Monastero’s Ristorante & Banquets

Review a long time coming.
We booked Monastero’s for our wedding back in 2009. They made the whole affair easy as Italian pie. We sat with Penny and arranged everything from food, to drinks, to place settings to arrangement of events. What can I say. Getting married at Monastero’s was the best choice we made.
A few extra notes: We had our wedding ceremony and reception there. We had one of the larger rooms and it worked out perfectly. They supplied the food, cake, sweet table, open bar. Just about everything. We brought in some extra special items for the bar (Hard cider) that they didn’t carry and also made our own table décor. The only other thing we had to book was the music, tho they had options for that too. We picked the Chicken Parmesan (baked, not fried!) and they worked with a friend of mine for a DELICIOUS vegan risotto second option.
Everything was paid upfront. No hidden charges or worry about fees after the event. I had a wonderful wedding!

We loved Monastero’s! Superb Italian classics perfectly prepared. From the minute we walked in with our two kids, the service was top notch. Great experience, delicious food, friendly and professional service, charming space. There’s a reason it’s been here for 50+ years — this family knows hospitality!

We used Monastero’s to cater our wedding, and we were blown away by the quality of their food. Italian sausage, pasta, chicken breast, salad; It was all delicious. It was actually the part of our reception that got
the most compliments out of anything. Everybody loved it. Penny, the head of the restaurant, was a joy to work with. She was extremely down to earth and helpful. The only real drawback to working with them was the fact that they don’t
do delivery. We had to pick up the food ourselves, but it also made it much cheaper. So we can’t really complain much. In fact, they were FAR more reasonable price-​wise than any other place we got quotes from. Dealing with Caterers
is usually highway robbery, so it’s refreshing to find a place that is reasonable. I really can’t recommend them enough for catering any event that requires excellent food.

Great food, good environment. A little expensive. Owner was there and talking with people. Live music!
Great date niggt

While the restaurant part of monasteros looked very cozy and inviting with live piano and a romantic vibe. This review focuses more on the banquet service as I didn’t get to eat in the restaurant. Based on the food and service I received at the banquet I would not go back. We started with the minestrone soup which was about the only good thing I was served. Next came the salad which was really bad. Old stale lettuce with a few slices of tomato and cucumber. I was literally embarrassed for them.
Finally came the entrée. The steak was covered in some type of gravy and it tasted like dog food. The chicken was nice and tender but very salty just tasted bad. The entrée did come with vegetables which had a nice flavor to them.
The service was slow and everybody was starving by the time they finally brought the soup out and started the meal service. After that experience I would never choose to host an event there. There are far too many more places in the area that put a little more effort into the food and service. I do however want to stop in and check out the restaurant as it the plates I saw looked and smelled delicious and the atmosphere was great.

On a scale of 1−10…I give it a 100!!! I had my wedding there almost two weeks ago and I’m stillll pretending that the night didn’t end! From the set up/​décor to the exceptional & detailed service… and the food? Oh god the food was simply delicious!!! They were able to accomodate food allergies which was huge cause my husband can’t have any dairy or egg. I could go on and on about this place Monastero’s by far beat out the swanky downtown hotels– they made my fairy tale wedding come true. I highly recommend them for any event or simply just a beautiful dinner in the restaurant!

Revised. My family is visiting Chicago and was looking for an authentic family Italian restaurant. FOUND IT. The food was fresh, well prepared, nicely presented and best of all absolutely delicious. The service was perfectly timed, friendly and engaging. Even got to meet Martha the owner who was a gracious hostess and just fun to talk to.
Went back for a second night and loved the pizza too. Crazy if you don’t try try this place.

Had a wonderful dinner at Monastero’s. Great selection between the menu and daily specials. The food was delicious. The restaurant has a comfortable old world décor and the wait staff is friendly and attentive. Will return again soon.

