Tasting Room

I want to rate this a zero but it won't let me. My friends and I had a reservation on a Friday night before a concert at the United Center. We arrived at 6:20 and ordered our food and wine right away. Our wine arrived a few minutes later but by 7:10, we still had not received our food. The waitress was hailed and she said she'd check. 10 minutes later, nothing, so we called her over again. Again, she'll check. By the way, we only ordered 2 appetizers. At 7:30, I went into the restaurant and spoke to the hostess and asked to see the manager. I stood and waited and was told he would come out to our table. 5 minutes later, no manager so I went in again and the hostess was coming out with 1 of our appetizers. I asked again for the manager and she said he would be right out. We ate the 1 thing they brought and the waitress came over to see if we wanted another bottle of wine. WHAT! Where's our other appetizer? I told her again that I wanted to speak to the manager and when she came back she said they were taking the food off the bill. I'm sorry but that wasn't good enough especially since we only got 1 thing. Even at this point she was saying our other dish was coming. Well, we had to leave for our concert. I was very disappointed that the manager didn't have the manners to speak to us about our disappointing experience. It's his job! Pros: Very pretty setting Cons: It's very difficult to get your food. You have to beg! more

Wouldn't know how to rank this place because our experience ended before it started. My wife wanted to do something special for my birthday so she set up reservations at The Tasting Room a month in advance and then called to confirm the day of. She left a vmail and her cell phone. Apparently this was a real life Seinfeld episode (search YouTube for Seinfeld Reservation) where they know how to take a reservation but not hold the reservation. To boot, the manager was rude about it and told us reservations were not his responsibility. They had scheduled a group event so there was nothing we could do. Needless to say our experience was aweful and we will never go back. Cons: Can't hold a reservation; rude more

This place used to be the best wine bar in the city. However, my last two (maybe three) visits have been very disappointing. It is difficult to find good wine on the menu, whether by glass or bottle. We were looking for a good Pinot Noir and ended up getting a $16 a glass Pinot. It tasted like a Trader Joe's wine, maybe even worse. When we complained about it, we were told the bartender and rest of the staff loves it. We left that wine and got the check and walked out, after we looked one more time at the list to check if we wanted to try something else. Skip these guys and go to Binny's in South Loop, their wine bar is not as fancy but wine is great. Pros: Great decor and setting Cons: Terrible Wine and service more

Last night I checked out The Tasting Room on Randolph for the first time. The lure of 30 wines for $30 sounded too good to be true, but in this economy I was up optimistic that they'd have some good stuff. I was right! Pros: Great staff, good prices, free parking Cons: None that I can think of more

This may be one of the best experiences I've had in a very very long time. I had been here a few years... more

This may be one of the best experiences I've had in a very very long time. I had been here a few years back, and I remembered very little about ... more