Beelow's Steakhouse

I had a Groupon to this place. I have never been before and I couldn’t find any comments related to Beelow’s on LTH.

My wife and I went Sunday. We sat on their patio. This was a great spot. It was covered with open side on 2 ends. They had 2 fireplaces, an outside bar, an outside kitchen (they were not using it), a small fountain, and ceiling fans. There was a pleasant breeze so we were more than comfortable in the warm weather. My wife thought it was nice.

The service was terrific. I had the prime rib and my wife had a small fillet. Both came with one side and a soup/salad. We both thought the salads were generous and we were told the dressings were house made. We both loved the steaks. Mine was rare, tender, with a lot of flavor. It was served with either au jus or a house made horseradish sauce; or both. I tired both and I would recommend both.

My wife’s fillet was a little too done for me, but she loved it. She had water, but I had a beer: Trois Pistoles. It was on draft and was very tasty. Trois’ is brewed as a Strong Dark Belgium Ale. Maybe at $9 it was a little expensive, especially for Lake Zurich. I have seen it, cheaper, but I think those were bottles. This might be my first draft. Anyway, I thought it was great.

D.

Beelow's Steakhouse
763 S Rand Rd, Lake Zurich, IL 60047

Trois Pistoles is a fine figgy-fruity brew is it not? We serve it in bottles, at $7.50 (downstate prices are great!) and it's starting to develop a nice little fan club.

As a home brewer and a 'beer snob', I should know, but I am not that good. I have an experienced, but not great, palate. I have seen it reviewed as you describe. I just think it is a very drinkable brew with good mouth feel, nice malt, low bitterness, and a smooth finish. I thought it went well with my prime rib. Oh, I would recommend not drinking this beer too cold. I personally prefer it close to room temperature.

Oh, if it is not clear from my review, I would recommend this place. If you are looking for a nice dinner in the NW burbs (maybe super burbs), give it a try.

D.G.Sullivan wrote:Trois Pistoles is a fine figgy-fruity brew is it not? We serve it in bottles, at $7.50 (downstate prices are great!) and it's starting to develop a nice little fan club.

I've never had a bad beer from Unibroue.

The manager at this place is Bob Vorachek, who used to be at Don Roth's Blackhawk.

I was also there recently, and had a very good meal with great service. The beef isn't prime, I don't think, but it's excellent for the price. I had the 14-ounce ribeye; it came out perfectly rare, and I enjoyed it very much.

I'll be going to Beelow's for lunch tomorrow and I'm looking forward to finding out what it's like.

As I understand it, the owner of the restaurant, Dan Beelow, is the brother of Duane Beelow, who runs the Beelow family farm --- that's right, there's a cattle ranch right here in Mundelein! Well, from what I remember of the last county fair, there are many more beef, pork, and lamb producers in Lake County than I realized, but I'm surprised I never knew of this one so close to home before.

The farm, which has been in operation for nearly 100 years, supplies beef and pork to the restaurant. Ten miles from farm to table; doesn't get much more local than that.

Katie wrote:I'll be going to Beelow's for lunch tomorrow and I'm looking forward to finding out what it's like.

As I understand it, the owner of the restaurant, Dan Beelow, is the brother of Duane Beelow, who runs the Beelow family farm --- that's right, there's a cattle ranch right here in Mundelein! Well, from what I remember of the last county fair, there are many more beef, pork, and lamb producers in Lake County than I realized, but I'm surprised I never knew of this one so close to home before.

The farm, which has been in operation for nearly 100 years, supplies beef and pork to the restaurant. Ten miles from farm to table; doesn't get much more local than that.

How was the restaurant? I live about 10 min. away from this restaurant. I am wondering if it is worth trying.

Basically, it's a steakhouse, similar to Wildfire and a dozen other higher-end steakhouse restaurants in the suburbs. One nice difference is that the prices are significantly lower than at those others. The customer mix spans all ages, including plenty of families with kids. Oh, and you can make reservations including on their website, but not on Opentable.

We've eaten there four times in the past two years, although all at least a year ago. The first three times, we thought it was thoroughly excellent; the last just wasn't on a par with our previous experiences there. Who knows why. We haven't been back but we'd like to go back again one of these days.

Dishes we especially enjoyed include the fried calamari and spicy Asian shrimp appetizers, and the mains of prime rib and of Alaskan king crab legs, which are market price (at the time, they were $46 when other restaurants were charging $60 for a same size portion). The complimentary bread basket includes mini corn muffins studded with corn kernels and those were notably yum-worthy.

