Sweets & Savories

Walked in on a Sunday at noon (as we ve had this living social coupon)
Only 3 tables are filled.
First we have to wait 5mins before one of the two people who seem to be working there actually talks to us.
«Do you have a reservation ?»
(note: no hello or welcome)
«No sorry, but it’s only the two of us»
«We’re fully booked, we can’t take anyone anymore, sorry»
«Yeah, you look really busy»
Seriously? The place is empty, and we have to go through all this ??
Never. Again. No point.

WORST RESTAURANT ON EARTH.
Seriously, I’m not trying to be mean. Not trying to be cynical. And definitely not trying to funny. This place is absolute trash.
Let’s start with the service (or lack there of). They would only give me a reservation at 5pm. I’m not an early bird special kind of guy, but fine. Three other couples must have had the same ordeal. It was one of those 95+ degree days and they wouldn’t open the doors until 5:20. We were seriously all standing and sweating outside. This was the sign from God to get the hell out of dodge right then and there. Sadly, I did not listen. I had a groupon and was determined to use it. What a mistake.
We ordered the mussels for an appetizer to share. We got back a huge bowl with only 5 mussels (I’m not kidding), one of which had no meat in it, sitting in a pool of chicken broth. I hope it was at least chicken broth.
And the bread we got looked like it was leftover from the Goodwill down the street that the homeless people refused to eat.
The entrees completely lacked taste. I won’t even get into that debacle.
And for dessert, we were told they had fresh chocolate cake, but they only had one piece left. Since we were the first table sat, I asked who ate the rest of this «fresh» chocolate cake. I was told customers earlier in the week ate the rest. WTF? Let’s get a dictionary and look up the word fresh and revisit this topic.
I would pay huge money to see Gordon Ramsey come to this place and rip them a new one. Or I could just see it burn down. Either way: STAY AWAY FROM THIS ABSOLUTE $HITHOLE

EPIC, EPIC FAIL!
Thank goodness LivingSocial was nice enough to refund this voucher. They rock, seriously!
Where did this brunch experience go wrong? Let me count the ways:
1. Waited about 10 minutes to even be GREETED by the «hostess». The couple in front of me also waited 10 – 15 min.
2. When we FINALLY got to talk to the waitress, she claimed that she couldn’t find my 10:30 reservation in the system. (I originally had a 12:30 reservation, but called the day prior to change it. Whoever I spoke with told me I was good to come in at 10:30! Why she didn’t update the system? No clue.)
3. The employee reluctantly sat us at an open table (probably because someone called to cancel 2 seconds prior). She was so eerily cheery that I KNEW something was going to go wrong with this experience.
4. The LivingSocial voucher I purchased was a brunch for 2 for $ 16. The meal was supposed to consist of a drink, a tray of pastries, a starter and an entrée. Regular price is $ 16/​person.
5. Nothing on the menu was insanely appealing. For starters, the most fascinating item was french onion soup. And, for the entrée, the best pick was the risotto. (However, the table next to us complained that there was eggshells in hers, so who knows.)
6. Alright, after glancing at this pathetic menu, my friend and I chatted it up a bit as we noticed that the waitress and hostess were pretty busy. So… we sat… and sat… and sat. For a WHOPPING 20 minutes! No one ever brought us water… checked in on us… took our order. Nope! Completely ignored.
7. Everyone else in the restaurant appeared to be miserable was they were waiting a long time for their food to come out. I mean, honestly.
8. As we thought it was ridiculous that we were being straight up ignored, my friend and I decided to leave (obviously! Who wants to waste their time there?!). When we were leaving, the eerily cheery hostess (who sat us) had the AUDACITY to chirp, «Bye ladies! Have a nice day!»
Ummmmm, are you effin’ kidding me?! Did you NOT realize that we were walking out due to lack of service?
Brunch fail. Avoid at all costs.