This neighborhood Italian restaurant used to be an interesting «oldie but goodie» which sometimes held special events like live opera singers and wine-​making celebrations. Over the years they offered standard Italian fare which was unremarkable but tasty enough. The oldie ambience was nice and the service was fine. … Until this week.
Recently Montastaros started offering $ 10.00 Tuesday Pasta nights, when customers could order pasta off the regular menu for $ 10.00 (for a $ 16.00-$ 20.00 pasta dish). Six of us friends went together and most of us ordered pasta dishes from the regular menu, for the discounted price of $ 10.00. When the food arrived, two of us, who had ordered the same dish, found it to be tasteless and overcooked. The waitress called the manager to our table when we told her we were not happy with our food. The manager informed us that she was the owner’s wife and said, «What can you expect for $ 10.00!!! «I will get you something else.» One of us said to remove the food and said that he did not want anything else. I said that I did not like the food but I would eat it anyway. (I was not willing to wait another 20 minutes for a new dish.) Lo and behold-​15 minutes later a freshly cooked preparation of the same dish was brought to my friend although he had not asked for it. But he was hungry, and decided to eat it anyway. It was nicely prepared and tasted nothing like the first one brought to us. IN ADDITION — Two people ordered lamb chops from the regular, non discounted menu and after waiting a long time the waitress told us they just ran out of the last 2 lamb chops. When we questioned the Owners Wife about why they ran out of food at 6:00pm when there were only 3 tables of people in the restaurant she told us they had run out the day before. WHY was the staff not informed so they could tell their customers at the time they tried to order? WHY did the Owners Wife charge my friend for the dish he said he did not want? (Yes, he ate it, but that is not the point. That dish should have been «comped»). But the damage was done due to the Extreme Rudness on the part of the Owner’s Wife who implied that customers should expect
lesser quality food if they take advantage of Monostaros promotions.
To Owner’s Wife– A Recipe
Ingredients
1 Apology
1 question about what can be done for the customer
2 fresh dishes, comped
3 waitstaff with knowledge of what the kitchen is out of
1 smile
Directions
Combine ingredients.
Stir with appreciation for customers who have dined with you for many, many years
Check back to determine if all is well

I recently had my wedding at Monastero’s and i have nothing but praises for this place! The food was great, cake awesome, staff exceptional and Maria is a complete doll! If anyone is looking for avplace to have a celebration, I highly recommend Monestero’s. This is a family owned restaurant/​banquet and we went away feeling like an even bigger family! It was a pleasure working with everyone at Monestero’s including Berto! We hired Berto Monastero to be our dj and he puts His heart and soul into his job! He will be sure to make your special night AWESOME! Oh and I can’t forget to mention the prices were definitely reasonable!!!

We recently enjoyed a beautiful 25 person dinner in the Garden room for my father’s birthday. Maria took such good care of us, helping plan every detail of the menu, room, and other arrangements. The food, presentation, and service was fantastic.
A visit from Martha, Joe, and a beautiful performance of Puccini (and Happy Birthday) made the evening perfectly memorable.
We’re looking forward to hosting more family gatherings at Monastero’s in the future.

What can I say about Monastero’s? A LOT!
Monastero’s is a wonderful place that has been around for quite a long time and it should. They have the best attentive service from the parking attendants, to the servers, the best bartender Paulo (sp?) and the owners. This place is amazing! The restaurant itself is beautiful (and has been family owned since 1962)
While I have been here for a banquet, wedding reception and class reunion, I have nerver sat in their dining room. I usually sat at the bar for dinner because our great friend Paulo bartends and serves us. I can never make up my mind on what to order because everything sounds so delicious. My favorite is the ‘Pasta Rustica’ with salmon. It is out of this world. And let me tell you they are quite generous with the salmon. I just love the food and the service. After dinner, he recommends an expresso with Sambuca. Yum!
A short time ago I was teher and lost a silver earring that had sentimental value to me. I was 100% sure that it was there. I called and a very nice lady spoke to me and assured that it would be found. I asked her name and it was none other than Mrs. Martha Monastero. She knew who I was and indicated what a pleasure it was to have us dining there. Here she was complimenting me when they are the ones to compliment. So here it is to Monastero’s … Thank you!

Love love love this place! Service was great! Food was even better! Started with special $ 5 martins (on Fridays) and baked shrimp scampi which was soooooo good! Then had minestrone soup which is to die for and I had the veal parmigiana… OMG good!
My friend had the split pea soup to start and that was delicious too! His entrée was the stuffed peppers and they were really delicious! Bottle of nice Chianti and we were good to go! You gotta eat here!

