Creative, well crafted food (and wine) - a favorite of mine.
Quaint, thoughtful, tasty, and well executed food. The overly relaxed service and purposeful understaffing leaves a lot to be desired. When serving food this thoughtful and with playful elements subtly hidden in the dishes it is discouraging that we were not able to talk to the service staff or ask any questions about the dishes. A restaurant of such high esteem to be serving only 30 people a night and NOT hire a dishwasher to relieve pressure on the only three staff members is a pretentious. The delayed pace of the meal and inattentiveness during really took away from what could have been an excellent experience.
The new dinner situation here is great
The good: Bread, ($10 extra) really good if a bit dense. The bad: the dinner. Here is what I was served: first course was a couple of ounces of halibut crudo with a couple of very small mushrooms which was nice, then the second course was a couple of ounces of roasted lamb (rare) and one grilled green onion. The third and final course was a small dollop of chocolate mousse with olive oil and salt. That's it!!! It couldn't have been even 500 calories. If I hadn't had the bread I would have had to get a burger on the way home. And chocolate mousse in July! You have got to be kidding me. How lazy! The markets are bursting with fresh fruit, why not a fruit based desert. I can understand chocolate mousse in January but not is July. The ugly: the wine was terrible. We brought a fantastic bottle of cabernet but they wouldn't let us drink it. They said: "we don't do that." Instead they highly recommended a cabernet from France that was undrinkable. Terrible. Good for removing paint or cleaning clogged drains but not for drinking. These guys have no real idea about how to offer hospitality and their small horrible wine list is an insult to those of us who really know wine. They don't have a clue about wine. Have they never heard of a corkage fee? I would gladly have paid to drink our own wine. My advice to them is to quit the dinner business and become a full time bakery focusing on what they do best, bread. Thank god for the bread.
Special place for special events!
This is our go-to for treating ourselves and out-of-town guests. Cellar Door's dishes are imaginative, balanced, and perfectly executed.
Their croissant was listed as #1 in Chicago on the Chicago Tribune. My croissant was burnt and lacked flavor. Nice layers but really sub par. Very disappointed.
Awesome fresh food all the time! Excited to get carryout dinner soon, and I've been loving the carryout pastries!
Best bread and pastries in the city, and their menu items are always super tasty as well! Some of the friendliest staff around.
I've been avoiding writing a review for Cellar Door, because really no words could do it justice. The only draw back is, after eating here, you'll be left thinking "Why didn't I just go to Cellar Door instead?"It's a life changing experience that will make you forever recognize the mediocrity of Nookies, Ann Sather's and their ilk which may have satisfied you before. Every time I’m left wondering “how is such a perfect combination of flavors even possible?”