Shaman By Chilam Balam

I was really excited to try this place. It wasn’t terrible, but for some reason a lot of the dishes didn’t seem fresh and were definitely under-​seasoned (no salt on tables). Almost like they were maybe they were precooked and microwaved prior to serving. Ambiance is ok. Sort of cafeteria-​like. Also, the acoustics in the room were unbearable. We were seated at a 4 top by the door and literally screaming to speak to the people who we dined with and they were just 2 – 3 feet away across the table. My throat hurts the day after from literally yelling for an hour.
Guacamole: just ok, needed seasoning
Mahi mahi ceviche: the fish was unevenly cut, some big, some small, and a couple of pieces were fishy
Crab pescadilla: this was probably my favorite of the night. The crab was stuffed into the tortilla and the tomatillo salsa that topped it was delicious.
Grilled flank steak: ordered it medium, came medium rare. Fine we still ate it, but the meat was tough and chewy. Literally had to yank the meat away from my teeth cause I couldn’t chew through to break off a bite. That happened with 2 of the 4 pieces that were served.
Pork belly tacos: I didn’t try the dish cause it was ordered by other friends at the table. They said it was good.
Mushroom flautas: bland, muddled flavors
Chicken sopes: probably the worst dish of the night. Chicken thigh meat only. Seemed microwaved. Could hardly chew through the masa. It was hard as a rock. Flavor lacked seasoning and was just one note.
We also had the sangria mixer, which was good. Overall, wouldn’t go back though. For the 7 dishes and 2 mixers, the lackluster meal came to $ 120. So with tip cost $ 35/​pp. I could’ve gone to the local Mexican joint and had amazing food for $ 10. There was nothing that could justify the pricing of some of the dishes. Keep in mind, the top 3 dishes were very small.

The food was a 5 but the service was more of a 3. We’d go back.
All of the food was excellent and especially the dessert, the peanut butter filled empanadas! I would go back just for those.
We had a 7:30 reservation on a Saturday and the service was great when we were seated and placed our order. But as it got busier and filled up, we saw our waiter less and less. It easily took 45 minutes for us to get our dessert and then the check, after the rest of the meal had only lasted around an hour. Fix the service issues, as a lot of people note, and you’ll be all set.

What a great BYOB spot in the neighborhood. We came here for a friend’s birthday dinner. The menu is very creative flavorful. I love the idea of Mexican tapas. We agreed to the group decision of allowing the server to choose our items kind of like a Chef’s menu, and I feel like this was a good and bad decision. For me I love to try many things so this was great, but then I overate and it was pricey. I’m not sure how this ended up being $ 51 a person… The owner came by to check on us, and the server brought out a lot of great choices and was pretty attentive and making sure my boyfriend got his own steak since he’s quite a picky eater. We had the pork ribs, flank steak, pork belly tacos, enchiladas, guacamole, ceviche, kale and butternut salad, flautas, tres leches cake, pastel de queso, and peanut butter and jelly empanadas. I really enjoyed everything, but probably would have switched out the flautas for something else. I would actually love to come back and bring my family and friends, but pick out the menu items myself.

No surprises here based on the prior reviews, a quick summary —
–guacamole was somewhat flavorless, needed some citrus
–mushroom flautas… where was the mushroom?
–the flank steak was chewy and lacked a lot of flavor in my book, no way you could eat this on tacos as intended
–chicken sopes… the sopes were a bit doughy, again flavorless chicken
–pork was again lacking in the flavor department and was extremely greasy
Overall many of the dishes were interchangeable, with the flavors resonating the exact same from dish to dish. Everything felt and tasted the same for the most part, which is probably the most damning element. Also, pretty high for what you are getting.
So, overall already a 2 star experience for the food. But the service… THE ATTITUDE. As others have said, treated like a criminal from the get go. This is the truth. Not only did they get an order wrong, but blamed US for getting it wrong. Absurd. Won’t leave a bottle opener at your table, good luck to you getting your beers opened. The liquor policy is absurd… we ordered a lot of stuff but it didn’t stop us from getting a dressing down from the server related to the liquor policy (I asked clarifying questions as I’ve never heard of such a policy and was insulted and treated with absolute disdain in the process… I let it go). Pretty unreal. And really strange.
Overall a poor experience, look elsewhere.

