Parea Greek Kitchen — Restaurant in Wheeling Township

We recently traveled to Greece and were extremely excited to try this restaurant, supporting the owners' decision to transition from Spanish to Greek food. Unfortunately, this did not deliver on any level. I know this restaurant just opened, but everything was off. Service was slow on drinks/orders. The server tried to deliver my moussaka before our appetizer (calamari). The appetizer was alright. The bread served was inexcusably supermarket quality. My husband and son ordered the braised lamb only to be told, after the order was taken, that it had been 86'd. Clearly, there are massive communication problems in the kitchen. My husband ordered gyros and son pork chops. We never received our son's side of roasted potatoes, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing as they were soft and extremely over-salted. The gyros were served on commercial pita (c'mon, you can make fresh pita in minutes) with likely Kosta's gyro meat, available anywhere. In Greece, gyros are either pork or chicken and I even have a rotisserie at home to make our own. My son's pork chops were extremely over-cooked and tough. Sous vide them and then just fire and sauce them and they'll always be tender and juicy. My moussaka was very ho-hum and unexpectedly had potatoes added. The eggplant was too thick and there wasn't quite enough bechamel. I also watched in horror as a fish was being de-boned table side at the table next to ours. If you can't de-bone fish, don't do it table side. Finally, the restaurant is extremely loud due to lack of sound-dampening decoration. The minimal decor is pretty, but you can scarcely hear folks at your own table speak. Additional sound barriers need to be added to ensure folks can have engage in conversation without yelling. I hate leaving reviews like this, but please hire a consultant to help with your menu and training your staff. We want...

Disappointing Mother's Day Dinner – Poor Service & Cold Food

We chose this restaurant for a special Mother’s Day dinner, but unfortunately, the experience was extremely disappointing. While the restaurant was busy, that should never justify the poor service and subpar food—especially with a bill totaling over $350.

First, my original order was unavailable—not a huge issue, but what followed was unacceptable. My second choice, the Greek Chicken, arrived well before the rest of my party's meals—delivered by someone who seemed to be a manager or owner. When I mentioned that no one else had received their food yet, it was completely ignored, and the dish was left with me anyway.

I waited a few minutes and eventually ate it before the others received theirs—good thing I did, because it was dry and clearly had been sitting under a heat lamp for too long. When the rest of the meals finally arrived, several were cold, including the chicken kabob and both gyro plates. One pasta dish was barely lukewarm, and the fish entrée, served after being de-boned tableside, was also lukewarm by then.

One of the gyro plates was returned due to being ice cold. Though it was brought back reheated, the celebrating mother in our group had already lost her appetite and sent it back again. While that dish was removed from the bill, no one offered an apology or acknowledgment of the poor experience.

To make matters worse, several other tables (parties of 2, 4, and 8) were seated after us and finished their meals well before ours had even arrived.

The restaurant has a nice atmosphere and looks appealing, but that’s where the positives end. Food and service are the heart of hospitality, and both were seriously lacking here.

If you’re looking for great Greek food with professional service, I strongly recommend Plateia Mediterranean Kitchen in Des...

The host was able to seat our larger party with no reservation on a Saturday night, which was appreciated, but unfortunately this was not a great experience. The waiters were not attentive and we had to flag them down multiple times for water refills. Some time after placing our entree orders, we were informed that they were out of one of the menu items. We waited over 45 minutes for our entrees to be delivered, with minimal communication from the staff. At one point a waiter stopped and asked if we needed anything and when I said we had been waiting a long time for entrees he said that our waitress had left the building but he would try to check on our food for us - very odd. Eventually someone who I assume was a manager came to our table and explained that the reason for the delay was that someone in our party had ordered the pork chops and those took a long time to cook. However, the only item on the menu that indicated it needed extra time to prepare was the roasted chicken, and even that said it only took 30 minutes. When our food eventually came out it was good, but by that point we had been in the restaurant over an hour and a half and had a toddler who was falling asleep at the table so we ended up packing up the food to go. We appreciated that the restaurant gave us a discount on our overall bill and comped our drinks to apologize for the poor service, but it was still disappointing, especially since this was a birthday dinner. We used to love La Tasca and I understand that these are the same owners. There were no issues with the food once we finally received it, but I think they have a ways to go with figuring out their...