This is a really great Italian restaurant. When I walked in, I really had a sense I had entered a family owned business that was an institution in the area. This was reflected by a staff that was extremely friendly and warm. They have a live pianist, which sets the mood. The restaurant also has cool decorations such as puppets that adorned our table and looked like the three musketeers. The eggplant parmesan was perfect. The eggplant was very tender and moist. The cheese was baked golden. The butternut squash pasta was also good but wasn’t amazing.

Monastero’s is such an amazing restaurant that makes you feel like family. I recently worked with Maria Monastero with the planning of my wedding reception. Generally speaking planning a wedding is said to be a stressful endeavor but that wasn’t the case for us. Maria and her staff went above and beyond with every aspect of our special day. The food was exceptional and the wedding cake was heavenly. Every detail was painstakingly prepared and we couldn’t be happier. Thank you so much for giving us a truly magical celebration.

We booked Monastero’s for our wedding venue. We liked the idea of having our wedding at a restaurant and the price was cheap. Unfortunately, we found that we got what we paid for.
Their website advertised that they had a hall that could hold 300 people. We needed a large space since we both come from very large families. At our first appointment, I met with Penny. Penny is hands down the nicest person, however our wedding seemed to be a bit much for her. The first problem occurred when Penny told me that in fact, the space could only hold 250 people. I agreed since I liked the space. At our meeting, she took all of our other relevant information and we agreed the wedding would start at 5:00 and end at midnight. We also agreed that we’d have the service and reception in the same space with a cocktail hour to be held in a common hall.
All seemed to be copasetic until my florist happened to call to set up the logistics of the evening. I received a call that day from Maria at Monastero’s saying there was a problem since the florist wanted an hour to turn the room. I told her I didn’t see any problem with that since we had the cocktail hour. She told me that we didn’t have an hour since the cocktail space wouldn’t hold 150 comfortably. I informed her we had 250 people and she said «that’s not what Penny wrote down». She told me she’d call me back with solutions to this problem.
Her solutions included having a wedding early in the afternoon, inviting people to the reception but not the service or having the service in the same room as the reception with it set for the reception where people may or may not be able to see. We finally compromised on having an earlier ceremony in a different room and then moving to the Botticelli Room for the cocktail hour/​reception. I always to try to be easy to work with, but we now had to move up our wedding an hour, be set firmly on time (as another wedding would be in the room later that evening) and hope it didn’t rain as the two rooms were in two different buildings.
In the weeks leading up to the wedding, Maria took over from Penny. She worked with our planner well. However, she is very stern and unwilling to compromise on issues. It turns out that 250 people don’t even comfortably fit in the room if you want something crazy like a band and Maria wouldn’t help work around any of the band or seating requirements.
On the day of the wedding, there was a terrible accident on the highway so many of our guests were late. But due to the fact that we had to cater to the other wedding, Maria would not let us delay the service. We had a good portion of our guests late or absent from our wedding.
Overall, our experience with both Penny and Maria were not positive. On the plus side, the package is, as noted, affordable. You get an open bar, restaurant quality food, cake, chair covers and napkins, etc. in the package. If you do end up booking here, just make sure all of your ducks are in a row.

This is truly a great dining experience; from the live music being played during dinner to the exceptional waiting staff, Monastero’s is hands down one of best Italian restaurants in the State.
Everything was prepared to perfection… reminded me of my time spent in Italy years ago and how unforgettable the food was anywhere I went throughout the country. The chicken risotto is to die for… so many great dishes to choose from… and all the ones I sampled that evening were off the charts.
I can’t wait to return and dine again. Kudos to Maria and her family!

