Mecenat Bistro & Gathering Place

We ate here last February– I tried to post a review on open table, but for some strange reason it never posted.
Still the worst meal of our year. I had the vegetarian –rice? the vegetables tasted like fish-​n were inconsistently cooked. It was inedible. I sent it back after 15 min of trying. I never send food back. My husbands burger was edible but not satisfying. Maybe we ordered wrong. I thought they would be out of business by now. That was our 2 nd time eating there.1^st time was ok… There was no, love coming out if that kitchen.
I looked around, most people were eating heavier meat dishes.

Mecenat is a really classy place! It fits well in what is already in place in western springs. The inside is decorated nicely and has a nice ambiance.
The menu has a nice selection of a wide variety of options. We got the soup, crab cakes, sliders, and a salad. All of the food was good.
The major downside to mecenat is the price. It’s way overpriced on the menu as well as the drink menu. It’s best to come here for the specials instead of regular menu items…

We had a wonderful meal for valentines day! Great atmosphere and music too!

My fiancé and I went a while ago for the Tuesday burger special. The burger was delicious and the portions were a great value ($ 7). My favorite thing was the truffle fries, totally worth the upgrade! We can’t wait to go back!

This was our first visit and we were very pleased. Ordered the cheeseburgers and a couple glasses of sangria. The burgers were cooked perfectly and served with French fries. The sangrias were large pours. There seemed to be a lot of wait staff for the number of people in the restaurant but they were not overbearing. Overall we were very impressed. The décor was very nice, the restaurant was clean and the staff was attentive. Plus the food was great. Tuesday nights they have a burger special which we ordered. It was so good we had to double check that they didn’t mistakenly serve us the Kobe burger which is also on their menu. Plenty of free parking out front. Looking forward to going back and trying some of the other entrees on the menu.

Wanted to love it since it’s in our neighborhood. Wait staff was great (Junior), ambience was pleasant, however, the food was really so so. Actually disappointing even though we had a Groupon. Won’t return.

My parents live right in town and I usually come in here one or two times per year (while visiting). The place seems to have been getting better in the past few years with the change in owners. My mom and I stopped in for lunch Tuesday; she got the caesar salad, I got the wedge salad, and we got a an appetizer of smoked salmon with cucumbers and lemon dill cream cheese. We were both quite happy with our food. I’ve especially liked that they keep the wedge with blue cheese dressing on their menu — one of the best blue cheese dressings I’ve had.
Ambiance was a bit dark inside during lunch, but the server was excellent. He was attentive, nice, and clearly worked hard. My brother and I are planning to go for dinner on Saturday.

The overall experience was fine. The service, music and wine list were very good. The food was just ok, and not worth it for the price. I ordered chicken and it was dry, the mashed potatoes served with it were good, but the little chunks of zucchini on the plate were unmemorable as was the calamari appetizer and doughnut dessert. Entrees for others I dined with were ok, but nothing worth noting. I really wanted to love this place because it is a local restaurant, but I think I would only go back for drinks and maybe appetizers at the bar.

New menu again, this updated for the warm season. This was an uneven dinner, with some definite stars and some stuff that was not so good.
The stars of the evening were definitely the entrees. I had the New Zealand grass fed NY strip steak. This was a super tender piece of meat, flavorful and juicy. It was under seasoned however after a bit of salt and pepper it was one of the best steaks I’ve had in a while. The sides that came with the steak were problematic however. The warm potato salad was funky which was surprising since the menu just said «warm potato salad» and did not mention the fact that there was blue cheese in it. Now I happen to love blue cheese and I found the funkiness to be tasty but if I did not like blue cheese I would have been really upset. There was also ratatouille on the plate which was just ok, and inexplicably some raw french horn mushrooms. The menu said the mushrooms were «sautéed.» Raw ones are just a waste.
My wife had the wild-​caught Atlantic skate wing. This was a delicious, but small, piece of fish. It tasted fresh and was paired with a nice creamy caper sauce.
We had some appetizers that were generally ok. The bacon wrapped dates were ok for me but they’re not my favorites. The truffled fries were good. The special soft-​shell crab was just ok; what’s the deal with the weird salsa?
For dessert we shared the fried dough with brandied cherries, Tahitian vanilla gelato and chocolate sauce. Is it bad to say I’ve had better at the local carnival? The fried dough was good enough — since when is freshly fried dough ever bad? However, the cherries tasted like the cheap red ones out of a jar and the gelato was nothing special. This dessert was definitely a disappointment. Leave the cherries out of it, give me a cup of chocolate sauce for dipping, and I’m good to go. Don’t insult me with vapid cherries and mediocre ice cream.
The service was polite and the wine selection is excellent. Just a few tweaks here and there and the food could improve tremendously.

Great spot in our new neighborhood. Wednesday night is ½ price bottles of wine– pairs nicely with their cheese and charcuterie selection. For our entrées we had the strip steak with truffle fries (delicious!) and the portobello mushroom on ratatouille. The ambiance was also nice, on the more casual side. Will definitely go again.