Went there this morning with my wife and was looking forward to brunch. The hostess turned us away saying they are booked for the next two weeks and are only seating customers with reservations. Mind you there were 4 tables open as I was standing there…
If you want to have that policy fair enough, but then say «reservations required» on your web site. It also would be a good idea to consider leaving a few tables open every day for walk in customers. Another option if they are always this busy on the weekends, don’t take reservations, make it first come first serve, take down customers phone numbers if there is a wait and let the customer decide. IMO telling customers «we will not serve you» is not a good business practice.

I received a gracious living social voucher from a friend for brunch. With a dining companion, we were awkwardly standing and waiting while the two servers rushed about. After we were finally seated, we ended up waiting twenty minutes before we placed our orders and even then we still didn’t receive anything to drink with our pastries.
Our french onion soup was okay but super salty. My burger was pretty juicy but I couldn’t taste the pâté which was completely overpowered by the mayo. My brunch mate’s salmon hash was… edible… as everything tasted boiled and tossed together. Sure it definitely had the salmon but would I call steamed potatoes a «hash»? Not so much. Had it not been for the voucher, don’t think I’d be back for a repeat.

Sorry Sweets and Savories — I was not impressed.
I visited Sweets and Savories recently with a groupon and my first experience began with attempting to make a reservation…“Please leave a message…” «mailbox full». Seriously? Either there are hundreds of people attempting to leave reservation messages, or they never check their mailbox. Thankfully, after my 3^rd try, I got a real person and made a reservation…
I was seated promptly upon arrival even though my entire party wasn’t there (which was nice — THANK YOU!). However, even though my wine was taken to be chilled, and water brought, I didn’t get greeted otherwise. No one came to ask if I wanted to order an appetizer, or open my wine, they just ignored me for 15 minutes. Then, one friend showed up (still no one came back), and it wasn’t until the 3^rd person (out of 4) came that anyone sort of wandered by the table. We flagged him down to try and order (and get our wine).
Finally, we ordered… I started with tomato/​bread soup, which was pretty good. It was the consistency of marinara (which they warned me about), and was tasty, though, not spectacular. Next up was the burger. The burger sounds delicious on the menu — but for $ 17, I expect a side dish! This was a little, lost burger on a plate. And, $ 17??? With NO fries? Seriously? I ordered them separately (for another $ 7 — really?). I was super disappointed with this — I can go to the Four Seasons hotel and get a burger WITH fries for this price. Also, the burger wasn’t that good. It was ok, but not great. Coming from someone who eats burgers all over the city, this one wasn’t one to come back for. Food — 2, Value — 1
One friend had salmon, which she stated was a bit overdone.
Service, while friendly, was so slow. We had to not only flag someone down to order as mentioned, but we had to find the server behind the bar to get our bill. It took 2 hours to eat dinner, and it should have taken less time. This may be because there seemed to be only 2 people working the entire restaurant. They were very very nice, but very busy and a bit frazzled. Service — 2.
The atmosphere is nice, though it’s a bit of a squeeze walking through tables. The bathrooms were clean and ok. Bathrooms and atmosphere — 3.
I was so disappointed as I really had been wanting to visit here and I didn’t have a great experience.

The recent Unilocal reviews are pretty accurate on what this restaurant has become.
Even after reading the horrible reviews, we had to use our groupon so we made a reservation and came in to eat. We probably should have just ate the groupon worth but I wanted to give this place a chance so we both ordered appetizers with our entrees.
The bread is like the reviews say. It looks like some old bread from Dominicks. I mean, I even like bread from Dominicks… when it’s fresh. This looked like it was a couple days old and they cut a strip of butter and slabbed it on the plate. I mean… come on…
I got the Wild Mushroom Polenta Gnocchi. Three things that I love. Unfortunately it was luke warm and just disappointing. I smelled something burnt and noticed it was my gnocchi. They tried to hide it under a massive amount of gravy that was surprisingly flavorless. $ 9 for three pieces of gnocchi… hmm. skip.
I was scared from all the bad reviews so I decided to get the New York Strip. It came on a generous bed of fries that was quite nice. The steak itself however was medium to well-​done despite my medium rare request. The outside was barely seared so I’m wondering if they just decided to steam it… The «sauce» on top had a strange aftertaste and i had to wipe it off. All in all, for a steak worth $ 26, I should have just gone to the market and gotten myself a Filet Mignon because I could have cooked it much better than this.
My bf got the lobster risotto. That was actually kind of decent but it was the first and only time I’ve ever said, «man… that’s a little TOO much butter.»
I don’t like paying $ 30+/person at a place where I consider myself a better chef… and I don’t even consider myself a very good cook.