Monastero’s is a true testament to quality service and even better food! I hosted a group of 13 people for my graduation dinner and I could not be more impressed and satisfied with the experience!
I booked the table a few weeks in advance and I was able to work with Maria, who was wonderful in helping me plan my menu! They were extremely flexible with the different options and assisted me in creating the perfect reduced menu for a group of people with different food needs!
The menus were pre-​printed on the cutest paper and Maria even printed my name and event on the top! It was totally unexpected and such a beautiful and thoughtful touch. Maria also suggested that I bring place cards and a seating chart which was perfectly arranged when I arrived the next day!
I dropped everything off the day before the event and when my guests came in the appetizers were already being cooked in the kitchen! My guests loved the selection and the flavor, but most importantly the taste! We had the mussels, the calamari, the fried eggplant, and the «aranciatas» (friend risotto with ground beef made to look like a mini orange).
Some of my guests have pretty high expectations and were all impressed and really enjoyed the food! In fact, I have some party animal friends who even found that the drinks were too strong! (You know a place is great if their drinks are too strong!)
My friends especially loved the minestrone soup, the fried eggplant as well as the pumpkin ravioli! The ambiance was classy and we dined to the sounds of live piano music and the sights of flickering candles!
Finally, at the end of the meal, several waitresses came out with a beautiful custom cake made from real strawberries and real crème (a la mode)! It was such a hit that one of my friends wanted to take the box home!
All in all it was a wonderful experience! The waitresses and staff was perfect in that they made sure that we had everything and that the empty plates were immediately taken away. Maria and her wonderful staff have been planning events forever and Monastero’s truly captures the warmth and genuine home-​style quality of an Italian restaurant!
Il cibo è delizioso!

Monastero’s has been a restaurant that my family loves going to for family dinners when we all convene in Chicago. This place oozes of OG (original gangster), from the outside façade to the spotless service.
The menu at Monastero’s is torturous to me, so many things sound so amazing that it makes my decision feel like i’m missing out, only because I can’t eat everything on the menu in one sitting. Lucky for me, my family loves to eat and they always manage to order every appetizer on the menu for all of us to share. I can’t pick a favorite, they were all amazing… oh and we ordered a cheese pizza to accompany the appetizers which was also perfectly crunchy, cheesy and just the right amount of deliciously seasoned red sauce. mmmmm.
Their food is always exceptionally fresh and the flavor combinations send my taste buds into a welcomed foodgasm. My recent favorite: Pumpkin ravioli al gorgonzola. Oh my. The sweetness of the pumpkin filling paired with the creamy gorgonzola sauce and topped with chopped walnuts is a perfect combination of flavors and textures. I tried my best friend’s pumpkin ravioli abbronzato, which was the pumpkin ravioli but in a sage burnt butter sauce topped with parmigiano was also a winner. Totally different flavor profile just by changing the sauce.
There always seems to be a wedding reception in progress in the banquet room, so the people in the restaurant are always jovial and the music is very cheerful. This place oozes old world Italian, and gets my vote not only for authentic deliciously prepared Italian food, this place is the whole package: ambiance, food, service.

We had a blast here last night!
We met some friends here (there were 6 of us), and we started out in the bar for a drink and ended up staying in the bar for dinner. We loved it! Hubby and I said we will come back sometime by ourselves and eat at the bar. It was so Italian «old school» in there… dark, leather, great bartender that makes fantastic martinis and manhattans…
I took some Unilocalers advice and had the minestrone. You can’t go wrong following Unilocalers! It was great; very thick and tomato-​y. Their Arancini is to die for! I add their meat sauce (which I am addicted to!) and I am in heaven. I never knew what Arancini was, but our host recommended it. Boy, was she spot on.
We all ordered different things; fish, lobster ravioli, rib eye, lasagna, chicken. It all looked good and tasted good. I say, stick with something that has the fantastic meat sauce! I think I’ll try the lasagna next time.
I posted a picture of the dessert tray. Yum. One of our group had flan and cannoli. They raved about both. We found out they make the cannoli fresh for each order, which makes a difference.
They had a young opera singer there. He had a wonderful voice, very deep. Then I think the owner (s) got up to sing with him (I posted a photo). I’m no expert on opera, but I thought it added to the ambiance.
The service is great. Everyone I encountered (even the young valet) made me feel like part of their family. They are proud of their restaurant and want to make sure you feel welcome and enjoy yourself.
Chicago has many «old school» Italian places that have been around for generations. I think this one is worth the try if you haven’t been here.
I know I’ll be back!