Reza’s Restaurant

I m preety sure this place zachi pays Unilocal to write good paid reviews. I had a iftar party with my family today. I definitely agree with rest of the reviewers it’s a rip off too overpriced and less quantity of food also uncooked food. Help should pay us back to give this place a five star recommendation. Their kabobs had no taste.
I mean I have been to better middle eastern places. Will not recommend this place. The food sucks please save your money by not going to this shitty place

by far my favorite middle eastern restaurant. The rice is delicious and never ending no matter what meal you order. The steak is always cooked well and the beef is seasoned great. Make sure if its your first time there order the Sultani platter as its always a for sure thing… you won’t be sorry!

I really like it here. I’ve been here twice and it was just as impressive each time. There’s a lot of food involved and I loved the AYCE brunch (and dinner). Their lamb was braised so tender that I still remember the texture and taste months after the experience. (In fact, I’m still drooling over it to this day.)
Their kebobs were moist enough and tasty! I also loved their rice and all the meat… oh my goodness, the meat! The tender meat!
I also love the ambience here, but it was a bit too dark in my opinion, yet it was cozy.

Ok Persian restaurant. The quality is alright, kind of expensive. The buffet is probably their best deal.

We planned to take our friend to Reza’s for her birthday today. We usually frequent the Andersonville location, but chose Ontario street because it was the most accessible to all parties.
The individual who organized our gathering called this location a couple of days ago, and was told the restaurant opened at 11:00 am. Based on this information as well as the Unilocal listing, we planned to meet at 11:30 am.
I drove 45 minutes and fed the parking meter $ 8 only to find the restaurant closed, and the door locked.
Crappy way to treat customers on a frigid January day, Reza’s.

Terrible! Everything was mixed gravely with curry. Tasted like Persian Indian if you ask me. The chicken kabobs were so spicy we couldn’t eat them! The dill rice was hard with the dill just thrown on top not cooked in it so flavor was horrid. The service awful, our waiter came with our drinks towards the end of our meal! The tea was disgusting made from tap. The lamb gross, gross flavor, gross texture. It was a sad experience that we literally had to pay for, and it wasn’t cheap. Oh and this might be tmi but the food wasn’t good for the tummy. Overall save your self find some where else to dine.

I stayed in Crown Plaza hotel in chicago and i ordered ground lamb kebab and ground chicken kebab with rice, baba ganouj + persian salad, tomato lentil soup and dill rice for $ 35 (delivery).
They delivered my order within 35 min and everything was delicious.
They gave me two pcs ballah alsham (desert) for free!
Definitely i will order again before i leave chicago.

Hands down, my favorite restaurant in the city.
I just returned to Chicago living in other cities for nearly 10 years, and I would regularly crave food from Reza’s while I was away. I always tried to make it to Reza’s when I was in town, and now that I’m back, I feel a bit sheepish about how often I’ve been eating there. Seriously, it’s THAT good. Thankfully several of my friends agree, so it’s easy to find someone to join me for dinner there.
And yes, the other reviewers are telling the truth about the service. It’s often slow, and occasionally even brash, but the delicious food and enormous portions more than make up for it. The indoor tables are a bit uncomfortable if you’re on the taller side, and almost all of them wobble, so be careful! My favorite is when they set up patio seating outside on the sidewalk during warm weather.
They also offer delivery, and the food always arrives hot and smartly packaged. No warm sodas, soggy pita bread, etc. It’s almost as good as dining in.

Had dinner at Reza’s last night, with a party of 15(!)…here are my thoughts:
Ambiance: The décor is a bit strange and the exact opposite of what I would imagine a Persian restaurant to look like. It could use a bit of updating but overall is adequate. The best part is that this place can accommodate large parties, which is more than I can say about Grand Lux (which is another review altogether).
Service: Excellent. We had two very patient and attentive servers who dealt with our huge party without blinking an eye.
Food: Overall everything was quite good and the portions are enormous. The chicken and lamb received high marks from everyone. I had a Fattoush salad with shrimp and it was just okay. The pita chips were more like croutons, and the shrimp wasn’t too flavorful. I also had a side of potatoes and they were delicious. I highly recommend ordering those. The tomato /​lentil soup was great, the complimentary bread was just okay though.
Overall Reza’s is good but prices are on the high side. Great for large parties though, so I recommend it!

Visit for the food, not the service.
We made a reservation for two people last Friday night. Upon arriving they somehow lost the reservation. which didn’t seem like a big deal since the restaurant was fairly empty any way. The host seated us at a table right next to the kitchen/​bussing area. Seeing that over 50% of the restaurant was vacant, we requested a different table. The host informed us that the second level was all reserved and seated us at a broken table near the wall. When we asked to be moved to a near by, same sized table (that wasn’t tipping over) the host told us that the table could only seat six. Uhm. okay. Also on a side note, the party never arrived for the «reserved» area. Anyhoo, a bus boy later appeared, dove beneath the table, reached between our legs and fixed the broken table. WHY HELLO THERE! Glad I didn’t wear a dress!
With that experience aside, we ordered hummus, chicken kabobs, and my date had a dish (which I wont even attempt to spell) with filet and ground beef on top of it. Overall the food was fresh, flavorful, and the portions were HUGE. They cooked my date’s steak well done, so he requested sauce to help off set the dryness. With his overcooked filet aside, the food was absolutely delicious. I also ordered a Persian martini which was made with pomegranate juice and also very good. Don’t suggest ordering the baklava, as it seemed to be frozen.
All in all, I would recommend Reza’s for the food. however, don’t expect great service, reservations aren’t necessary apparently, and make sure you wear pants!

