Cooper's Hawk Winery- Orland Park

I finally checked this place out Saturday night. I didn’t see any other reviews of it on this site so here goes.

When I first heard of this place I pictured a farm with a big house and fields of plants similar to the wineries I visited in California and Southern Illinois. Boy was I wrong.

Cooper’s Hawk reminds me more of a nice brew pub than a winery. It is located on a very commercial strip of south Harlem Ave. next to a bank and a strip mall. It is surrounded by chain restaurants. The building is brand new and is huge with a gift shop/tasting room, large restaurant and party room and a section with the big vats for making wine.

Parking is a nightmare. The lot is way too small for the Saturday night crowd and cars were everywhere. They had a valet, but we opted to park in the strip mall next door and walk. Upon entering you see the gift shop that has shelves of gourmet foods and sauces and some wine related glasses and etc. There is also a counter where you can order tastings of wine along with cheese and desserts. You can also view the wine making area which is where this reminds me of a brew pub. The big silver vats were similar to those at any brew pub and outside of the wine bottles in the corner nothing really said wine. Apparently they buy grapes and then make the wine in small batches.

The dining room is large with high ceilings and lots of wood trim and wine posters on the wall. There didn’t appear to be a dress code as we saw people in everything from shorts and jeans to dresses and men in sport coats.

We had made reservations and were seated quickly. Our seats were less than ideal. Being only a party of two we got a very small table next to the order stand where I got to hear the wait staff talk about other customers and the computer screen beep every time they keyed in our order. There were no other tables free or I would have asked for another. Service was very friendly if a bit overwhelmed. We started with a couple glasses of wine. Several of their signature wines were out of stock. Prices were reasonable with most glasses around $6 and bottles in the $20-$30 range. A good deal is the wine flights which came with half glasses of 4 wines for $9.

The menu is pretty wide with no real specialty on any cuisine. There is Asian, Mexican, American, etc. Something for everyone. Their menu is on the web site and they don't offer any specials.

The meal started on a high note with the artichoke/spinach dip on crostini. It was good and thick with chopped tomatoes on the top. The waitress offered to bring us extra crackers when she saw us getting low. The next course my husband got the lobster/crab bisque which was more of a chowder. It was thick and could have been a bit warmer. I ordered the baby greens salad which was good except for the fact it was placed on a hot plate (probably right out of the dishwasher) and it made the salad wilt quickly.

For the entrée I had the grouper with asparagus and a smashed potatoes. The fish was cooked perfectly and had a nice crust of pistachio. The problem was it had a very sharp honey mustard sauce that didn’t really go with the fish. Luckily the sauce was only drizzled on top. Potatoes and asparagus were good.

My husband ordered the rib eye steak which came with an au gratin style potatoes and broccoli. He was happy with his steak and the portion was large enough to take home for leftovers.

We opted out of dessert since nothing really appealed to us. With tip the meal was around $100 which for the amount of food we got was fair. I will probably go back and give it another shot on a weeknight when it is not as crowded. They also do some events and wine tastings that looked interesting. It is nice to have another non-chain option in the south suburbs.

Cooper’s Hawk Winery
15690 Harlem Ave
Orland Park
http://www.coopershawkwinery.com/

Ah, thanks for the input on this. I actually went here recently myself and wrote about it in my personal blog, but I guess I could go over my experience in here as well ...

First of all, yes, the parking situation sucks. We came on a weeknight (a Tuesday), and just getting into the parking lot was tricky. My husband drives a truck, and we had to loop around the tight parking lot to eventually park in the back of the lot.

I should probably also mention I've been here twice, now, and previously, we had the artichoke/spinach dip, as you did (and we liked it), and I also had previously tried the crab & lobster bisque, and I also agree - it's a bit more like a chowder than a bisque. That comparison didn't click at the time, but I remember that now that you said that. I think mine came out okay (hot enough), but like our second trip, we also came on a weeknight the first time, and it was less crowded than you described both times.

Anyway, our second trip to the restaurant started when I was feeling crabby and wanted to go out to dinner, so I guilted my husband into bringing me there - it's just a few minutes away from our house, and I didn't want to do the "right" thing (i.e., make dinner), I wanted to do the TASTY thing. So, I made him take me out.

So, yes. We started off the dinner with the Onion Strings appetizer - which actually turned out to be a mountain of onion strings, which of course, brought up the question: "How do we eat this?" It was served with a side of ranch. The onion strings were kind of a lame appetizer, I thought. It seemed more like a side item (that you'd serve with steak, typically) than an appetizer. The onion strings were too thin and long to be easily edible. I probably would have tried a different appetizer, but that was what Mr. GF wanted that night.

I ordered one of that night's specials: a dual serving of Filet Mignon with a Horseradish Crust and Mustard-and-Almond Encrusted Talapia. It was served with a side of steamed broccoli and jasmine rice. Unfortunately, the jasmine rice did not go with the two main entrees at all. It was too "light" for everything. I was so bothered by this that I took the time to mention this to our waitress, who agreed with me and said that she thought mashed potatoes would have gone better (yes, definitely).