Groupon or not, this was one of the worst, if not THE worst, dining experience of my life. I had wanted to try this place since it opened and got such rave reviews, so I jumped on the Groupon offering. My mistake!
I called on Friday night at 9pm to make a Saturday reservation; got the voicemail, which was full. Tried again at 9:45, got a person who was very helpful making a reservation for 5pm on Saturday.
I arrived at opening. The host/​server was very helpful and professional. I was seated and given water with a cucumber slice; nice tough. The original server did not have my table, so a friendly woman answered my questions and took my order. She also brought bread and butter. This is where things went downhill.
1. Bread and butter: lowest grade baguette slices; probably from Dominick’s or Jewel.
2. Appetizer 1 (brought simultaneously with Appetizer 2, FYI): Mussels in wine sauce: the $ 10 portion consisted of SIX (6) mussels, one of which was closed and inedible. Appalling to have $ 2 mussels! The sauce was mostly jarred garlic.
3. Appetizer 2: Polenta gnocchi with wild mushroom ragu on a fontina fonduta for $ 9: The three (3) gnocchi were dense and flavorless. There were FOUR (4) pieces of mushroom (that’s PIECES, not whole mushrooms), and they were domestic button mushrooms, not wild (I’m a biologist and cooking instructor, so I know my mushrooms), and lacked the flavor promised by wild mushrooms. The fonduta was thickened with raw flour, and was very unpleasant.
4. Entrée: Scallops over goat cheese grits with a green pea nage: My server said this entrée came with 3 – 4 scallops, for $ 24; pricey, but could be appropriate if done well. What I got were three PIECES of scallop, and I’m sure one large scallop was battered (amateur move), pan-​seared, then split in half, and one half was again halved to give three pieces. Only one side of each piece was seared, and two of the pieces had SQUARED edged! Again, as a biologist, I know scallops don’t come in that shape naturally, so they were manipulated in the kitchen. While the scallops were hot, the goat cheese grits were lukewarm; leftover? And the green pea nage was a purée, not a nage. AND NOTHING HAD FLAVOR! Even the scallops had no scallop flavor. VILE AND DISGUSTING for $ 24!
Tax was calculated on the pre-​Groupon discount, which is illegal. So, with tax and a tip on the full «value» of the food, I was out another $ 20, when the three dishes I received weren’t worth $ 20 in the first place.
If you haven’t used your Groupon, don’t. If you don’t have a Groupon, just stay away. This place should just shut its doors and quit insulting people.

Disappointing. Dinner with a friend on a Friday night, I was very surprised to arrive and for the restaurant to only have a few of the tables full.
Was it the website that makes you think you’ve made a reservation, but haven’t? Partly. Was is the bland food? Mostly.
For my entrée I had the scallops, which seemed like one scallop cut into three pieces (otherwise 3 small scallops) over a bed of very bland grits. No flavor peeked through in the meal, and it left me underwhelmed.
For dessert we had the pear tart which seemed a bit stale. The pastry wasn’t flaky, and again forgettable.
Service and ambiance had promise, but at the end of the day I was disappointed with the food (especially at the $ 20+ entrée price point).

