Chutney Joe’s

I have eaten here a gazillion times and it only deteriorated. They were good to start with but never the same. And right at the time where they had to do something awesome to win back customers, they do the most obvious. Yes, they increased the prices. I really wanted them to do well but pity they had to close.
The reason I am writing down this review is their website says they are closed due to unpopularity of Indian food in south loop? Seriously… I am Indian and there are a ton of us here in south loop… Give us better food and you would be popular. You cannot blame your customers for your failure…

One of my favorite places in Down Town! Yummy!!! Their samosas are heavenly tasty! A good selection of vegetarian and non-​vegetarian Indian food. I always have either gorbanzo masala, or gobi potatoes, which are even better than my Indian friend cook :)
As an additional bonus — it’s never crowded inside, so you can easily come with the stroller.

I don’t think there is much that’s Indian about this place — so their advert for ‘home-​style authentic Indian food’ makes no sense. Not the mouth-​watering goodness I had in India. But what can you expect from a place called Chutney Joe’s? Disappointing. Samosa made me sad — more of a wanton covering. Samosa dough is something else! And you can’t find such candied chutney in India. Laughable, almost, how American this Indian joint is.

i love this place for being a healthy version of fast food. think scrubway, er subway with a list of choices or combos to get down the line before you hit the register and with the calories posted on walls containing a majority of guilt free choices with a helluva ton more taste than Jared’s taste buds have seen. Nothing is deep fried, they don’t use ghee, butter, or cream, almost all of their meat if cooked without oil, and «trans-​fat-​free» vegetarian oil used for all vegetarian entrees, tandoori chicken bites, and biryani.
it seems that since i’ve come around the opening of this place that it only gets better every time. entrée combo gets you half rice serving (aka a huge serving for either 3 indians or 1 american), half a naan (garlic, plain, or even whole wheat), and a meat (chicken, lamb, pork, or beef) or vegetarian item for a price not far off from a footlong. you can even add a second meat or vegetarian item for a dollar or so more. every meat/​vegetarian dish i’ve tried over the course of time was good, not quite stellar but does the trick for the change in your pocket. i often share the combo with caleb and we are FULL. if we feel like gluttons we just add the second meat/​vegetarian item. they have a variety of chutneys which are great. skip the kheer pudding though, i wasn’t impressed.
a regular keeper.

Having gone to this restaurant so many times, I could have sworn I had written a review already. Alas, I had not. During past visits, the vegetarian plates have always been my favourite.
Choley. Saag paneer. Samosas. Even the curry chicken, which is a bit watery, tastes great.
But on my most recent visit, I tried something slightly different: chaat. One of the things about getting turned out on street food in India proper is that you hanker for it long after returning to the States. The chaat at Chutney Joe’s had me reminiscing about Bangalore, Bombay, and New Delhi. Very satisfying, if I may say so.

BARELY three stars — I might go back. This place used to be four stars, but recently:
— Prices have gone up
— Menu keeps changing
— Service behind counter is not helpful
But the food is still good even though the menu is more confusing.

Nice clean, inviting atmosphere, with affordable tasty vegetarian and meat Indian options.
I had the Garbanzo dish w/​mango and yogurt chutneys, whole wheat naan, and a garlic flatbread. Lunch options will fill you up for $ 6 – 9 without a drink.
Service here is helpful and friendly, and they offer samples if you’re not sure what to order. Right near Columbia College, this should be a go to for any students or people in the area for cheap Indian in a nice casual (but clean!) environment.

I hate writing bad reviews, especially for places I go to a lot because I’m afraid the owner will see it and ban me for life… FML
Chutney Joe’s has gone downhill in the past week. The prices have gone up by at least 30%, the things I love no longer exist… Its $ 7 for a small vat of potatoes with rice. Yeah. Potatoes. There are no more bombay rittos. No beef boti kebabs. Theres a limit on how much chutney you get.
RIP Chutney Joes.

Cafeteria style Indian food which is fresh, hot and quick. I usually get the lamb rogan josh which comes with rice or roti or half of each. I’ve never had to wait in line more than 5 minutes and there’s often no line before 11:50 or so. The one entrée meal is plenty unless you’re a really big eater. According to the info on posters in the window, the food has a lot fewer calories than a Chipotle burrito but fills me up just as much.
It’s a good option for a quick and different lunch.

