Oceanique

Having eaten in many restaurants worldwide, including some of the best, we were really disappointed. While the food was decent and the service was more-​or-​less fine, the quality was far from justifying the very large price. It was way too expensive for such an experience. Neither the quality of the food nor the service or the ambiance matched the cost of this dinner.
Here are a few additional «surprises»:
1. We were served on a table without a tablecloth. Not even with placemats. The dinner plates and the wine glasses were placed on a raw table. Really. In an expensive restaurant?!
2. After the 18% tip was added automatically to the bill, they added state tax and city tax. We have never seen this done anywhere else in Chicago or its suburbs.
3. When we asked to talk to the owner or the manager, we were told that the owner (the chef) was too busy and the manager was not at the restaurant.

Not sure why they charge the prices they do. We had a certificate for a 5 course dinner. Our bill still came to a little over $ 100.00. It would have been $ 265 without it. And they charge $ 10 to valet park.
Here’s why 2 stars. The place itself is old and tired. The seating is horrible. The cold air draft was unstoppable. The food was mediocre at best, although I will say the desert was 5 stars. The service was very good. In my opinion don’t waste your time or money.

The location is good but lacks atmosphere. Interior is sparse, no ambient music. The menu is old school traditional French. Service was below average. Servers are not familiar with menu or food items. Overall, lackluster overpriced food and wine with matching service and atmosphere.

I dined there on Dec 4, 2015. The prices are that of a fine dining establishment. Therefore, the prices are in line with the quality of everything I ate. I absolutely loved everything I ate and drank. I had the corn and lobster bisque, beat salad, sturgeon, and a crème brulé that I adored. The staff was kind, not snobbish. I felt welcomed and appreciated. It is a place for a wonderful meal where you feel pampered. I would definitely recommend Oceanique.

We came here because of all the seafood options, it used to be bib gourmand, it’s closeby, and there was groupon for the 5 course tasting menu.
We’re pretty mixed on this one. They are willing to accommodate dietary preferences, which was really nice, and the atmosphere was romantic and felt upscale. Overall, the quality of food is very good, but most of the dishes just didn’t stand out, which is why we are giving it 3 stars. We’d rate this more of a 3.5 if we had the option. The price is REALLY up there EVEN with the groupon. Balancing how much we liked the food with the cost, we probably wouldn’t come here again personally.
We were first served a bread basket (which i’m always for!), and then we ordered:
First course:
Chef’s surprise — tuna tartare, straightforward and well done
Second course:
Buffalo mozzarella lobster salad with caviar– this was fresh, but kind of bland
Kimchi scallops — flavorful and inventive
Chef’s compliment:
Sole with lemongrass — the husband liked the subtle flavors in this, but again, i thought this dish was bland
Third course:
Apple sorbet — delicious!
Fourth course:
Norwegian Fjord Ocean trout — nice flavors, best dish of the night!
Skate — prepared well, but not a memorable dish
Fifth Course:
chocolate cake — normal good
Pear tarte — nice, not too sweet, well done dessert

My husband and I dined here on the 5-​course tasting menu Groupon.
The Good:
I loved the freshness of the smoked salmon with horseradish crème fraîche.
Loved the Scottish salmon dish.
Dessert was amazing — the mousse in the Pot de Crème was so tasty and rich.
Even the palette cleansing sorbet was delicious !
The Bad:
The halibut was okay, nothing out of the ordinary.
Day and Night cake also just OK– tasty like a basic chocolate cake.
The Ugly:
My husband and I fighting over the Pot de Crème dessert. I would come back just for this dessert.

Another very good restaurant which unjustly falls into the dreaded 3 – 4 category.
We dined here with another couple on Monday night. Unlike just about every other upscale restaurant they allowed one of us (my wife) to order the degustation menu; the rest of us ordered ala carte; I ordered several apps and an entrée but no dessert; the other couple ordered a more standard three course.
You might think our various orders would provide some pretty discordant dining but No. Oceanique solved this by giving us all (gratis) the degustation sorbet course, and when my wife and I were enjoying our courses the other couple received compimentary tastings. I received a full sized free dessert, a remarkably good flaky pastry.
The chef is a serious professor of cuisine; scallops with a mild kimchee/​lobster broth was great; foie gras served both as a separate course and as part of a quail dish was lucious; my rare tuna entrée and my wife’s Turbot with Chanterelles and Lemon Grass were near perfect.
Service was excellent in all respects and I can’t find any fault with any course, ecept one: the ravioli on the degustation (1 ravioli vs. 4 if ordered ala carte); was paltry; if it is still on the degustation and you order it, ask them to «supersize» it!
All this comes at a price, and wines by the glass were a little pricey, but all in all from Fish to Fowl this is a very memorable experience.

Great service and excellent food. Was one of the first places I dined at when I moved to evanston. Great!

When my husband told me we were headed here for my birthday dinner I was concerned — the Unilocal reviews were midrange at best and who was I to say they were wrong… well, they were wrong. Dinner was amazing. Yes, it is not a cheap endeavor, but the flavors were amazing, the service attentive, and the care with which the food was prepared remarkable. Hope we find a reason to go back soon.

