Sullivan's in Naperville

My office had a Christmas lunch at Sullivan’s last week. One of my department’s executives had suggested it. My table shared two appetizers: fried calamari and seared ahi tuna. Both of these were excellent. I really liked the calamari very fresh with a nice light breading. The tuna was very rare and fresh tasting.

I ordered a bone in rib eye, medium rare. It came with their wedge salad with house blue cheese dressing. I didn’t think I would like this, because I am not a big fan of iceberg lettuce. But it was terrific, their house dressing is outstanding. It seemed like my whole table raved about the salad.

Unfortunately things went downhill from here.

My steak was very rare, which was not a big problem. I didn’t want to hold up the group, so I didn’t say anything. What was a problem was the meat. It was chewy and tough, with too much gristle. I barely could choke it down. Since the executive was near my table I was a little intimidated to send it back. My perception is this is a high-end steak house and this was a very bad steak.

The steak also had a flavored crust to it. I didn’t expect this. Either I missed it on the menu or because of our group I didn’t hear the waitress. I didn’t personally care for it. Also, at the suggestion of the waitress everyone at our table had their peppercorn bourbon steak sauce. I was smart to order it on the side. The only flavor on this was very peppery. The others at my table told me that they didn’t care for it either. But they got theirs on the steak, while I had it on the side.

I was hoping to end the meal on a positive note, so I ordered the triple layer chocolate cake. I thought this was dry and not very tasty.

Maybe I caught them on a bad day, but I can’t see ever going back here. I would recommend them for their appetizers, but one doesn’t go to a steakhouse for appetizers.

Sullivan’s
244 S Main St
Naperville, IL
(630) 305-0230

D.

sullivan's is an average meal for the prices, in my experience. You're better off hitting one of the top joints for what you'll spend there.

Although, to be fair, I had a terrible flavorless ribeye at EJ's Place in Skokie two weeks ago, despite their prices and their meat being sourced from the same provider of the Chop House. Also, depite David Burke's being my favorite steakhouse, I've been very disappointed in my last two meals there.

Maybe I'm only noticing it more now than before, but it seems to me as thought out of every 4 expensive steak dinners I have

Yeah, corporate christmas outings aren't often heard in the same phrase as good food in my experience. One year they voted to go to Buca di Beppo and had the worst possible wine ever. The next year we went to Weber grill and I had quite possible the driest piece of "medium rare" fish I have ever had, aside from Braxton when I had a free meal coupon and had the most oversalted not so fresh fish.

Sullivan's has definitely gone down hill in the past couple of years. I was there a couple of times recently, once on a work thing and once with a gift certificate, and both times it was average food at above average prices. For work dinners now, I go to Morton's, which is also in Naperville. A bit more expensive, but the quality is there.

gooseberry wrote:Yeah, corporate christmas outings aren't often heard in the same phrase as good food in my experience. One year they voted to go to Buca di Beppo and had the worst possible wine ever.

With all due respect, no one should go to Buca di Beppo for the wine list. The food is pretty darn good southern Italian though. I take my department there every year for our Christmas lunch, with tomorrow being this year's event.

John Danza wrote:With all due respect, no one should go to Buca di Beppo for the wine list. The food is pretty darn good southern Italian though. I take my department there every year for our Christmas lunch, with tomorrow being this year's event.

I'll leave the "darn good" part alone, but I can't help but note that Buca di Beppo resembles Italian food about as much as I resemble Brad Pitt.

Kennyz wrote:

John Danza wrote:With all due respect, no one should go to Buca di Beppo for the wine list. The food is pretty darn good southern Italian though. I take my department there every year for our Christmas lunch, with tomorrow being this year's event.

I'll leave the "darn good" part alone, but I can't help but note that Buca di Beppo resembles Italian food about as much as I resemble Brad Pitt.

I have to disagree. I'm 100% Italian and my grandparents all were first or second generation immigrants from southern Italy. The food they made was very much on the order of the style you get at Buca di Beppo. Don't let chefs who read a couple of books and travel to Italy a week a year tell you differently.

John Danza wrote:

Kennyz wrote:

John Danza wrote:With all due respect, no one should go to Buca di Beppo for the wine list. The food is pretty darn good southern Italian though. I take my department there every year for our Christmas lunch, with tomorrow being this year's event.

I'll leave the "darn good" part alone, but I can't help but note that Buca di Beppo resembles Italian food about as much as I resemble Brad Pitt.

I have to disagree. I'm 100% Italian and my grandparents all were first or second generation immigrants from southern Italy. The food they made was very much on the order of the style you get at Buca di Beppo. Don't let chefs who read a couple of books and travel to Italy a week a year tell you differently.

Last year I ate something labeled carbonara at Buca di Beppo. It was alfredo sauce with chunks of chicken breast and peas. A travesty.

Kennyz wrote:Last year I ate something labeled carbonara at Buca di Beppo. It was alfredo sauce with chunks of chicken breast and peas. A travesty.

Too funny, I was just about to post this from the menu and inquire as to its authenticity:

Chicken Carbonara
Prosciutto, tender chicken breast and peas with imported Italian spaghetti tossed in our creamy Alfredo sauce.

