Nia Restaurant & Wine Bar — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

Review of Nia – A Disappointing Restaurant Week Experience

My friends and I love exploring Chicago’s diverse restaurant scene, so we were excited to try Nia, a Mediterranean restaurant in the West Loop, for an early Galentine’s Day dinner during Restaurant Week. Unfortunately, our experience was incredibly disappointing, from the food to the service to the overall value.

First Impressions

When we arrived, we were asked to wait while they prepared our table, despite the restaurant having plenty of open seating. We had also been charged a per-person booking fee, which felt unnecessary given how empty the place was. Shortly after sitting down, the manager approached us, mentioning that they don’t have many reviews despite being open for 15 years. She encouraged us to write one, offering a cheesecake with dessert as an incentive. Looking back, I can see why they might be struggling to get positive feedback.

The Menu & Food Quality

We opted for the Eight-Course Shared Tasting Menu ($45 per person), expecting a high-quality tapas experience, but the execution was underwhelming. Not only was the food bland, but each item was a tiny, bite-sized portion—barely enough to taste, let alone enjoy: French Onion Soup – Decent but nothing special. A basic start. Pan con Tomate Crostini – A tiny piece of bread with tomato jam, nothing memorable. Nia Salad – A basic mixed greens salad with only two small pieces of dates and uninspired presentation. Croquettes – The only flavorful dish of the night, but still a single small portion per person. Chicken Pintxos – A single, dry, 2-inch skewer per person, so tough that the chicken was hard to bite off. Patatas Bravas – One small piece of potato per person, served cold and lacking flavor. Funghi Artisan Pizza – A 5-inch pizza to be split among three people. It was cold, tasted store-bought, and felt like a child’s first attempt at making pizza. Churros – Stale, likely frozen, and not fresh at all. Instead of a crispy, warm treat, they tasted like something reheated from a box.

For a Mediterranean tapas restaurant, the dishes lacked balance, leaning heavily on empty carbs with very little protein or variety. One of my friends ordered the vegetarian option and was served a bland, store-bought-tasting hummus with some fried cauliflower and a few pita pieces—not a fulfilling or creative meal.

Service & Interaction with Management

If the food had been bad but the service great, we might have overlooked some issues. Instead, the service was uninformed and unengaged. None of the servers could tell us what they were serving, responding with “umm, I don’t know” when asked.

When the manager checked in on us toward the end of the meal, we honestly shared our disappointment about the food quality and lack of protein. Rather than listening to our feedback, she became defensive, insisting that “this is how Mediterranean food is.” Given that Mediterranean cuisine is one of our favorites, this response was not only inaccurate but also dismissive. Instead of acknowledging our concerns, she doubled down, saying, “Well, I love this dish”, and then walked away, never to return.

Final Verdict – 1/5

Nia feels completely out of place in the Randolph restaurant district, where incredible restaurants with top-tier food, service, and ambiance are packed side by side. For $45 per person, the meal felt like overpriced bar food that we could easily make at home—if not better. The ambiance was lackluster, the food was mediocre, and the service was poor.

Unless you’re looking to waste money on overpriced, unsatisfying food with questionable hospitality, I’d highly recommend...

TL;DR: Do not go here for restaurant week. Bad food, confused wait-staff, and hectic experience in general.

I hate to give a bad review and don't usually, but our experience last night was so disappointing that I feel obligated to share. The reviews here show a consistent pattern in how bad their service is during restaurant week which is disappointing given how positive their reviews seem other times of the year.

From the beginning of our meal we were aware that this was not going to be the romantic, elevated dining experience that we expected. To start, know that when you order, you're ordering 1 meal to share between 2 people- so you and your date need to be alright with eating the same thing. Don't ask me how it would work if you came alone or with an odd number of guests. 3 out of 8 of the courses that we ordered were sold out (mind you, it was 8pm- so not even late in the night at this point), so we were offered an alternative choice (that we didn't want) or sometimes had no alternative option at all. The courses also came out of order and extremely unevenly paced. Sometimes we had 3 courses at ounce and sometimes we were waiting for 10 minutes for the next course.

The food itself was very disappointing. The french onion soup tasted like it came from a can. The chicken was extremely bland with seemingly no seasoning. It was also pre-cut for us, which was very odd? The best thing we could say about the risotto was "at least it's hot." The rest of the courses were all perfectly okay- nothing I was excited about but good enough to scarf down if you're hungry. My favorites were the salad and the churros.