For my birthday, my girlfriend wanted to take me to a brunch place for some good food. She got a groupon for Sweet & Savories. Too bad the groupon was only for non brunch meals. Since we were there we decided to give it a try since we heard good reviews
We both ordered the lobster brunch special that came with choice of salad or soup, we chose the arugula salad and grapefruit crème brûlée style. The argula salad was interesting but okay. The grapefruit was surprisingly good since I don’t like the bitterness of grapefruit but the carmelization balanced it out. The lobster was out of this world. I was a happy camper on my birthday.
We came here for dinner once (finally used our groupon) and got the lobster risotto (i notice a theme), seafood combination with potatoes, and mussels. The risotto rocked and my girlfriend finished it really fast. My seafood combo was okay (had too many potatoes) and the mussels they didn’t give enough.
All and All we really enjoyed their lobster dishes.

We went to Sweets and Savories with the Living Social deal for brunch and had a quite opposite response to the meal than all of the recent negative criticism.
To start, I really enjoyed the quaint, relaxing atmosphere. It is a very small mom and pop type set up so the little imperfections others might see, I kind of enjoy. It is a BYO and we brought a bottle of champagne to have mimosas which was nice. For the Brunch (which I guess is fairly new) you get a basket of sweets which were all delicious. I really enjoyed the cinnamon bun but everything was very tasty and was freshly homemade.
Included was also your choice of butternut squash soup (which I wasn’t a fan of, a little too much cinnamon for my taste) and a nice arugula and truffle oil salad. Then came our meals. I got the wild mushroom and fontina cheese omelet which was very tasty and well made. My boyfriend got the Breakfast Risotto which we both thought was fantastic! Very rich, made with pancetta, cheese served with poached egg on top. It was cooked very well, which is hard to do when making risotto, and the flavors (while very rich) came together perfectly.
I really enjoyed this place. My boyfriend and I both made comments that it was a brunch place we would feel comfortable taking our parents to when they come to town to visit.

Heard some disturbing issues between the owner and staff. The place was mysteriously pulled off OpenTable and the site taken down and replaced with a really chintzy looking version. Online search indicated not so savory monetary problems here.
I still have a Groupon and hope to be able to use it. I’m not going to hold my breath though. We’ll see how things go.
Here are a couple of write-​ups regarding the problems in their backroom:

I went here for the Sunday Brunch with my friend and absolutely loved it! I am dying to go back again! It’s just $ 14 for some classy breakfast food! Def make reservations though and it’s not a big place at all.
They serve you cucumber water with your brunch, some pastries and a choice of a few different little starters… I chose the salad. Then the main entrée came out which the chef himself served us! He explained the dish which makes it all that much more fun. I got the brunch risotto and I had never had anything like that. I am a risotto junkie… totally addicted and love them so when I saw this unique one with egg yolk and bacon in it I had to try it. I think this is going to go down as the best breakfast I’ve ever had, quite honestly!

Dinner overall was nothing amazing. Service was SLOW (took 1 hour for our entrees to come out after we ordered!!!), our appetizer order was taken down wrong, our soup entrée came out lukewarm, BUT everything else was «decent».
Bread basket would’ve been awesome if the bread was hot and the butter wasn’t rock hard, but hey, there’s beauty in simplicity too I guess.
Mussel appetizer was highlight of the evening. For $ 9, we had at least a dozen mussles cooked to perfection. Swimming in a white wine, onion, garlic, butter, and cream broth, we actually asked for extra bread to soak up the sauce!
Red and yellow beet salad — we asked for no goat cheese but the waiter forgot. The salad was small, only 3 chunks of beets and they seemed to have forgotten the yellow beets. :(
Seafood stew — was not a stew… it was a brothy soup. the portion size was no bigger than the appetizer mussels. While flavorful, there was literally a 1oz piece of fish, half a scallop, and 5 mussels. Pricey for the amount of food you get for sure.
Burger — The truffle mayo was the highlight of the burger. They could have used additional toppings… CHEESE being one of them.
Frites on the side — delicious! Hot, perfectly fried, well-​salted.
Our meal wasn’t bad, but we probably won’t be back here again.