I wanted to love this place. We had been in before for drinks/​apps under the prior ownership and thought it was fine. We had a groupon but never made it in (we have two kids but they dont have a kids menu so we had to wait until a kid free night) until after the groupon had expired but it was still worth the «paid» value.
We went in with another couple and decided to do small plates. Our server was great, very knowledgable and fun. However most of the food left a lot to be desired. We had a cheese/​meat tray which was pretty tasty. The pork belly was lukewarm, bland, and mushy. Bacon wrapped dates were decent but far from the best I’ve had. We had a few other unmemorable dishes. For dessert the server suggested panna cotta which was bland goo. It was really awful. Now, I’ve never had other panna cottas to compare it to, but this stuff had no taste and was like an opaque jello. We expresses our displeasure with the pork belly and the panna cotta but there was no offer to take them off the check. Guess that’s just not somet
Too many other great options in the LG/​WS/​Hinsdale area. Mecenat needs to step up the game with the food or it will not survive.

Tuesday night special is a delicious $ 5 cheeseburger WITH french fries! Small plate Crab Cakes are fantastic too! From the entrees I like the Braised Short Ribs, tender and tasty.
They also offer a private dining room, nice bar with two average sized HDTV’s and overall is easy to carry on a conversation.
Waitstaff is friendly and knowledgeable.

I don’t know why some of the people below me gave the ratings they did. Maybe they’re use to over paying for poor quality food. My husband and I love Mecenat, so much we drive from Lisle! It’s «our place.»
Everything from drinks, appetizers, entrees and dessert is always fantastic! The décor is modern and artsy. Everything is always clean and the fact that you can see into the kitchen even makes me trust the establishment even more. Trust me I was a server for 7 years… if you can’t see into the kitchen… trust me there’s usually a pretty good reason why…
The service staff is always really nice and can answer any question. Even if they don’t know the exact answer they will go find out for you… so to everyone below that is complaining that they’re questions weren’t answer .I’m sure they were, but you didn’t like the response since it didn’t work out in your favor. It’s a good sign if a server goes to ask the chef or management for an answer…(Again, I worked as a server for 7 years for big chains. if I didn’t know the real answer and didn’t have time to ask I just made it up.)
Anyway, Mecenat is a wonderful place and you must try the truffle fries! I’ve also had the burger, rigatoni, and stuffed mushroom. Everything is always delicious and you must get a «cinnamon toast crunch martini!»
To all the doubters below… I bet you go to a restaurant that charges you double for what you order. most likely it wasn’t as good of quality, but since you’re at the «Fancy restaurant» that you want to impress everyone you’re at you don’t complain about anything and then you don’t write a great
review. You only comment on businesses that upset you.
Go try Mecenat for yourself, you won’t regret it!

A cold snowy night and all I wanted was some great food and wine served by knowledgeable servers. What I got at Mecenat? Okay food and not such great service.
First of all– the place looks pretty much the same as it did under the previous ownership. It’s just that the last owners were much friendlier.
The hostess who greeted me was gruff– basically not welcoming and given she was my first impression of the place– they were already off to a rough start. BTW– I was there, most recently, on a snowy, Tuesday night so it’s not like the place was busy.
I was gestured to go and look for my friend, who I found, but who still hadn’t seen a server and she had been there for 15 minutes. When we flagged down the lone server– he really didn’t know wine or the menu he presented to us. After much dialogue– I finally asked if I could have a taste of one of the wines and he told me he’d have to charge me for the taste. .. really? Whatever– turns out he didn’t charge me but the mere mention of charging me for a taste of a glass of wine set me off.
My next service issue came when I asked what made the steak not «gluten free» (there are clearly marked options on the menu) He didn’t know and didn’t volunteer to ask. Assuming it was in the herb crust– I ordered the steak without that. My friend had a chicken sandwich.
It took forever for our food to come up and when it finally did– my steak was lukewarm. My friend fared better with her sandwich.
Finally for dessert– we split the apple strudel. This was actually quite good but when I asked for a glass of port to go with it– I was told they didn’t have port. Odd that a place so focused on wines wouldn’t offer up a port with dessert.
There are daily specials (ike $ 5 burgers on the night I was there) and plenty of free parking out in front along the tracks. They recently opened for lunch as well.
All in all I was disappointed in the food and service here. The friendliest interchange all night was a hearty hello from the bartender as I was coming back from the restroom. As a neighborhood gathering place– this place has a long way to go.
Good potential, just don’t expect to feel like they actually want your business.