I have gone to Chilam Balam and loved their food and service. Unfortunately, Shaman does not even come close to the original and simply made for a terrible dinner experience. The food was decent, but nothing to rave about. Our table for 5 barely could fit 4, and they did nothing except add a seat to try and squeeze us all in. The service, as others have pointed out, is the absolute worst and ruined our meal.
The female server started off the night scolding us and reciting very confusing rules about their BYOB policy. After a 2 minute «rules» rundown and what appeared to be her own disapproval regarding our table of 5 having a bottle of tequila to share (which is encouraged, as the restaurant provides Margarita mix for purchase!), she finally allowed us to open the tequila and brought us margarita mix. The kitchen brought out the wrong order and when we let them know that was not our order, the waitress glared at us and scolded «that’s yours,» to which we politely replied we had not ordered it. Later in the night and 7 small plates later, a friend who does not drink tequila asked to open the bottle of wine she brought, to which the server rudely replied no and went on to explain that unless we ordered more food, we were not allowed another open bottle. We verified that what she was saying was that the byob policy was directly tied to the amount we spend and she said yes. Unbelievable. The waitresses tone, demeanor and lack of service left us all feeling like we were school kids on time out. Thanks for the great birthday dinner, Shaman…
Also, fyi, they only allow 2 cards per table, so just keep that in mind if you decide to try this place (though I encourage you to try anything else instead). The amount of «rules» this restaurant has is rediculous.

This is my second time dining here. And my second time having dreams about my meal after visiting. We ordered 4 items off the menu. The
enchiladas potosinas was first delivered and holy amazing party in my mouth. We also had the pork carnitas, the grilled flank steak and the fried ballenas. All outstanding in flavor and great presentation. Byob makes this place a STEAL! Adding it to my list of favorites.

The food is excellent, but the place is always empty. This doesn’t make for the best atmosphere.
I haven’t experienced any of the crazy issues other diners have mentioned, but will certainly update if I do. I plan on enjoying their delicious food again.

I held my birthday dinner at Shaman this past Saturday. It was my first time here, although I had high hopes since I am huge fan of Chilam Balam. The experience was a mixed bag, some things were great… others not so much.
I made a reservation for 10, but a few days before dinner another friend asked to join. When I called to ask about adding another person to our party, the woman I spoke to said that it wouldn’t be a problem, but brought up that they require a $ 30 minimum per person, and also needed a credit card in advance. I explained that no one had mentioned this when I booked the orignal reservation, at which point the person on the other end of the line became very defensive. She told me both policies were clearly stated when I booked on Open Table, to which I replied that I didn’t book on Open Table, I booked by calling the restaurant and speaking to another member of the staff. I agreed to the $ 30 minimum per person since I didn’t think this would be a problem anyway, but declined to provide a credit card number in advance.
Saturday afternoon I got a call from Shaman to confirm our reservation for 11 at 8:30, and also to once again (unnecessarily) remind me of the $ 30 minimum per person.
We arrived at about 8:35, and were told they were running a bit behind and that it would be a few minutes before our table was ready (the restaurant was quite busy). No big deal, my party gathered around the bar, cracked a few beers (they are BYOB) and waited. We were finally presented our table shortly after 9, however there were only 10 places set, and not even enough room for that many people at the table. Another member of my party went back to the host to explain that we did not have enough room, to which she offered to bring another chair. We explained that another chair would not help the situation, as there was not even enough room for the 10 places they set, let alone the reservation we had for 11. Eventually they were able to find another table to add to the end of the one we were originally given, and we had enough room. The owner came by while we were sorting everything out, and commented that she «didn’t expect us to have so many tall people». I found this statement discrimanatory and totally out of line, but at this point we were seated and people were hungry, so we stayed.
The dinner itself was fantastic (we ended up spending about $ 55 per person, including tip). Our server took great care of us and everything we ordered was delicious. They ended up comping the 3 orders of guacamole we started out with since they were so late in seating us, which I thought was fair and a nice gesture. The food & service was good enough that I would probably come back for date night, although I don’t think I would try to use them again for a large group.