HTH

nsxtasy wrote:Basically, it's a steakhouse, similar to Wildfire and a dozen other higher-end steakhouse restaurants in the suburbs. One nice difference is that the prices are significantly lower than at those others. The customer mix spans all ages, including plenty of families with kids. Oh, and you can make reservations including on their website, but not on Opentable.

We've eaten there four times in the past two years, although all at least a year ago. The first three times, we thought it was thoroughly excellent; the last just wasn't on a par with our previous experiences there. Who knows why. We haven't been back but we'd like to go back again one of these days.

Dishes we especially enjoyed include the fried calamari and spicy Asian shrimp appetizers, and the mains of prime rib and of Alaskan king crab legs, which are market price (at the time, they were $46 when other restaurants were charging $60 for a same size portion). The complimentary bread basket includes mini corn muffins studded with corn kernels and those were notably yum-worthy.

HTH

If you had to choose between Beelow's Steakhouse and Stoney River, which would you say is better? I liked the coffee cured filet mignon at Stoney River.

shorty wrote:If you had to choose between Beelow's Steakhouse and Stoney River, which would you say is better? I liked the coffee cured filet mignon at Stoney River.

Oooh, tough choice. I've been to Stoney River numerous times also, and I like that dish too, although my favorite dish there is their "Hong Kong Style" sea bass (and also love their bread service, poppyseed rolls with sweetened butter). And both do an excellent prime rib (although the best prime rib I've had lately has been at Carson's). Aside from the speed bump of my last visit to Beelow's, I'd say the two are pretty darn similar to each other - both offering excellent value as well as consistently good food up and down the menu, albeit not on the level of dry-aged prime grade beef a la David Burke's, but still very good indeed. I'd say it's pretty much a coin toss. And if you like one, you'll probably like the other too.

HTH

P.S. You may recall that I praised Stoney River when I started its LTH topic six years ago, complete with mention of the coffee filet. Not everyone in that topic agreed with me, but heck, that's par for the course for just about everywhere.

HI,

I have not been to Beelow, though I know the family. One spectacular year at the Lake County Fair, they organized a continuous series of sows giving birth. It was really interesting and quite a draw.

If you are one to support local businesses whose livestock is really local and bred from birth, why not go to Beelow's Steakhouse at least once.

Regards,

Not sure whether I'll find myself in that area in the near future, but very interesting to know that they're raising their own cattle and something I'll have to remember. Does anyone know whether their beef is dry aged or wet aged? The menu says aged, but does not specify the manner.

nsxtasy wrote:P.S. You may recall that I praised Stoney River when I started its LTH topic six years ago, complete with mention of the coffee filet. Not everyone in that topic agreed with me, but heck, that's par for the course for just about everywhere.

I liked Stoney River (Deerfield) too. The way they prepared and cooked their filet (both regular and the coffee one) appealed to me. I've been to the Deer Park location once since. Beelow's sounds great too.

My son and I had burgers at Beelow's tonight and I can't say it was that good. Ordered medium rare and received grey on the outside and close to raw in the middle. I did not get the impression that the meat had been seasoned prior to cooking as the beef was dull tasting. My 11 year-old described the burger as having the taste & texture of a wet sponge. Service was just fine and the fries wish the menu listed as "shoestring" were much thicker and IMHO better then what I had expected. Overall, we will not be back.

Well they better bring their A-game to HP or the tribe will not be eating there for long.

Ram4 wrote:Well they better bring their A-game to HP or the tribe will not be eating there for long.

Tribe?

Those of the Jewish persuasion, many of whom live in Highland Park.

I finally tried Beelow's North Shore last night. I have to say I wasn't impressed. My caesar salad was nothing special at all. I prefer a creamy caesar dressing, the more pungent the better. This tasted like a cheap oil based dressing out of bottle. Some of the service was lacking. I found it odd that they had a bread server (you pick a roll rather than them putting bread on the table) and who only came by only once. When we wanted her again, she was nowhere to be seen. At one point she did come back to a table near us to ask them if they wanted more, but never even looked our way (or at any other tables). The manager came out of nowhere when the food came out to apologize for a delay in the kitchen. Honestly, we were not aware of a delay and the pacing was fine for us. I had their 45 day aged New York Strip and it was cooked perfectly - medium/medium rare. It was easily 2 inches thick. But it was somewhat bland, as if they didn't really season it. I have done better at home. It was still a decent piece of meat, but I had better elsewhere. My girlfriend though her salmon was just ok. We shared a pretty good flourless chocolate cake with a scoop of ice cream that had pieces of ice in it. We had high hopes for this place, and they had a decent crowd there, but we were really not thrilled with the meal. I may return for lunch (the lunch menu has a lot of different items), and the outdoor space is inviting.