* A pretty decent Indian spot offering cheap, nutritious & delicious desi food.
* I tried the samosa chaat and it was fantastic. Perfect mix of spicy and tangy

Fiancé found this place on Unilocal and really wanted to come, being a HUGE indian food fan.
Alrightyyyyy… indian fast food, sure, why not.
We weren’t too hungry so just shared a 2 entrée meal with 2 samosas.
Samosas were not too bad, spicy, good.
The Butter chicken was surprisingly good, tender meat.
The Saag paneer… ehhhh it was ok.
Sadly the naan was more of a pita bread. And the garlic naan didn’t taste of garlic whatsoever.
Now, I know I have a strong stomach with the amounts of weird food I eat everywhere I go. But this food just would not settle well. =\ Not good when you’re a tourist and you’re walking around everywhere…

This place is the Chipotle equivalent of Indian Food. It’s such a good idea and I’m jealous I didn’t think of it.
But what’s not so great, is the food. I mean. Alright, it was OKAY. My boyfriend went nuts over it, but I really didn’t think it was anything spectacular, especially when the price came into play. We had a $ 7 for $ 10 Groupon and still had to pay $ 23 after for two people, and we both got small portions. I don’t mind spending money on food, but it at least better be good!
I’m so lame and love chicken tikka masala. That being said, I’ve had it at a fair amount of places all around Chicago, and I’ve got to say, this was runny, not very creamy, and kind of blah. The spices were alright, but for my money, I’d skip it and go to Cumin, India House, or someplace on Devon!

Great in concept, but not the food it used to be. I get the feeling that they’re catering to a very different audience, and if they’ve found a niche, I congratulate them. But I’m not part of that clientele and did not find more than one thing good.
What did I find good? Their baked samosa!
What disappointed? Their food seems to be made with ready-​made spices and varied from bland (potatoes) to super-​spicy (rajma) without warning or categorization.
The rice was dried up (sitting out too long?) and the «masala chai» is just a tea bag.
For the price they’re demanding, not really in the «fast food» category (although fast).

WTF? I was aware that this is fast-​food Indian, so my expectations were already adjusted accordingly, but there is NO way this is the Chipotle equivalent besides for the setup. I like Chipotle, I hated this place. It all actually smelled like Indian food, but tasted nothing like it, and worse, it’s revolting. How do they manage to do that?
Ordered our usual benchmarks: chicken tikka masala and aloo gobi (mushier than crap). Tasted blander than hell and like crap to boot! Also, that is NOT naan, it was pita bread. That sickly looking drink in my pic was supposed to be a mango lassi. I was so disgusted by everything I left most of it on the plate. Which was probably a good thing. The only way I’d stomach this place is if I knew absolutely zero about Indian food and also think Taco Bell is good food. If you resemble that statement then this may be the place for you.
Go take lessons from the SF Bay Area’s Chaat Café chain on how to do fast food Indian right while keeping it authentic and tasty. Good lord.

Ajay Bhatt. Vinod Dham. Pranav Mistry. Anadish Kumar Pal.
What do these four names (no they’re not dishes on the menu here) have in common? These are not exactly household names in the United States. In fact, I had never heard of them before I Wikied them. Give up (if you were even playing)?. The answer is: they’re all great Indian inventors.
Another great Indian inventor, however, remains even more anonymous than these guys — the inventor of the BombayRritto at Chutney Joe’s. And, much like the other four, he or she probably deserves a Nobel Prize (even if they’re not Indian)!
Though maybe he or she is a mad scientist because I’m not sure that most rational people would have ever thought to put burrito fixings on top of Indian food. But it works so well together. I got the Spinach Paneer as my innards and it blended absolutely perfectly with the lettuce, tomato, and cheddar cheese (even with the Indian cheese already in it). I was almost crying from the taste!
Or that may have been from the spice. I’m probably just a wimp, but in the two times that I’ve eaten here, I’ve left both times in a spice coma from all the dehydration. I swear that my jacket still smells like spices. It was coming out of my pores like alcohol! Maybe they want to help keep the students from the nearby colleges awake. Thankfully, the Samosa Chaat (smooshed samosa in a sauce) that I also ordered is covered with a delicious mango chutney to cut through some of the burn.
They need to cover their prices with this as well, however. Without a Groupon, I could probably not have afforded to eat here twice. For a «Indian diner,» I paid more here than I would for a similar dining experience on Devon. And you don’t always even get what you pay for. Their kheer (rice pudding) portion is so tiny, it needs a shot glass and not a spoon!
They should thank their Unilocaly stars (in which they get an additional one) that I came back with a second Groupon and tried the Urban Masala menu (only available after 2:00 p.m.). These three fusion dishes — including a naanwich — really save this place.
When they experiment, the results seem to be brilliant. When they make traditional dishes, the results seem to blow up in their faces like wrongly mixed chemical agents. Maybe they need to hire some more great Indian inventors to expand their fusion menu. Though I doubt the four I mentioned at the top would come cheap.

