Zak’s Place in Hinsdale: A Big Disappointment (Chicago Area Restaurant Review No. 81)

We had heard lots of favorable buzz about Zak’s Place, and we really like Hinsdale, which has great scenery and nice shopping, so we couldn’t wait to try it. Wait we should have, because Zak’s did not live up to the hype.

We started with wine by the glass. Lisa chose a Ramsey Pinot Noir and Steve had a Syrah. Both of these were quite good. One of the things we were really looking forward to was their cheese course, but the cheese was really bad, a fatal misstep in our world view. The bleu, camembert and cheddar selections were all quite bad. The bleu tasted musty and the cheddar and camembert tasted store bought, with the brie being the only semi-decent choice. That set the tone for the rest of the meal.

Lisa’s second course was a lobster and shrimp dish. She liked the shrimp, but the lobster wasn’t great, thus sort of ruining the dish. Steve’s romaine salad was decent but nothing special. For entrees, Lisa had the prime rib, which was cooked a perfect medium rare but didn’t have a lot of flavor. Steve’s Kansas City strip was also not great, but it did come with excellent lyonnaise potatoes.

Desserts were ok but not inspired. Steve’s bread pudding with caramel ice cream had great ice cream but the bread pudding was basically tasteless. Lisa’s chocolate dessert was also not bad, but the chocolate was not dark enough for her.

We did like the restrooms, because they were really clean (we contrasted that with the worst bathroom we’ve ever seen which was in a Hinsdale restaurant in our pre blog days), but they were a bit too small to get a perfect rating.

Dinner for 2 with wine by the glass was $200, which is quite expensive for this quality food.

Our ratings for Zak’s Place, 110 South Washington, Hinsdale

5.5 (being charitable) of 10 Steak Knives; 2.5 of 3 Bathroom Brushes