Adams Café & Deli in Wheeling

On my way home from the bank today, I passed a place with banners announcing a Grand Opening. I discovered, upon checking the place out, that it is, in fact, nearly six weeks old -- but that's still pretty new.

Adams Café and Deli features "American and European Cuisine" -- though it is heavily weighted away from America and toward Eastern Europe.

The Café is buffet only: $6.95 for lunch, $8.95 for dinner, and $9.95 all day on weekends. I was there for lunch, and what was offered was impressive. Everything was fresh, good, and tasty. I wasn't able to try everything, but I gave it my best effort.

The soup was a dill-loaded vegetable potage with potatoes and broccoli dominating, but also containing corn, carrots, peas, onion, and a bit of cream. Quite pleasant.

Excellent appetizers/salads included fish and veg en gelée, cucumber salad (exceptional -- lots of pepper and without any noticeable sugar, which is more to my taste than the sweet versions), “Bulgarian salad” (a delightful combination of cubed tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, and dill pickle), steak tartar (surprisingly good), cabbage salad, and potato salad with peas. It also offered two varieties (sour cream or vinegar) of pickled herring, which I skipped (not a fan of fishy fish), and I skipped the handsome sandwiches on gnarly, grain-intensive bread, just because I didn't want to fill up on bread.

The hot section offered rice pilaf, Bigos (“hunters sauerkraut” stew with chicken), hot beet “salad,” London broil (well done, but still tender and flavorful, and, despite being in a sauce, showing signs of char around the edges -- actually quite exceptionally good), pork tenderloin with portabella mushrooms, potato pancakes, and stuffed cabbage. Also on the hot table, but not sampled (just too much to try) were boiled potatoes, breaded chicken cutlets, grilled drumsticks, and meat with dumplings.

I was too full to tackle the cheese blintzes, cookies, or pastry, but they looked lovely.

Everything ranged from pretty darn good to really excellent and even exceptional -- for $6.95.

The dining room is modest but attractive, with lots of honey-colored wood, ochre walls, a large stone fireplace, and tastefully subdued artwork.

I wouldn’t consider this a destination restaurant, but if you’re in the area and enjoy Eastern European food, it’s definitely worth checking out -- but come hungry.

On my way out, I stopped in the deli next door, just to browse. It’s small but thoughtfully supplied. The offerings lean heavily toward handsome meats (salamis and such), breads, and salads (a few of which were on the buffet, as well), but it also offers pastry, kefir, and other Eastern European delights. I’ll be back.

So, if you find yourself in the Wheeling area, here’s one more option for dining.

Adams Café & Deli
252 McHenry Rd.
Wheeling, IL 60090
847-850-5770

Well, Cynthia, considering the lack of decent lunch options up here, you sold me before I even finished reading your post. I skipped down to the address part, and decided I was going today. THEN, I went back and read from the beginning. Today at high noon I headed over to give it a whirl. I'm certainly glad I did. Side note - what's up with that roasted chicken place a few doors down? If I'm not mistaken, it had a Latin name? Next week, next week...Back to Adam's. I'm definitely not the foremost authority on this type of food by any means, but I was very well please at what I had. I didn't even look at the soup, or try any of the gelee things, and the only cold salad I had was the cucumber salad which, was not sweet as Cynthia noted, so it was a hit with me. Small buffet, think most of the hot stuff (if not all was housemade.) Lots of Eastern European being spoken here by the proprietors and the clientelle. About ten other ppl dining when I went, and I think only a few of them were not speaking a European language.The buffet is set up with a smal section of soups and breads, followed by the cold stuff and salads, then the main part houses 8 or so hot items, then a small tiny section at the end has a tray or two of sweets. Not expansive by any stretch, and the warming trays were on the smallish side. Everything was piping hot.


Plate 1. New camera, sorry. Seriously, I don't know what happened to this pic. Clockwise from cucumber salad: Golobki (stuffed cabbage,) Bigos (hunter stew,) chicken cutlet, potato dumplings, pork tenderloin with mushroom:

Bigos was not my favorite, but it wasn't BAD. The golobki were a winner for me. Lots of onion flavor in the filling. The pork tenderloin and cucumber salad won best on plate.

Plate 2. Better picture, same camera settings, so I don't know what happened on that last pic. Clockwise from top: few desert offerings, nothing special, but not BAD at all. Then, the triangular thing was a cheese blintze, a few meat dumplings, the london broil (snagged a pink piece,) and then a few circular potato pancakes.

The london broil was very decent, definitely had a nice char on the outside. I also found myself gobbling up all of those meat dumplings. couldn't make it through a third plate, but armed with my new knowledge, when I go back, I think I'll target the meaty dishes, and the stuffed cabbage. The pork, chicken cutlets, and london broil were very good.

Thanks for posting about this joint, Cynthia. Now I have nice lttle lunch hot spot right there: Pita Inn, Jimenez, Market Square, and Adam's!

Glad you liked it, seebee. And it's nice to know I'm not the only one who doesn't want sugar in a cucumber salad.

It's closed.