At one point, halfway through our meal, our waitress brought our check over to us. When we said we weren't done with our meal yet, she said yes okay, but here take the bill anyway. Came back 5 minutes later very confused to apologize and take away the bill. Huh? Another time, she tried to serve the crostini course to the table next to us. They informed her that they had already had that course. I then watched her walk to the kitchen, turn 180 degrees and immediately come back to place that plate on our table instead. Multiple times she had to ask us which courses we'd already had and which we were still waiting for. Not exactly a relaxing dining experience to need to be directing our waitress all evening.

I don't blame the waitress for the confusion and disorganization of the evening. I know that restaurant week is a lot for businesses and some hiccups are expected. However, as they like to remind people who leave negative reviews on here, Nia has been in business for 15 years and have therefore participated in Restaurant Week before. Furthermore, they offer their tasting menu consistently throughout the year- this was not some new experimental menu they were testing out for the first time. Therefore, I see no reason for them to be so unprepared or offer such disappointing food during restaurant week.

Note that there is included 22% gratuity on the pre-tax total and a 4% credit card charge as well.

The highlight of our meal was joking around with the table next to us who was having an equally absurd experience and talking about what a mess the night was. I truly wonder how the meal would be different during non-restaurant week and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt that last night was simply a bad night for them. Regardless, I would not suggest anyone go for their restaurant week...

Came here for restaurant week and was very disappointed. Total restaurant week trap.

We made a reservation for 3 people. They seat us in a table for 2 and very close to the next table. There was not enough room for all of us. Asked the hostess if there was a different table, but they said that this was the norm for a group of 3. OK fine.

They advertise an eight course meal -- which sounds great at first and of course, pulls in a big audience. We get there and they let us know it is served family style. OK that's fine. Soup comes and it is cold. I had to send it back. About 5 minutes go by, my friends are still eating their soup, and they serve us the salad. This was irritating because it seemed like they weren't timing the meals properly and just thought it was easier to set everything on the table. If the table was big enough, maybe this would have been less of a problem, but we barely had enough space to begin with and they squeezed a whole salad bowl. So now, not only do we feel like we don't have enough space, we are also feeling pressured to eat more quickly so that our salad doesn't get soggy. Keep in mind, I still don't have my soup at this point because it was cold and had to be sent back.

We were starting to get irritated at this point. My soup comes and it is hot. Great. But flavor is sub-par. My friends move onto the salad. The one good thing was that the salad was good. 5 minutes later, the waitress brings the third course. Now I'm getting very annoyed because they're just dumping food onto our table before we're ready. There's quite literally no room on the table. Not to mention, our water glasses are still empty and no water has been served yet. The third course was ALSO cold.

Not even 5 minutes later, the waitress brings the fourth course (which was carbonara). I tell her there's no room and she says "we can squeeze it in." OK. Carbonara was awful. It was bland and runny. Pork was chewy. Ingredients were not well incorporated. I asked for extra parmesan cheese and black pepper. They gave me pre-ground black pepper (not fresh). This was lackluster as I expected at least freshly ground black pepper for a pasta dish at a nice restaurant.

We've taken one bite out of our carbonara and the fifth and sixth course comes. The steak was chewwy and overcooked (we requested medium rare). The "other" course was just fries placed in the same dish as the steak. Another trap.

At this point, we just wanted to leave. We asked for the bill and they didn't ask if we were paying by cash or card. We specifically brought cash because of the disgusting 4% CC fee (in this day and age and in a nice restaurant!). They bring us the bill with the 4% fee anyway. We noted that they had the CC fee attached before tax, and so the tax and tip were including the fee, and the tip turned out to be 23% instead of the 18% advertised. We sent this back, first saying that we are paying with cash, but purposefully didn't point out the other mistakes because we assumed it would all be corrected once we pay with cash. HARD WRONG. They just took the 4% and didn't adjust the rest of the bill. The tax and tip were still based off the previous bill that included the 4% fee. We had to do the math and work for the hostess because she wasn't even aware. If we hadn't said anything, they would've just gladly taken the money.

Never coming back. I would not recommend anyone...