Really really good food (pork belly tacos, flank steak tacos, brussels sprout salad etc)!
I would suggest re-​tiling the floors, putting some recessed can lighting in (versus the panted fluorescent tubes) and upgrading the cafeteria chairs. I was just slightly embarrassed bringing an out of town guest here without trialling it first. Thankfully the food redeemed it!

The service was lovely, the food was quite good (shout out to the brussels sprout salad and the turkey tostada) but overpriced for small plates, in my opinion. What was really bizarre was that when I paid the bill, I noticed that they had rounded up when they charged my credit card… Is that a thing we’re doing now? I don’t know, but I found it strange and frankly it rubbed me the wrong way.

Great food, nice atmosphere and friendly faces. I had the potato soup which was really good. BYOB is also a great way to drink whatever you want at a fair price.

Another win for these owned except this time in Noble Square. We ventured over from our lake view locale since Chilam Balam is one of our neighborhood favorites. The food is fantastic, and very similar to the location in our neighborhood. The setting is a street level restaurant with simple décor that keeps the focus on the flavors. I continue to love the honest and authentic service and unique play on traditional Mexican dishes.
Overall, it brings the fantastic flavors and owner operated love that made Chilam Balam a star, however it’s not differentiated enough from the original restaurant to make it a destination — but a great addition if you live in noble square.

I am a huge fan of Chilam Balam, so I was really pumped to come by Shaman with a party of 7 a few weekends ago. The only downside to Chilam is that they 1) don’t take weekend reservations and 2) don’t accept big parties. Fortunately, Shaman solves both of these issues! We had no trouble making a reservation on Friday night for Saturday night. Upon arriving, we were seated immediately. Many comment on the alcohol rules at Shaman, but I have a solution for you. Tequila! Shaman has great margarita mix and you can bring one bottle per two people. Easy. Our waitress came over right away with the mix and to explain the menu.
Same as Chilam Balam, we loved the ceviche. This is a menu item that stays, even as the rest rotates, and I think I order it every time I’m there. As I mentioned, half of the menu at Shaman rotates monthly which is pretty amazing. The fall menu was absolutely on-​point and we loved every dish. If you’re going in the near future, don’t miss the chile en nogada which apparently has over 30 ingredients?! My personal favorite was the brisket casuela which you could make little tacos with. The complex flavors were hearty and rich. We also enjoyed the calamari (which is far from your normal calamari), grilled flank steak, goat cheese empanadas, and the RIBS. These are always on the menu and, in my opinion, a must order. I have no idea what’s in that sauce, but it rocks.
We also shared a few desserts, even though we were so full! The coconut cream pie was my absolute favorite and everyone loved the sweet empanadas, these were a little rich for me. I truly enjoyed visiting Shaman with a big group because we were easily able to share tons of menu items. Considering the quality of the ingredients and complexity of the dishes, Shaman is very affordable. The BYOB seriously helps as well! Highly recommend a visit to Shaman, whether it’s date night or with a big group!

