Wolf & Company — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

I wanted to love this new place because the marketing is fire. Kudos to the marketing team! We live nearby and are long time lovers of Hexe almost daily for many years. So our thought was we could ride there and get coffee and a snack. But unfortunately this was not great. We walked in during the day at 11:15am and saw to the left huge cardboard boxes in the lobby from the store employees stocking. To the right we saw the hostess that asked if we wanted to be sat. Explained that we thought there was a coffee shop here, she directed us upstairs. At the top of the stairs we saw to the left, several employees gathered. And we asked where to get coffee. They sent us to the right where every single table was full of people working on their computers and having coffee. There are less than 10 tables to sit at - I guess the point was for customers to get coffee to go? We go to the counter to order, place our order for 2 coffees and 2 items from the sweets case. We would have loved to sit outside overlooking the 606 and enjoy our beverages on this beautiful day. Unfortunately we were not allowed to sit outside, so we took our drinks and snacks to the other side which is huge and is a bar with tons of indoor and outdoor seating. But alas, we could not sit at these outdoor tables either. We were directed to sit at the sofas and living room furniture that looks like it came from my grandmothers basement. Weird. We quickly drank, ate and left. Coffee was so bitter that we could barely drink it, but the croissant and brownie were outstanding! It was such a weird vibe. Maybe we went at the wrong time. It was very confusing. What I would have loved to see was a kick-ass coffee shop with tons of seating (indoor and outdoor) with many more options for pastries (maybe even some breakfast/lunch sandwiches) similar to Hexe. We visited the store as it was getting stocked and set up. We loved all the healthy options - we will try to be back and try it for dinner. But probably...

Date of Review:

08/15/2024

Time of Review:

02:00PM

Location of Review:

Wolf & Company

Overall Review:

Ordered the following items:

Golden Beets with Cherve, Pistachio Gremolata, Basil and Balsamic

Rating: C Needed a dash of compound sea salt to balance and bring flavors together. Without this just bland and kaleidoscope of different earth tones on the plate.

Raw Oysters House Hot Sauce

Rating: C Fresh oysters with slight notes of seaweed, sweetness and minerals. The single served sauce aside this dish appeared to be a sirracha sauce blended with sweet chili concoction. Didnt appeared to be made from scratch. Just 2 jarred sauces stirred together and poured into 2oz serving dish. Recommend serving 3 different sauces with a little more thought put into recipes allowing for varied flavor profiles, especially considering the price.

3 Single Sliders Beef patty, cheese, Charred Onion aioli and pickles.

Rating: A The star of the selected menu items. Beef patties were perfectly seasoned and balanced while the cheese and house made Charred Onion aioli brought everything together. In addition to the well seasoned house made curly fries.

Ricotta Goat Cheese Fritters Honey sauce

Rating: C This dish was reminiscent of Zalabia, AKA Lugaimat, lokma or loukoumades. The Fritters were warm and sweet but center of fritter was gummy and soggy due to the ricotta cheese, resting period after frying, or honey sauce drizzled on directly after frying. Least favorite dish; definitely needs more work with this dessert option. Only 2 dessert selections on the menu while every other category has over 6 options. Says a lot about the thoughts on desserts. Yet the prices match all of the other prices points throughout the menu.

Beverages ordered with the meal included

Lambrusco, Hefeinwiser and Pale Ale

ATMOSPHERE = A SERVICE = B

Returning:

Possibly

Final Words:

Wild factor and expectations not reached with selected menu items especially considering price...

I was so excited to come here because the location is great, and I LOVE their sister restaurants Little Bad Wolf and Gretel. I was completely surprised by how awful the food was. Even if I didn't have the Gretel-level expectations for the food, by Chicago food standards, this is a miss. I went the first week it opened, and was disappointed. It's funny because the things you'd expect to be rough in the first week like the service was okay, it was just the food that was bad. I went back recently to give it a second chance because I really wanted to like it (once again, love the space, I'm close, and I love their sister restaurants). Awful. I'll go into specifics: The oysters were improperly shucked to the point where there were pretty significant chunks of shell in them. The Caesar Salad just had 0 flavor... and I'm pretty non-discriminatory about my Caesar Salads. The pizza was very subpar and once again, lacked flavor. The burger is already a mess before it arrives to the table. And not a mess in a way that it's forgivable because the burger is so good. The beef tartare is once again flavorless and lacks a freshness I can get anywhere else in this city. Also, both times, there was confusion between the host and server as to where they were putting us. It could have been a weird coincidence though, I'm not reading too much into that.

But I'm a slow learner, so I'll give this place another shot in a couple of months. I'm holding out hope because this management group clearly knows how to run a restaurant. I also want to come here soon for breakfast because I haven't...