Came here with my groupon, which I had tried to use a few weeks back with 2 girlfriends. When we came to the restaurant around 6pm on a Thursday night and the host told us that there were no tables available, we were pretty perplexed. There was no one in there! The restaurant was totally empty. Were they being rude or did like 40 people have 6pm dinner reservations and they were all late? At once? Oh well, moving on.
I then came back with my boyfriend. I was surprised at how painfully slow the service was. The couple behind us were seated after us and were served their food first, which is a huge no-​no. Although this is supposed to be a nice restaurant, we were given white bread and cans of pop. The salmon that I ordered was a small flavorless fillet on top of lentils that weren’t cooked well. My bf’s meal was better, the Amish chicken hen or something. For high prices, incredibly slow service, and mediocre food, I wouldn’t recommend coming here. The one thing that was positive was that when asked, we were seated at a table far in the back away from the cold door. That gets the one star.

Before I went there, I was very skeptical. After reading all the negative reviews on food, service, and reactions from waiter to Groupon, my expectation was very low. After eating there, I give this place a solid 4, and I’d give it 4.5 if there were half stars.
We went there on a Friday night for dinner and I had a groupon to use. The service was a bit slow in the beginning, but the waiter was very attentive after that. He asked me if I had a groupon and asked me to write the email address at the back. No complaining or bitching.
I had some mushroom, corn grits, and truffle oil as starter – it was amazing, the flavors were balanced and corn grits were very yummy. Bf had some tomato soup, which was the only average dish we’ve had that night. For entrées, I had the lobster risotto and bf had the sea scallops. The lobster risotto was perfectly cooked and had large chunks of lobsters in it. It was one of the best risottos I’ve had. Sea Scallops were also very delicious, well seasoned and cooked to perfection. We also had lobster mashed potato as side. Again, it was THE best mashed potato I’ve had. It might have to do with all the large lobster chunks in it, or it was just simply perfect. For dessert, we had their special, pumpkin cheesecake. It was unique and yummy too.
I would recommend go there with small parties as the place is a bit small. And I think most of the complaints on services are from large groups of people. I’d totally go back and eat the lobster risotto and mashed potato again.

As my Italian forefathers once said «fuggetaboutit!»
I’ve eaten at some pretty amazing spots on this Chicago trip, but this place takes the cake. A gourmet bistroserving a 3 course meal for $ 29. You can choose a wide range of appetizers, entrees and desserts. But if you want the crème brumle, dine early – tear – they ran out :(
I started with the poached lobster claw in a cold crème soup. I didn’t realize it was cold and may not have ordered it had I know, but I was pleasnatly surprised. It was like nothing I’ve tasted before. My friend got the endive salad which I sampled and was also amazing – the rocquefort was top notch.
Now to the 2^nd course. They NY strip cooked Frnech style – Steak Friite– was literally 1 pound. Yes, 16ounces! I even asked. I was shocked to see it. I also noticed other diners wide eyed when it was brought out to them. They could honestly serve half the cut and people would be satisfied. Sadly I did not finish. But it wasn’t because it wasn’t amazing.
The fries on the side which are cooked in beef fat were amazing and had a hint of sweet (since the place is called Sweet and Savories). Tip: get the truffle mayo for the fries… it’s a taste explosion.
I had some of my friends lobster risoto which was delicious but a tad rich.
For dessert we shared the orange cheesecake and the gourmet cheese plate. One of the best meals I’ve had in a long time.
It’s also BYOB so that cuts down on the booze cost.

First of all, half priced menus on Tuesdays no longer exist. It was sorely disappointing to find out that it was no longer being offered, but the $ 29 prix fixe meal is no bad deal either.
My only issue with S&S is the service. My friend and I walked in on a Tuesday night to be met by rude staff service (he looked us up and down before even saying hello) who despite the half empty room behind him, claimed that since we had no reservations, we would have to wait an hour until 8 p.m. when he could maybe fit us in.
Whatever, we’re flexible. My friend and I went across the street to McDunnas (THEY are nice) where we had a few drinks before heading to S&S. We came back to see the SAME HALF EMPTY ROOM. Are you kidding me?
The food was sub-​par. Definitely nothing that left a lasting impression. Risotto was ok, the cheese had a great flavor, but again, nothing memorable or that I would recommend.