This was my first time at Shaman and hopefully not my last. The food is delicious. Their BYOB rules are tough but that’s okay because the food is GOOD and they know it.
We will start with atmosphere: it’s dark, cozy and nice. No complaints.
Drinks: bring some tequila. Get the margarita mix. You will not be disappointed.
Food: we had a large group of seven and probably ordered ¾ of the menu. Now I should note that Shaman changes their menu every 30 days? Now don’t quote me on this but it’s something like that. Our party of 7 started off with the guacamole, the spinach salad, and the mahi ceviche. All awesome. I was not looking forward to the spinach salad with all the other delciousness going around but that salad was AWESOME! Simple, tasty, and satisfying. It was a great surprise and truly a treat. We also got the fried calamari (awesomeness that doesn’t even need the sauce) beef brisket cazuela, grilled flank steak, pork ribs, and enchiladas. All very delicious. Shaman has very complex, unique flavors but somehow has a simple perfect presentation. They don’t try to do too much and let the flavors do the work.
Now I felt the need to write this review for the chiles en nogada, which had pork picadillo, walnut cream sauce, goat cheese, nectarines, and almonds. I truly enjoyed the history the waitress gave us. Apparently this is a 32 ingredient dish, which is a Mexican delicacy/​favorite that represents the Mexican flag, and only comes around once a year. Im not going to lie. I felt a little lucky. I’m not from Chicago and happened to be in town, in this little restaurant, enjoying this treat. The flavor is phenomenal and you may get a spicy bite or a sweet bite depending what portion of the chile you get. Nevertheless, it’s all good. The flavors blend in your mouth and for that moment you understand why this dish is so celebrated in Mexico.
Last but not least, dessert: we had the tres leches, peanut butter empanadas, and coconut cream pie. My fav: coconut cream pie. But try them all as –let’s be honest– they are all good and you only live once. Enjoy.

I could not be more appalled by this restaurant. I wish I could review the food, but unfortunately my group was not able to get as far as an entrée. The owner of this restaurant is a horrendous, miserable, unhappy and horrifically rude human being. After extremely looking forward to Shaman and organizing a large birthday dinner with several out of town friends, I was beyond mortified and offended by the way we were treated. As a 6 year Chicago local, I can easily say this is the most unprofessional, rude and inexplicable restaurant owner and situation I have ever been put in. False advertising does not begin to describe what we experienced, especially in regards to BYOB. I cannot articulate on Unilocal how horrible this experience was, but plan to take my complaints far beyond the Unilocal database.

Had high hopes for this place but was sadly disappointed… Service and atmosphere were fine but the best thing I had was the guacamole (which was just regular guac)… So we had:
— mahi mahi ceviche — strangely dry for fish prepped in citrus juice and didn’t taste very fresh
— fried calamari– super fried but came with a salad of red cabbage and purple onion which was a nice bright accent to the dish
— mushroom flautas — didn’t really taste much mushroom, flavors just blended into each other and not in a good way
— chicken sopes — another «just fine» dish — lacked fresh or distinct flavors, but chicken was cooked well at least
— tres leches — may have been the most upset by this, the flavor of the cream soda ice cream and coconut with the cake just didn’t work
Nothing we had was bad, just nothing really stood out. BYOB policy was nice…

I tend to agree with the negative reviews of this place. The service here is atrocious, at best. I only received a small taste of the «rules» here before my large group promptly walked out.
We came here for a friend’s birthday. I was leaving within 30 minutes or so to go to bed as I had to wake up at 4 the following morning. I just wanted to enjoy everyone’s company, and I wasn’t planning on eating, and evidently this was a major issue. The waitress was giving the table an unreasonably large amount of grief for this, literally saying, «why would you come to a restaurant if you aren’t going to eat?» I’m sorry, that’s the rudest thing anyone has ever said to me in a restaurant. She was making a gigantic issue with me sitting there, so I simply left. A note — the restaurant was empty. Completely empty. It’s not like me sitting there was stopping business from coming in.
Not more than five minutes after I left, the rest of my fifteen person party vacated. I guess they neglected to mention the 30 dollar minimum when making the reservation. The minimum is fine but the fact it wasn’t communicated out is a major draw down.
Advice to management:
Your place will go out of business if you continue to allow these kind of practices.
A table of fifteen potential customers left when your restaurant was empty. Your lack of communication to your customers regarding reservation parameters will do nothing except upset people, as evidenced by Friday night.
Your wait staff is the rudest staff i have ever experienced — even worse than the atrocious service at Jack’s/Drew’s on halsted. Actually asking a customer «why they’re even there» is 100% unacceptable.
You might want to chill out on your rules. Seems like this has the potential to be a nice place. This isn’t Alinea… you can loosen your restrictions. It’s dinner, not boot camp. I will actively tell people to avoid this place.
Long story short — rudest service experienced in a Chicago restaurant. Go somewhere… Anywhere else.

