Elina's — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

If I could go back in time and choose another place to have dinner on 8.25.24 I would go to McDonalds instead of Elina’s. We are a party of 5 and had a reservation for 9pm and showed up and checked in with the hostess at 8:58pm who then informed us that it would take 15 minutes to get our table ready as there was a party still at our table. She informed us that we could wait at the bar if we wanted. We opted to walk around outside and we came back after 15 minutes, she then told us again that it will take a bit longer as they just gave that party the check and that they were still seated there, so we went out again and came back after 20 minutes ( 9:35pm now) and then the hostess ignored us and walked away so another person at the bar came by and asked us about our table and we told him that we’ve been waiting for over 30 minutes and then he checked our reservation again and then asked the other table to leave because we were waiting. He was rude to them, when they asked him if he wanted them to leave now he said “ Straight up yes” which was rude, they all left then and they got our table ready. We then ordered, sat down and ordered our food. We ordered the Caesar salad, Mozzarella En Carozza, Rigatoni Ella vodka pasta and Chicken Parm. We got wine and coke to drink.

The bread service was good, nothing extraordinary, the Mozzarella En Carozza was okay -Akin to a fancy grilled cheese, the Ceasar salad was okay - there was too much parmesan in my opinion. The Pasta was not cooked Al-dente and felt undercooked. The chicken parm was average. The highlight of the night was the coca-cola in a can, We asked them for straws for our drinks twice which were not brought. The service was 0/10. The hostess was the worst I’ve ever seen, she was disrespectful and rude, she straight us said there is no way we can reduce the volume of the music, we felt like we were at a concert which does not fit the vibe of the restaurant. She said there is no way they could do that, we then asked our waiter if he could reduce the volume and then he went to reduce it and it was down for a minute and then it was louder than before, he came by and apologized and said that the dial for sound was not working which I highly doubt is true when you have a state of the art sound system . After this, we were going to just leave but the appetizers arrived so we decided to stay. It was understood that after we asked different staff members about this that we could clearly see that the hostess was looking at our table and laughing at us which made us feel very uncomfortable. While our waiter did his best, the behavior of the hostess made us feel unwelcome and disappointed.

I will never come back here, food is average at best, service is trash and ambience is sub par. I recommend you avoid this place. Chicago has a great food scene and you can find a better alternative with ease.

To the restaurant - Your staff needs retraining and reassignments, you have the worst possible person to...

Visited Elina’s last night for dinner and after waiting to get a reservation (as they go very quickly online) it was certainly worth the wait to get into the place.

The atmosphere gives you very much NYC small restaurant close table vibes, as there are only maybe 10 tables in the place total and about another 10 or so barstools at the bar. It now makes sense why getting a reservation for this hot spot is so difficult. The lights are dimly lit and the primary color green is popped in around the restaurant from the booths to decor etc. The tables are set with white table cloths and mix-matching plates and fancy silverware. The ambience I thought was great for a date night, as the restaurant was filled up with couples on a Friday night.

Onto the food, we started with the Caesar salad which was out-of-this-world, probably one of the best Caesar salads I’ve ever had in my life. Every bite had an abundance of dressing and crunch and it comes with 4 larger than life croutons which are garlic coated and fluffy little pillows of pop and flavor.

Next we moved onto the meatballs which were homemade and comprised of veal and beef, they came recommended by our server as well as they only make so many a day and he said if they are available they should be tried. The order is 3 meatballs in a red sauce and fresh basil leaves on top. I would say the meatballs are very good, but shockingly didn’t blow me away as much as I thought, which wasn’t a hit against the meatballs, the Caesar salad just had incredible flavor and texture when comparing the two.

Lastly we had the house special vodka pasta & chicken parmesan for a split entree shareable feast. The vodka pasta is prolly one of THEE BEST vodka pasta dishes I have ever had. The noodles are a shell type noodle and the sauce is thinner than most vodka pastas and it comes with Calabrian breadcrumbs on top for a bit of a crunch. Truly every bite of this dish kept you wanting more.

The Chicken Parmesan which was very good itself and was a huge portion, it comes thinly beaten and takes up the entire plate, no side pasta just the chicken itself, which is perfect for a standalone entree or a shareable entree for the table. I wish the Chicken parm had more fresh mozzarella as I feel like it was lacking a bit on overall coverage on such a large piece of chicken but still a very strong dish.

Overall very pleased with the meal and enjoyed ourselves at such a unique and quaint spot in the city. Will definitely recommend to others going forward, as a tough reservation to get but a worth while meal altogether.

Final...

We brought a party of EIGHT into this quaint, emerald tinted Italian restaurant, and the staff was more than up to the task.

Our server, Cait, was exceptional. I have not had better service in Chicago than what she and the Elina's staff provided in quite a long time. More on that later.

The drinks were great. The cocktail list is creative, the wine list is long enough but not daunting, and the selection is well curated. We found out later in the evening that they make their own Limoncello and it was out of this world good.

A party of 8 means that you get to try a lot, and we tried a lot.

Calamari: Really good and crisp, this is something that I get everywhere though so it's hard to differentiate but they add shrimp, which is something you don't see all the time.

Baked clams: They drop some fixings on these like bacon breadcrumb that make for a really indulgent appetizer. Unique, I loved it.

Rigatoni a la vodka: pristine. Perfectly cooked noodles, smooth sauce, generous portion, everything you want in a comfort pasta dish.

Eggplant parmesan: heaping portion, extremely good. They do bread theirs, which is not my preference but even if you are an eggplant parm snob and prefer no breading (I know this is polarizing) it’s delicious either way.

Dover Sole: This is probably one of the better and more flavorful whitefish preparations I've had anywhere. Despite the flaky nature of the fish it holds up well on the fork and melts in your mouth. This is one that you have to get if you go. Get it with the broccoli, the way they prep that really pops with red pepper flake and a host of other flavors.

Back to the service, you order everything at once and the staff takes care of the rest. Food comes out on time, hot, and they are very proactive about clearing dishes out of the way. You can tell the machine is well oiled.

Overall I am going 9/10 on this with the only regrets being that I did not try the chicken parm and it was extremely cold so when the door opened we got a draft - neither of these are the fault of the restaurant though!

It is not easy to carve out a niche for yourself in the Chicago Italian scene, but Elina's certainly has in my book. We...