I think I may have to rename this place… Hot-​Mece-​Not. I wanted to like you, I really did, it just didn’t play out that way.
Osi V and I stopped in here for a later Thursday evening dinner. It was kind of hidden away in a little strip mall (which is also home to one of my FAVE bakeries!), so hidden that I have never even noticed it before now! Crazy. When you walk in, it is decorated a little on the different side for my taste, but it was okay. We did notice that all the dining room chairs did not match and when we asked our server, she told us that all this stuff was just left from the previous owners so it was just what was left. Weird.
Our waitress was friendly and so was the owner who came over to greet us. We ordered some drinks, wine, beer and micheladas (bloody Mary with beer instead of vodka). The first michelada I got was awesome! Tiny serving, but awesome nonetheless! But then the next ones weren’t so great, so sad.
We ordered Tempura Zucchini and Chicken, Chorizo Quesadilla and Lobster Bisque. The zucchini was decent, needed more salt but it was nice and light and super crisp. Who doesn’t love tempura? But the dip that was with it, tasted like something you would get out of a can, seriously, it was nasty! The quesadilla was average, at best. Nothing special about it, and the shreds of iceberg lettuce was just disappointing. Now on to the worst dish of the evening, that lobster bisque. As soon as it got to the table, I felt like gagging. The color and the smell… oh man… the smell. It was sooooo fishy and the color was like a greyish/​salmon-​y color, yikes on all accounts! The owner even tried to fix it, but it was beyond repair at that point. I have never had a bisque that bad.
We were so disappointed with our appetizers that we didn’t even order a main dish, and also because the prices were pretty high for those items. We didn’t want to risk spending $ 25 on something that was going to maybe be mediocre at best.
Overall, not my place, not my place at all. For a higher end dining experience, you are much better off going across the tracks to Davanti. Sorry Mecenat.

We live nearby and heard good things about Mecenat so when we saw a Groupon available, we jumped on the purchase. And so glad we did — we ordered 3 small plates — the grilled shrimp on cheese polenta, the crawfish and corn fritters and the smoked salmon plate. The crawfish and corn fritters were AMAZING! Easily one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. I enjoyed the salmon and grilled shrimp as well but there was something about the polenta that I didn’t care for. It almost seemed like it was sitting out too long? But that was the only low point of the meal. If you like seafood, corn and fritters, I really recommend ordering the crawfish/​corn fritters because they really were delish. Great service and bar selections too!

You know how people get Groupons just to get some discounted food and never go back? Well, this is definitely a place I would go back to. They had the most variety of bruschetta I have ever seen and we got the Smoked Prosciutto Bruschetta (try saying that 5 times fast. I certainly could not even after spending half of my dinner annoying everybody around trying to say it normally just once) and it was delicious. I hate tomatoes and I never get bruschetta but not all of theirs has tomatoes on it.
YOU BETTER GET AN ORDER OF ONE KIND OF BRUSCHETTA!!! –read this if you don’t feel like reading the nonsense I have written above!

Ended up here after walking out of Davanti Enoteca because that place was too loud and busy. We ended up loving this place – the food and drinks were excellent – we had some appetizers and dessert and I loved my key lime martini; the owner and his daugher were very attentive and friendly – really love getting great service by people who actually CARE that you came to their business and spending your money there.

Tried this place recently on a friend’s recommendation, and couldn’t be more pleased. I’m not a wine drinker, so I was initially hesitant, but any trace of that was overcome by both the service and the food.
The décor is warm and inviting, and the staff is incredibly attentive. This is definitely the kind of place that you are remembered, and it seemed like the crowd is fairly regular. For an upscale restaurant (with a decidedly well-​heeled clientele, I saw some diamond rings that would put Harry Winston to shame), that’s an accomplishment. People who can afford to eat anywhere don’t typically choose to go to the same place over and over unless it’s phenomenal. Just as an aside, I really enjoyed that while this place was a nice restaurant with a great menu, you could still come in dressed in jeans and be comfortable. So if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like unnecessary pretentiousness (like me)-don’t worry. This place isn’t pretentious, but it is the kind of place you take a foodie friend or a date, not a place you bring ill-​behaved children.
The menu is small, but well-​rounded. This isn’t Chili’s. From the things that I tasted, everything is flawlessly done. I’d prefer a handful of incredible options over a page full of sub-​par, poorly executed items any day. All the selections were fresh, locally sourced when possible (I asked, because I’m a pain in the butt), and it was clear that a great deal of care went into the menu.
I tried a few things: the Wagyu sliders (amazing), the chopped salad (very good, and very fresh, no wilted/​soggy greens), and finally the butterfish. All was fantastic. No complaints. Portions were substantial, food was well cooked and delicious. I enjoyed every bite.
I will definitely return, bearing more friends in future. This place is a winner in my book. I’d highly suggest checking it out.

What a great little wine and café at Mecenat in Western Springs. Great spot in a small little town. They have a really good wine selection and interesting menu. Granted, I only tried the apps while i was there but they were super good. Try the grilled Brie with arugula pesto and orange honey served with grill garlic bread. Yummy. Also try the smoked salmon over toast. Paired well with our wine.
Space is bigger than you would think from the outside. Could fit 100 people easily. With a large section available for private events.
If your in this area, try Mecenat!