The food remains excellent. That, however, is all. On our night, I was presented with a wine list. Of the 15+ wines on it, only 3 were actually available in the restaurant. Wine glasses were dropped on the floor, broken, and the glass left there for us to step on. No bread was served with a buffet of kebab. Dessert was just plain not present until we asked for it. Everywhere were signs telling us not to take too much food from the buffet. Table was ignored for basic things like water refills.
The food is still tasty, but my large-​party business is gone.

So we strolled into Reza’s on a walk during our Chicago visit. First, the place is huge, it looks like a castle.
Second the food is great as long as you don’t get the buffet, I say that because it didn’t look fresh but the menu food was delicious and fresh. Just my opinion.
The service was nice, our server was really nice.

The food was actually very good and delicious I just had a small problem with the service! the server wasnt to knowledgeable about the menu and the types of food. ive been coming to Rezas for a while and was trying to eat something new and different. so i ended up ordering the same entrée i always order which was the Mixed Combo platter with 4 types of kabobs. beef, lamb, chicken, and kufta with white rice!

Service is brutal. They have no idea how to wait on people.
The food was great, but unfortunately they pay no attention to you at all.
Ruined the experience.

This was our first time to Reza’s and we decided to give it a try because of the menu variety, the potential for being able to make vegan dishes and it was close to some shopping we were doing.
When we arrived the huge sign out front indicated it was a piano bar. Mediterranean /​Middle Eastern /​Persian /​Iranian food, piano bar — odd. The restaurant itself is massive. Plenty of room to move about with a huge bar as soon as you walk in the door. We asked the host if vegan would be an issue and he promptly went to the kitchen staff to find out. POINTS! After getting the all clear, we were seated.
Our server was the best! She was friendly and attentive. She helped me order some awesome vegan things and everything came out perfectly, together and fast.
Just a note. I ended up getting the Vegetarian combo with double falafel, shami (pretty good), baba ghanouj and hummus. Since I couldn’t have the rice (made with butter) she offered a tomato lentil soup that was TO DIE FOR. I’m not an expert but if I had to guess I would have said the falafel were not made fresh. Maybe even going so far to say they were frozen but I don’t know. What I do know is they could have used a lot more flavor and less cooking time. Also, I happen to be a fan of smoked paprika and that’s a good thing because it was pretty heavy on the baba and hummus — it gave it a little more depth.
All in all, I would probably come back again, if nothing else then for the soup!

I was told by my family this is a great Iranian restaurant but, we had the worst food and service.
We are planing to stay 5 days in Chicago and I wish we would have gone to a different restaurant.
We order Zershk polo and it was made with cranberry wow what a disappointment. The chicken kabob had the taste of yogurt .
Save your time and money there are so many great restaurants in Chicago.

A bunch of us decided to go to Reza’s buffet for lunch. For me in particular, lamb sounded like a good idea.
This took the form of the lamb koubideh, a formed ground lamb patty with a multitude of spices. It was moist, like all of the other koubideh (chicken, beef) I tried.
Unfortunately the boneless chicken was quite dry, so I would avoid that. Or drench it in baba ganoush.
Most of the other items were quite good. The dill rice was very good. The chicken biryani tasted very good, though I couldn’t figure out where the chicken was. The caesar salad… well, let’s just say it’s not what you come her for.
A large naan was served along with the meal, which was perfect; crisp yet also perfectly tearable. Good for soaking up the last of the hummus.
Some sort of hollow honey-​coated bread capped off the meal quite nicely. For $ 12, Reza’s lunch buffet is very much a River North bargain.

Although I was a bit surprised why this place was picked for the team dinner when 4 people in the team are vegetarians, Then I quickly realized they do offer lots of delicious vegetarian food in addition of the lamb shank or Kabob. And they have the separated areas for the big parties which worked out pretty well for us. The lobby was huge with an interesting brewing? machine in the middle.
Appetizers were amazing: from Falafel to chicken kebab to mushroom kebab to hummus to eggplant dip. It was really hard to choose which one I like the most. Hummus was a bit plain comparing to the ones I tried before but it was exactly the taste I love. Roasted eggplant dip goes so nicely with their stove oven baked pita bread.
By the time the dinner came, we were all stunned by the size of the dish. I got two huge lamb shanks with a football size potato. And the delicious dill rice was served. I was totally stuffed and could barely take one more bite after finished one lamb shank and some rice. It reminded me that dill was used everywhere in the dish in a Uzbekistan place I tried before: dill in the lamb stew, in dumplings, in milk!
The services were great. We were a big group and the waiter was accommodating everyone. The entrees came pretty slow but it was fine as we had more time to talk. And I also got a huge box of the left over for later.

It was my first time to visit Chicago, and this place is like the oldest and popular place in the area for Persian food.
Went there during the lunch buffet on a Saturday. Its a big place, no problem with it comes to seating.
The food tasted yummy, and they had a wide variety running from kabobs to vegetarian food. However, they do not have dessert in the buffet. We ordered one order of baklava (2 pieces), and it was okay and pricey.
What I really did not like, the fact they charge you for gratuity! And to be honest, I always tip generously. But I’lll be honest the staff were unfriendly, and actually one the female waitresses working there at that time was so rude!
It was a good experience, but I am not sure if I’ll go there again to get treated poorly.

Having been here twice, I think I like the cuisine. I know some people may not like it, but honestly the lamb here is very much my style. Obviously that’s not vegetarian, but there are plenty of vegetarian options here as well.
You have falafel, hummus, soup and chicken/​lamb/​beef options for the meat eaters. It’s also a little bit expensive but you get plenty of food. Think of this like Pita Inn but AYCE and you have basically summed up their buffet pretty reasonably, although not the exact same cuisine.
It also happens to be right across the street from yoga circle which works out nicely.