I hadn't been all that impressed with Beelow's Lake Zurich in my three visits, and have not been to the HP location as of yet.

As an alternative, though, last night I had been sitting in with a band at Taste Of Lincolnshire on their Village Green, and when hungry afterwards saw that there was a line for the tastes from Eddie Merlot's (sliders & such), and I remembered we had passed the actual restaurant on the way in off Milwaukee Ave. So we drove from one parking lot to another, and walked in. We were pretty sweaty from being out in the heat for hours, but whatthehell...and we were seated in the hushed, curtained, high-ceilinged dining area. Really a beautiful room, had to admit.

I was surprised by the prices only because I hadn't been expecting to be dining relatively high-end that night. But I was starving, Eddie Merlot's was close, and I hate to walk out of a place--what do you say--'...uh, I didn't want to spend that kind of money...' as you're running through the door with your tails between your legs, so we stayed.

Between three of us, we had the Caesar salad--crisp Romaine with a light dressing & anchovies, pretty good overall, a great chilled chopped salad with all the requisite ingredients, a fantastic roasted beet salad with celery, cucumber, avocado, orange, goat cheese (on the side) and a lemon basil dressing. Also greatly enjoyed a beefy, Worcestershire-tinged French onion soup and a sliced flat iron steak with frites, the steak topped with Bordelaise sauce and we ordered Béarnaise as a kind of aioli for the frites. This was wonderful. The sauces were totally in balance, the steak extremely flavorful, and the frites were not too crispy, perfect to absorb either of the sauces. I paired this with a nice Ghost Pines Zinfandel, a perfect counterpart.

Despite the possible slightly higher prices than Beelow's, I think Eddie Merlot's is much more solid overall. Certainly not an everyday destination, but I'd pick it as a business dinner or special occasion venue in a hot minute--less stodgy than Fleming's and absolutely less chaotic than Wildfire.

We ate at Beelow's North Shore (the Highland Park location) a few weeks ago, after numerous visits a while ago to the original location in Lake Zurich. Overall, it was good, not great. The flash-fried calamari was woefully overcooked and chewy, whereas that dish had been wonderful when we had it in LZ. The prime rib was very good indeed, one of the better versions of the classic dish. However, there was a serious problem with it; the "creamy horseradish sauce" that accompanied it had almost no horseradish taste, and isn't that the point? Fortunately, they offered a choice between this creamy horseradish sauce, or pure horseradish, so our server was happy to bring some of the latter, which we mixed with the former to come up with an acceptable version of a creamy horseradish sauce. The service was excellent, though, extremely helpful.

I see there is also a mention in this thread of Eddie Merlot's. We tried it once, and found that although it was good, it was woefully overpriced, without being better in any way than Beelow's, Wildfire, Carson's, or Pete Miller's in the northern suburbs, or Sam & Harry's, Stoney River, or David Burke's Grillhouse in the northwest suburbs. We felt the same way when we tried Sullivan's - good place but woefully overpriced, without being better in any way.

So we ate their on Saturday night before going to see a friend's band play. Our reaction was: That's kind of expensive for pretty meh food. Not so wildly expensive you break the bank, not so meh you hate it, but totally forgettable.

Had the raffle beef- pretty sure raffle beef means you won the "I'm going to need Lipitor" lottery

Spinach salad- was ok, nothing to write home about

Caesar Salad- pretty much tasted like dressing dumped from a bottle- pretty terrible

Smaller Prime Rib Cut- solid, nice flavor, well cooked, pretty much what I expect out of prime rib.

On the plus side- very nice patio, nice beer list, wife loved her cocktail. I don't think we'll be back any time soon, but it was just meh

jpschust wrote:So we ate their on Saturday night before going to see a friend's band play. Our reaction was: That's kind of expensive for pretty meh food. Not so wildly expensive you break the bank, not so meh you hate it, but totally forgettable.

Had the raffle beef- pretty sure raffle beef means you won the "I'm going to need Lipitor" lottery

Spinach salad- was ok, nothing to write home about

Caesar Salad- pretty much tasted like dressing dumped from a bottle- pretty terrible

Smaller Prime Rib Cut- solid, nice flavor, well cooked, pretty much what I expect out of prime rib.

On the plus side- very nice patio, nice beer list, wife loved her cocktail. I don't think we'll be back any time soon, but it was just meh

Your review sounds just like mine.

Im still trying to place that Caesar dressing- tastes pretty much like the olive garden dressing.