For a place with «Chutney» in their name, they sure did skimp on the chutney! I was disappointed in this place, here’s why:
Prices a little steep for what we got. It’s a quick fast-​food-​type place, and with a drink, ended up being over $ 11. Went with the two entrée option with naan (1 piece, decent size, but felt like the meal ratio needed more naan, or also some rice), also got the chicken and the red beans.
When checking out, I asked about the ‘chutneys’ and selected the mango and yogurt. The person turned around, and picked up two of those tiny 1 oz? cups with lids — I thought, um… I’m going to need about five of those, missy, but. I took my two tiny chutney cups and went off to find a seat.
The food was good, but the chicken was a tad too spicy for me, though I did eat most of it, I had to go up and order/​pay for another side of rice to try and cool it down and spread out the heat. The beans were fine, nothing special.
I’d wanted to try this place for a while, and after doing so, just left me a little disappointed. I probably won’t be back unless I happen to be craving something very spicy and I’m in the area.
Another thing I didn’t like: they use silverware and plastic plates/​bowls here, which I admire — not using disposables, that’s great! However, the tray area was a heaping mess of other people’s uneaten bits of food where you’re supposed to deposit your plates/​bowls, etc. It was gross. If your restaurant is going to use washable serving dishes/​utensils, you need to keep up the area. If it was super busy I could understand having a hard time keeping up with it, but when we ordered, there were two other tables in the entire place — it was dead in there.

I love Chutney Joes! Best cheap hot lunch downtown. I go there twice a week, at least. I HATE those new trays they use that separate the delicious rajmas and curries from the rice. If they go back to the old trays I’ll change my review to five stars. This is really good Indian-​inspired food. What Chipotle is to the burrito, Chutney Joes is to Indian food. My favorite is the red bean rajma and rice with the cilantro and yogurt chutneys.
Update: The owner contacted me and said he’s getting rid of the trays! As promised, I have upped my review to five stars.

Meh for Indian Food quality but great for price and convenience.
First off, I have no life. Grad school took that away from me. Along with frivolities like sleep, a car, and a disposable income. I don’t have time to cook (or eat sometimes) but I have very particular tastebuds and when they are craving for something, there is no use in trying to fight it. Occasionally I find myself dying for Indian food at like 8pm— way too late to start cooking now. So I take a little trip here and Chutney Joe’s does the trick. It definitely is not the best Indian food in terms of quality but in a pinch it hits the spot. In the exact same way supermarket sushi works in a pinch.
Really, anything you get will be good. You can’t go wrong. SInce it is food made quickly, and for the masses, the spices are a tad on the bland side for my palate. Prob a good thing if you are scared of Indian food (although, you should REALLY get over it— you are missing out!). Overall, good fast-​food Indian that has been served fresh to me everytime I’ve been there. Oh, and it’s served cafeteria style (think Chipotle) so you don’t have to tip or worry about crappy servers.

When I think Indian food I generally think of a sit down or buffet style type of restaurant so I was definitely intrigued by Chutney Joe’s being a fast food type of place. It’s only a couple of blocks away from where I work so decided to go with my coworker.
We arrived shortly after it opened so there was no line. The restaurant was well lit and clean. I was happy to see that on their menu they do not use cream, deep fryers, ghee or butter (I know, I know – then how could it possibly be good right?) I liked how the menu board told you exactly how to order – step 1, step 2, etc — the person that waited on us was very nice and when we asked what a particular dish was he actually went into detail as to what it was.
I had the regular naan – it had a thick pita bread like consistancy – that was ok, but I’ve definitely have had better, the portions are pretty good – but definitely pale in comparison to an all you can eat restaurant for the price — for fast food though I thought it was ok. As many Unilocalers had said – the Chicken Tikka Masala was on the runny side – but probably because they don’t use all those fatty ingredients. The garbonzo masala was excellent and had a great flavor – I like heat so the spicyness of the entrees did not bother me at all – I actually found it to be quite enjoyable.
My coworker who is vegetarian liked the variety of entrees available to her. She had the spinach paneer and the gobi potatoes. She loved the spices and the flavorfulness of her dishes. We were stuffed.
Overall, nice experience, and will return again to try some of the other dishes and specials.

When another reviewer described it as Chipotle, but with Indian food, they were exactly right. At least with the layout of the restaurant and what the way the order is processed. And while the food tastes better than what is at Chipotle, it’s still not great. Still, you get a lot of it – enough to take home for leftovers for sure.
I had the sag paneer, which was utterly tasteless. The only sensation I got out of that dish was that it was warm. And the spinach was unnaturally dark, probably from holding a steam tray for so long.
I also had a chickpea dish which was spiced nicely.
I maybe should have gone with the biryani recommended elsewhere on this Unilocal page.
I will probably go back. I love that it is independently owned. And while their to-​go containers are very nice, I am sick to death of the thoughtless dispensation of plastic-​based to-​go containers. Can’t anyway wash a dish anymore? But that’s a comment on the Western world in general — not on Chutney Joe’s. Sorry that had to be the recipient of that particular tirade.