Bucca di Beppo was one of the worst company x-mas dinner outings I have been on. Maybe a small step up from Olive Garden.

The last couple years have been good - Holy Mackerel last year, tonight Ditkas.

as for Sullivans its never really been on my list to try, I have never heard many good things about it.

Bocca di Beppo.....possibly the worst restaurant I've dined at....ever....call it southern Italian....whatever....I call it simply bad.

I have only one Sullivan's experience to recount, at least 5 years ago and on a gift certificate my wife received from her then employer for Christmas, so it more or less fits the theme. In fact, this fits in with some of the other posts here, too.

Sat down, settled in, turned down the offer of a cocktail and inquired about wines. Our waitress, as is often the case here in the suburbs, was fundamentally clueless about food and wine, and only vaguely understood how to waitress - not to be too snarky, she seemed to be a recent college dropout who was clearly doing this because she could not find any other job (we actually did have a conversation about where she went to high school, but I do not wish to besmirch a local school by association, so I will not mention it other than the say she was not an endorsement for the value of parochial over public schools). She had apparently been recently trained on how to help the patrons enjoy their experience better by explaining everything to them, and she was resolute in doing her job. Thus ensued a series of explanations on everything from what a grape varietal is, to how the potatoes are prepared.On the one hand, it was a hilarious series of half truths and misunderstandings, but when I asked a question (I believe it was simply what vintage the wine was as the wine list omitted that piece of information) the reply was condescending, implying that no sensible person could possibly want to know that. So, in the end, the endless stream of useless misinformation (no, I really do not need au gratin potatoes, or whatever, misexplained in great detail), combined with the condescending replies to the questions I dared to ask, and the mediocre food (bad texture, minimal flavor in the steak, and everything else was blah) just aggravated me, and I have never gone back. Hey, I may be a rube and an idiot, but I do not go out to dine in order to have this pointed out to me. By the way, as the lack of vintages suggested, the wine list was pretty awful. My guess is that a martini would have been a much better choice.

I would prefer to get a steak at Hugo's any day of the week, and their wait staff is generally quite professional.

Happy Holidays, Sullivan's.

I really don't care for Sullivan's in Naperville, but I've found their food to be okay (though somewhat overpriced). I actually had a pretty good filet in the bar there about a year and a half ago. I've always found their service to be a bit amateurish for a restaurant trying to be a top-tier steakhouse. I've encountered some of the same odd behavior that Dickson mentioned, including servers' constant and unrelenting attempts to "upsell" the customer (e.g., "you just HAVE to order your steak oscar-style", etc.). Sullivan's was the hot spot in town 10 years ago or so when it first opened, but now that there are much better choices nearby, I really don't think about it much. If you want a true top-tier steakhouse, Morton's and Capital Grille both have moved into the area. Like Dickson, we prefer Hugo's, as we can get steaks as well as their crabcakes, etc., and the service generally is really good.

With all due respect, no one should go to Buca di Beppo for the wine list. The food is pretty darn good southern Italian though. I take my department there every year for our Christmas lunch, with tomorrow being this year's event...

I have to disagree. I'm 100% Italian and my grandparents all were first or second generation immigrants from southern Italy. The food they made was very much on the order of the style you get at Buca di Beppo. Don't let chefs who read a couple of books and travel to Italy a week a year tell you differently

I have to be honest and say straightaway that I have never eaten at a Buca di Beppo, nor at an Olive Garden nor Romano's Macaroni Grill, nor any other of these kinds of chain places, and further that I have no desire to do so. In fact, I rarely eat in any Italian restaurants in the United States because a) I eat Italian food most days of the week at home; and b) they tend to disappoint rather than delight.

Be that as it may, looking over the Buca di Beppo menu with some care, I think I can say with absolute certainty that their food bears only a very, very indirect relationship to actual southern Italian cooking. There are several levels of remove between the two: Buca di Beppo serves a corporately streamlined and (at some level) industrially produced version of a set of American adaptations of the already americanised cooking of those Italian-Americans who had streamlined and redesigned their cooking in various ways to adapt to the new conditions they found here in these United States.

I understand well what you mean regarding "chefs who read a couple of books and travel to Italy a week a year" -- there are still a lot of bizarre misconceptions put forth about Italian foodways in the US -- but, like you, I too grew up in an Italian family but one that was rather conservative with respect to things cultural and especially with respect to the cuisine. What we ate -- and what I still eat most days -- resembles pretty closely what my relatives in Italy, with whom I've spent a lot of time, eat, and that doesn't resemble what I see on the menu of Buca di Beppo at all. Not at all.

Perhaps the food at Buca di Beppo, counter to my expectations for a corporate chain-kitchen, is very good -- I haven't eaten there and don't know how it tastes. But I can judge from the list of dishes and the brief descriptions of those dishes that the cuisine they offer is only very remotely related to the cuisines of southern Italy.

pnking wrote:Bocca di Beppo.....possibly the worst restaurant I've dined at....ever....call it southern Italian....whatever....I call it simply bad.

So then, please, let's not call it "southern Italian." It would be far more appropriate to call it "southern Minnesotan."

Antonius

Sullivan's was a decent restaurant about 5 years ago. We'll still stop in for a cocktail and listen to music on occasion - but Hugo's will get our $ for dinner.