The restaurant was decent but not great. Went for restaurant week.

The food and service were good, but they added on a required 18% gratuity on a party of two. We would’ve left it anyway, but requiring it is just rude and not a way to treat customers. This happened on our third visit and will be our last.

My boyfriend and I were feeling a bit down because of the continuous cold and mucky weather but the moment we stepped into Oceanique all those negative feelings blew away.
We got the Groupon for the 5 course tasting meal which was a steal at $ 80 for two people. It was worth every penny and so much more!
Everything was perfect, from the extra creamy butter to the beautifully prepared salmon to the delectable lemongrass crème brûlée. The service was wonderful and not rushed at all.
We had the perfect evening and we will definitely be back for the other course menus as there are many to choose from.

I wish, so badly, that I remember all the dishes I got to try as part of our Groupon deal here. I remember a lot of lobster, and surprise amuse bouches from the chef. I remember being impressed over and over again as each dish was – somehow, impossibly – better than the previous one. I remember ordering a killer chocolatey dessert and even though we all ordered different choices, every one of us was so happy with our desserts. Absolutely a five-​star experience. Definitely a special occasion type of place, for proposals or anniversaries or very very special birthdays.

The MOST mediocre food for the HIGHEST prices. I have no problem spending money for food, but make it worth it. Even if this place was reasonably priced I wouldn’t come back but the fact that it is so expensive is ridiculous. Food ranged from mediocrce-​at-​best to fine, and all the dishes were unoriginal and SO over priced.
First dish was oysters with caviar (pretty sure they stole that one right out of the Farallon Cookbook) and the oysters were the first oysters I’ve ever had that I didn’t like. They were so obviously not fresh.
Second dish was butternut squash ravioli. NOTE TO WAITSTAFF: making the plate piping hot doesn’t make up for the food being cold.
Third dish was a «lobster» Salad. Cost $ 22. A complete joke that it had the word lobster in the title. It consisted of a quarter ounce of lobster, a quarter of an avocado, 3 slices of mozzarella that I swear they bought packaged at a super market, and then a bunch of lettuce. Didn’t even have the time to put any type of dressing on it.
Fourth dish was the soup of the day. Actually pretty good. Congrats, you guys can managed to not fuck up a $ 15 bowl of soup.
Fifth Dish was seared scallops. First of all, cost $ 40, second of all super average scallops, third of it was on top of a «Cilantro White Boy Kimchi Lobster-​Soy Broth». Don’t know what the fuck that’s suppose to mean but I know it doesn’t go well with mediocre scallops and putting a pound of this coleslaw-​like substance on my plate doesn’t distract me from the fact that there are only 6 TINY scallops.
Interior decoration was nice, service was good, but the food was over-​price and average. Could have cooked myself this entire meal for a fifth of the price or gone to an amazing restaurant in Chicago for half the price, and left full (notice I ate 5 dishes and still left hungry).
Don’t let the white table clothes, amuse bouche, over use of shaved radish, and ass-​kissing Maitre’D fool you; you can get a MUCH better meal for a quarter of the price. SAVE YOUR MONEY!
CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM: Bigger portions, more creative dishes, fresher ingredients, more salt and butter in the kitchen, lower prices, and stop trying so hard: i.e. less shaved radishes and if the caviar isn’t good (and the trout roe wasn’t very good) don’t put it on everything. That being said the service was really good.

The place has been renovated and is now really trendy. The food is creative with great flavors. I am not crazy about their deserts but a great place for a date or for a celebration.

My wife and I went there on a Saturday night and had the chef’s tasting menu. I thought the meals were extremely well prepared and the presentation was excellent.
She had the Salmon which she thought was average and I had the Tuna which was very good. For the earlier course, she had the lobster and endive salad and I had the ravioli, which was outstanding.
Overall, this is an excellent but pricey experience, but I could see coming here again to celebrate a special occasion.

We were a bit reluctant to try Oceanique because we had read mixed reviews and the place isn’t cheap. We decided to go for it though when our daughter and her husband were in town and they don’t eat meat. So glad we did! The place is great almost every way.
We had a five course tasting menu (really six if you count the amuse bouche). Everyone of the courses was fantastic with the possible exception of the passion fruit sorbet palate cleanser which was just a tad too sour for our taste. The first course was a chef’s «surprise» which was salmon sashimi, excellent by all accounts. I wanted to savor every bite and make it last as long as possible. My second course which was a lobster and endive salad with bufula mozzarella was outstanding. All the flavors blended perfectly and made my mouth very happy. Then the surprise amuse bouche of a mini lobster sandwich. I often hear of amuse bouche being the perfect bite. Was this was all that! My main course was Scottish salmon with butternut squash. They did say that the salmon was slow roasted and would be served medium rare — still pink in the center and not cooked all the way through. That would have been fine with me. The salmon actually came cooked all the way through. Not what I had expected but still fine. This dish is very spicy, just be warned. I loved it! For desserts they brought each of the four of us a different one. They meant for us to share but some of us liked what we had so much that maybe we weren’t the best sharers. The had the day and night cake, Layers of Chocolate Mousse, Whipped Cream Chantilly, Chocolate Cake w/​Chocolate Ice Cream. OMG this was soooo good! I did trade a taste for a taste of the caramel pot de crème, also outstanding. The last two desserts at the table were a nut torte and a pear tarte. Though I didn’t taste these the owners of them all really enjoyed them.
Love the vibe of the place too. Formal without being overly so. Very eclectic. Felt much like a true European establishment.

