Our main hobby is dining out. We've been to every Michelin-starred restaurant in Chicago, many of…read morethem multiple times, and we regularly travel specifically to eat at great restaurants around the world. We're not casual diners, and we understand that even excellent restaurants can have an off night. Unfortunately, Atelier was a major miss for us. For more context, we dined at the original Atelier in March 2024 and absolutely loved it, so we came in genuinely excited.
First, the positives.
The service team was wonderful. Truly lovely people. Delightful, attentive, cheerful, professional, and clearly trying very hard to deliver a great experience. No complaints whatsoever there.
The reserve wine pairing was also excellent. Some genuinely unique finds. One rosé in particular made us skeptical when first presented, but it ended up being fascinating and paired beautifully with the dish. In fact, each wine pairing was thoughtfully selected and worked extremely well.
Now, the food... and unfortunately, this is where the experience fell apart.
The opening four amuse-bouches were flat, boring, and uninspired. The oyster was completely overpowered by fried onion. The "jambalaya" was essentially a bowl of mildly spiced rice. Then a salty muffaletta bite and some pickled vegetables. None of these felt Michelin-worthy, nor did they generate any excitement.
The next course, beets, was another miss. They were oddly hard, and again, there was nothing particularly special or memorable about the dish.
The kanpachi was very good. But let's be honest, raw fish is hard to screw up. The sauce was nicely done and elevated the dish, but it still didn't feel like a standout moment.
The tortellini was fine. Perfectly competent. A salty broth, decent execution... but again, no wow factor. Nothing that made you pause.
The walleye itself was excellent. Beautifully cooked. But everything accompanying it felt like it was actively sabotaging the fish. The beans were bizarre. . . some soft, some hard, some crunchy, but none particularly enjoyable. We were told there was cornbread and fermented elements in the dish, but those flavors were completely lost.
The smoked duck was very good. No notes.
Then came a duck wonton-style preparation, which was also tasty, but structurally this made no sense in the progression of the meal. That should be an appetizer or an earlier supporting course, not the crescendo of the protein sequence. In this style of tasting menu, you expect the protein finale to be something bold and memorable. . . A5 wagyu, quail, lamb, something deeply savory that leaves an impression. Ending that arc with what amounts to a fried wonton felt like going out with a whimper instead of a roar.
Desserts didn't recover things.
The first was a dry cake.
The second, a version of king cake, was slightly better but still entirely forgettable.
Then the ambiance.
We tend to gravitate toward food-first restaurants with real energy... places like EL Ideas, Schwa, and even the original Atelier. Open kitchens, a sense of movement, a little grit, authenticity, personality. Places where you feel like you're somewhere interesting.
This space just felt . . .blah. Wood paneling that gave off a tired 1970s feel, overly understated to the point of feeling generic. Now, sometimes that works if the food absolutely delivers and becomes the focal point. But when the food is average, the room starts feeling average too, and the whole experience just falls flatter.
The theme of this menu was: The Crescent City/New Orleans. Maybe other menus here are significantly stronger, and maybe we simply came at the wrong time during an off concept. But based on this experience, this was a big disappointment for us, especially given how much we loved the original Atelier.