Sweet: sticky buns, coffee cake, scones, and muffins made in-​house, served family style and included with your brunch.
Sweet: $ 14 brunch prix fixe! Comes with a choice of an app and your main dish, along with the aforementioned sweets. And cucumber water — booyah!
Sweet: they have a mushroom and goat cheese omelet! But I’d pick the risotto, steak ‘n eggs, or lobster hash over this.
NOT SO SWEET: being asked if you want the rest of your omelet wrapped up, to which you reply yes, and then 10 minutes later, being told that someone threw it away. Wth? I’d still prefer the last half of my omelet over the 3 apologetic sticky buns I was sent home with.
S&S is a small, 50-​or-​so seater restaurant on a beat down stretch of Fullerton and seems to have gotten a makeover since the last time I’ve been here.

I am going to give this place 5 stars again. I came to give my friends a goodbye dinner before they moved off to Tennessee. I think that this place might have given them pause to stay. I came on Wednesday when the Kobe beef burger with foie gras is $ 10 dollars. Obviously, we all got that and the burger was of course, delicious like it always is. However, the other items we ordered were simply amazing. The mussels and sausage were great, the mussels were the right consistency and the mix of the salty, slightly spicy sausage and the sweetness of the tomato sauce was excellent. Decorum was the only thing that kept me from simply digging into it with the small loaf of bread they gave with it. The Gnocchi/​escargot was the other appetizer we ordered. I liked it, I always love escargot and the gnocchi was a good mix of texture.
I think I gushed about the burger in my previous review so onto the sweets. The three of us split three desserts: Chocolate cornmeal pie, Meyer Lemon curd tart, Pumpkin cake. We started out with the lemon tart, so good! The lemon was slightly sweet as well as being tart and the raspberry coulis was a great accompaniment. The pumpkin cake was also delicious and so seasonal, the crème anglaise was also another just divine. After this, I convinced my friends-​it didn’t take much to get another dessert. The chocolate cornmeal pie, was like a brownie but the pb cream just made it.
The evening was great, the food the service and obviously the BYOB never gets complaints from me.

prix fixe sunday brunch is awesome.
you’ll have so much food you really won’t know what to do with all of it. try to stuff as much in as possible. that is what i did. and then proceeded to pass out for a couple mins before i had to pay the bill. classy! i know.
anyway, sweet and savories, true to the name. the first course that comes is a plate of sweets: pastries and cakes. coffee cake — this was delicious albeit not what i usually think coffee cake is, but so moist and so delicious. chocolate muffin thing — this was ok but it was still eaten. palmier — this was crispy and owned up to the usual deliciousness. fig scone — this was absolutely delicious. then there was the cinnamon roll with icing on top. not as ooey gooey as i liked but still solid. relax this is only the appetizer. and yes, all of them are regular sized, meaning u could probably eat just 2 or 3 and be full.
but who stops there?
the next course i got the sweet potato bisque. sweet and savory. rich and decadent and everything that you would think of for a delicious bisque. topped with chives which is comparable to icing for a cupcake. anyway, my friend ordered the arugula salad which was very crisp, fresh, and paired well with the richness of the soup.
i opted to go with the eggs benedict with ham because what could be better than poached eggs, hollandaise, and fat slices of ham? nothing. except for the english muffin it came on. because it tasted fresh baked and i couldnt get enough.
my friend got the lobster hash. cubed potatoes cooked perfectly golden and what the hell, she got a bunch of lobster. i mean i was expecting strings of it but when i saw a claw and more, i was a little jealous and furious on the inside. but she shared, so… all was well.
be sure to make reservations because if you don’t, you don’t eat.