We tried Oceanique again. I think this is a restaurant that is trying hard, very hard, to be a top restaurant, but just cannot figure out how to do it. It’s nice, quite nice, but it appears confused about how to do it.
The meal I received was terrible. I ordered salmon, the one dish that really interested me, which arrived on a hot plate, and it was cold inside, not warm, cold. The flesh looked like it had been through a Mixmaster, not the solid flaky fish one expects of salmon. The accompanying vegetables and sauce grossly overpowered the fish. Not a difficult feat as a nibble of fish alone showed it was almost tasteless. It was as if they couldn’t figure out how to fix the salmon so they tried several ideas. Had the fish itself been good, one idea would have been fine, but so many were just to much to figure out what was going on in my mouth. Two bites and I sent it back.
HOWEVER, I think this was a terrible fluke. The hostess was very nice and did everything to accommodate me. I wasn’t billed for the dinner, substitutions were offered, a yummy lovely complimentary peach and raspberry desert was presented without my asking as was an after dinner cordial.
The treatment of the salmon was representative of the restaurant in general, to much conflicting stuff going on The room is confusing. One wall white subway tiles and sliding barn doors (think milk barn chique), one with subtle painted colors with large decorative molding frames one the wall (sort of french bistro), one with the same color without the molding frames, but a picture, and a huge open (no café curtain or such) window looking out to the street. It was like they tried several good or interesting ideas instead of choosing one.
One problem that night was the lights were so bright inside I felt like we were on display to those passing by. Not intimate at all. Fortunately a waiter turned down the lights on request.

I had no idea that this restaurant was a part of the Evanston landscape. It’s not immediately downtown. Well, you don’t have to always go downtown to get the best there is to get.
I went to Oceanique during Restaurant Week in early February. The experience was so good that I decided to return to blog the restaurant. Oh was I glad that I did.
Flight of whiskey cocktails. A four-​course degustation without looking at the menu.
I am the first to admit that I have a discriminating palate, so I’m not a fan of just anyone’s seafood fare. Oceanique is not Red Lobster, by any stretch of the imagination: not that there is anything wrong with Red Lobster. What I love is the freshness of the offerings. I couldn’t care less about the presentation, as long as my appetite is satisfied. The server did an outstanding job coming up with recommendations. And the bartender was best in the bartending trade because the flight of whiskies I requested, all which are NOT on the drink menu, were a hit.
Oceanique is not the restaurant for a cheap date or a tight pocketbook. It’s pricey and that can be off-​putting to many and an appetite suppressant for most. But if you love good seafood and a great beverage menu, I recommend Oceanique highly.

I’m surprised it took me this long to visit Oceanique, considering I love trying new restaurants, love seafood, and am within walking distance to this place. Anyway, I just visited Oceanique a few days ago for Restaurant Week, and tried their $ 44 dinner tasting menu.
I made a reservation at 9pm, and my friend and I got there ~10−15 minutes early. The initial walk in was a little awkward — we just stood there for a few minutes, unacknowledged by anybody. I told one hostess that we had made a reservation for 9 but if we could be seated a little earlier. She said tables were getting cleared and we would be seated soon… but it wasn’t until another hostess asked if we had been helped that we finally got seated. Not the best first impression, so good thing the food/​service made up for that.
Food: 4 stars.
— Chef’s surprise starter was an arctic char ceviche, and although it wasn’t amazing, it was a good way to start the meal.
— Starter: maine day boat scallops with kimchi and lobster-​soy broth. I really liked this dish — the scallops were well flavored, had a beautiful sear, and were very tender. I was surprised at how strong the kimchi flavor was — being Korean, I’m used to Western restaurants downplaying the flavors since it’s pretty pungent to begin with, but it was delicious.
— Entrée: wild main skate which was great as well. The fish itself was super tender and well flavored.
— Dessert was a surprise, and I got some sort of chocolate mousse dessert. Delicious.
Service: 5 stars
— Attentive but not intrusive, and very polite. The plates came out a bit slower than I’m used to, but that gave me a chance to talk to my friend (I have a tendency to wolf down my food and just leave, even at nicer restaurants), so I didn’t mind too much.
We also ordered a bottle of wine for $ 64, so I spent a total of $ 100 with tip and tax.
I also had the pleasure of speaking with the chef, and he was so friendly! (When I told him I made the 20 minute walk in sub-​zero temperatures to come here, he said I was in for a cold walk back, to which I told him (I was a little buzzed) that I had a nice wine blanket…) Anyway, all in all a great experience!