch a couple weeks ago. The restaurant was just opening when we walked in. Our server Ebrar made the dining experience super enjoyable while multitasking restaurant opening tasks. I have to give him all the credit for he was running the front of house all on his own. He also made the time to have genuine conversations with us about the food and Turkey. We felt very welcomed by his easygoing vibe.

As for the food, it was a mix of unique and phenomenal dishes with okay but still fulfilling ones. The chef mezze platter was one of those dishes, but we’re biased because we regularly make the dips at home to our own taste. It’s good though if you want to try them. The truffle saganaki was delicious. The flavors meshed well together, but you must eat it quick because it hardens as it cools.

Grilled octopus here was hands down the best thing ever. It was cooked to perfection. Every bite was heavenly. The sauce, lemon, and onions paired really well with it. It was worth every penny.

The truffle eggplant kebab was also sooo yummy. It’s my first time having eggplant kebab and I’m so glad I had it here. With the lamb, it made the perfect dish. I also loved the rice, though it was simple, it wrapped everything together.

We ended with some glasses of piping hot cardamom tea and baklava, which we were told is homemade! It was one of the best I’ve had; not overpoweringly sweet and great texture.

Additionally, I love the vibes of the place. It has a really cool bar, perfect for the unique cocktail menu they offer (which I’d love to come back and try!). The plates they served our food on were really nice too, very natural...

The food has potential, but they have a long way to go before this is a good experience for customers. I want to give them some grace on the rating because I dined in on a Friday evening (5/19/23), which was the second day of their soft opening to the general public, but this experience was probably more like 2 stars.

The biggest issue was the service - the staff were completely unprepared.

1. Our server was unfamiliar with the menu and had to go back to the kitchen every time we asked a question about an item, so we stopped asking.
2. We received appetizers without any plates and waited for over 5 minutes to receive them. We weren’t the only ones (plates should probably be at the table before any food gets there).
3. We were done with our appetizers by the time our server returned to take our larger plates order.
4. By the time we placed our larger plate order, our server said the kitchen could no longer accommodate any menu item alterations - our requests were for one item without chives and to add a protein to the tagliatelle (which is explicitly stated as an option on the menu!)
5. Our water glasses were frequently empty.
6. We were confused by the hummus - it didn’t clearly come with any bread. The restaurant delivered house bread and oil to our table first, which seemed complimentary. Then our hummus arrived with only 3 small flour tortilla triangles(?). If the bread was meant for the hummus, it was not enough.
7. The whole dining experience took us 2 hours.

Positives: Atmosphere is well done. Price point was decent. Food was served quickly once ordered and overall tasted good aside from a...