The literal definition of a Shaman is a person with access to good and evil spirits — if the owner of the restaurant Shaman is one, be assured they have access to those GOOD spirits.
Hands down this one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time, and I base that comment specifically around the food. The service and atmosphere are pretty good, too, but the food steals the show. Did I mention the food? Holy culinary goodness!
The concept is Mexican small plates — a double whammy for me because I love Mexican (no explanation needed, I hope) and small plates as we get to share dishes and sample many. We started with the chips/​guac and panuchos. The chips were ok, but the guac was creamy yet slightly chunky but smooth and tasty. The panuchos were like a tostada topped with potato, black beans and goat cheese then an arugula salad lightly dressed on top of that. Supurb! For the next round we went with flank steak, goat cheese enchiladas, fish/​crab tacos, a shortbread short rib tamale (special of the day) and I personally had the sweet potato coconut soup. You know how when you order small plates some are good but some steal the show and you wish you had more of this, less of that? Not here! Everything was to die for so I don’t know which of the above to recommend — just try them all. And while you may think hey piggy how could you eat all that at a table of three, yeah we still had desert… the peanut butter empanadas. So good, but so very sweet. But, don’t get your hopes up too high on the items mentioned above as the menu does change monthly.
As any Unilocal Elite would do (yeah see that badge there to the left? I’m elite, Unilocal says so!) I did check the reviews prior and was slightly turned off by all the ‘rules’ mentioned. They are true, our table of three got a ‘one bottle of wine per two guests’ from our server the moment we sat down and a judging look, but when we mentioned there are three of us she gave a confused look then quickly stood down. There is also a sign on the wall mentioning said rules. Annoying, yes but maybe this is where the evil spirits come in… and did I mention the food???

Susan and I strolled in on a busy Saturday evening, unaware that Shaman takes reservations. No matter, there were open spots at the bar in the back and we were more than happy to be promptly seated there. We knew enough to bring a bottle of wine, but on my next visit, I’ll be packing tequila!
A very friendly Luis greeted us, opened our wine and asked if we needed help with the menu. To keep things simple, we turned all our ordering over to him, a practice we almost never regret at better restaurants Luis did us justice, starting us with mahi-​mahi ceviche followed by crispy crab-​filled pescadillas. At this point, we realized that we were in for something special! and encouraged Luis to «bring it on!» Next up was a beet salad with a crispy jack cheese chicharron followed by grilled lamb chops with a blood orange sweet potato mash (the chops were a bit too medium for my taste), and finally, pork belly tacos with kiwi pico de gallo. Our equivalent of «one thin wafer» were the sweet empanadas with peanut butter and two remarkable dipping sauces. Muy delicioso!
in addition to Luis’s attentive service and that of various busboys, owner Soraya Rendon and chef Natalie Oswald checked on us at several points during our feast.

It’s more like 4.5 stars. I’ll certainly be back to try more once the menu changes again with new items.
This was sort of my 1^st time trying Mexican small plates. I only tried the brunch at Chilam Balam so it was not the main menu. I liked this new bigger venue and the ambiance a lot. Parking is a lot easier too.
We came here for girls night out. Service was good. We brought in 1 bottle of red wine. We were immediately set up with wine glasses and they opened/​served it for us.
We ordered a mix of seasonal and permanent menu items:
Mahi mahi ceviche — mmm. fresh avocado slices. Maybe this was a different recipe but it was presented differently from Chilam Balam.
Elotes — 1^st time trying it. I learned a new snack and it was very tasty.
Grilled cobia — I liked everything that came with it including the homemade corn tortillas. it had some creamy jalapeño sauce with corn. don’t worry it’s not spicy.
Grilled flank steak — this was a contrast to the cobia because it had a red sauce. the steak was cooked well. We made our own tacos with this too. wish we had more red sauce.
We had a great time, the staff gave us fresh plates during our dinner. And to end it all we had the sweet empanadas (drool!). Hope the restaurant doesn’t take this off the menu when they update again.