Mr. GF's entree, a red-wine strip steak, on the other hand, was extremely well-executed. I'd have to say that it was one of the best-tasting strip steaks I've tried. I'm not a fan of the strip steak (I prefer the filet cut), but I can say that his, quality-wise, was definitely better than my filet.

My horseradish crust was just right (not overly tangy like it can sometimes be), but they undercooked my filet just a tad - it was more medium rare than medium. The broccoli side was just okay, too. My husband had a side of cheesy "riced" potatoes. It was like an au gratin with the potatoes being riced instead of sliced, if that makes sense. I personally found them a bit too rich for my taste.

We ordered creme brulee for dessert. It was good: pretty standard, actually.

I was a bit disappointed they only had Courvoisier VSOP cognac - that they didn't have an XO cognac or something comparable, but I suppose their focus is on their private label wines.

So, that being said, the most exciting part of the meal, and the sole reason I wish I'd had a camera that night, was to take pictures of these crazy decanters they had. They were the neatest decanters I think I've ever seen. I own a few different decanters at home, but they paled in comparison to these monstrosities. I don't even know how to describe it. They were really tall. They had a marble base, and an iron holder. The decanter itself was cone-shaped glass, and had a spout at the bottom, controlled by a lever you pulled back and forth. On the top of it was a water-filled glass sphere (with a tube at the top of it), and below that sphere, a strainer - the purpose of which, I assume, was to control the flow of the wine into the cone-shaped decanter. It wasn't a wide cone, either; a really, long, skinny one. I should try and get back to take a picture of it.

Our waitress told us they've only had them for about three weeks. And honestly: the moment the waitress brought it out, every single table around us turned and looked at it. It's mesmerizing.

This made my dinner in and of itself.

Our dinner wasn't unbelievable, but price-wise, wasn't that bad. Especially considering everything we had (it came to $125 with tip). I'd say I felt pretty nuetral about it. I wouldn't make it my first priority to go back to this place --- well, except maybe to order appetizers (probably not "Onion Mountain" again) and a bottle of wine (so I could get the decanter again, haha). The wine wasn't bad. We had their private label Pinot Noir. All of the wines on the list were their private label [Cooper's Hawk], and were fairly inexpensive, in restaurant standards. I also enjoyed the fact that they used nice wine glasses. They were German-made glasses, very similar to the Reidel Bordeaux glasses; I don't remember the exact brand name. The other nice thing was that every customer drinking wine had a nice glass. I like that a lot. See, I'm not about "Well, you have to buy $XX in wine to get a *good* wine glass," I think if you're in a "wine" place, everyone should get good glasses. They are good at their namesake, I'll give them that.

The food and slightly unimaginative atmosphere could use some help, but, you know.... for the suburbs - and particularly, this area, this is a place I would go back to again - maybe to try something I haven't tried before - and definitely to order some wine. How fun!

I visited Cooper’s Hawk last night with my wife and my 6 month old son. I had reservations at 9:00 PM. We got there at 8:45 and were lucky enough to get a parking spot right outside the door. After checking in for our reservation we waited up front by the tasting bar and split a glass of wine. The place was very busy and it was hard to move around or get the servers attention. We waited at the end of the bar by the desserts for a while until we moved into an open spot where all of the servers were.

9:20 rolls around and my wife is threatening to kill me if I don’t go ask what is up with our table. I am enjoying all of the attention I am getting from all of the girls due to my 6 month old chick-magnet. When I ask what was going on with my table, the girl mumbles something about how she just got there and didn’t know what happened. I was handed a different coaster/buzzer at that point.
9:30 rolls around and we are buzzed. I have now been there for 45 minutes, with a 6 month old in my arms. Nothing was said about the wait, we were seated in a nice big booth. My son freaked out for the first half hour of being seated. I blame this on him being overtired from all of the commotion out front. We were planning on him going to sleep at 9:00 when we sat down (wishful thinking).

Besides all of the delay and baby drama here is how dinner went:
Waitress brought menus and rambled through a script after we told here that we hadn’t been there. I didn’t hear most of it. I ordered a red flight (I believe it was five wines). This is actually a pretty good deal as the glasses have quite a bit of wine in them and it only cost like $11. We ordered the drunken shrimp for an appetizer. They were supposed to be fantastic, I thought they were ok. I am picky about my shrimp, as they are very easy to overcook and these little suckers were a bit on the hard side of the spectrum.
My wife ordered one of the two Penne pasta dishes and when I described it to the waitress I read the description and pointed to it.
She was given the other Penne dish, by the time the waitress came to ask how everything was, my wife had tried it and decided that it was good anyway and decided to keep it as we had already been there for an hour and weren’t sure how much time our bundle of joy was going to give us.
I ordered the Cowboy steak, medium. It was well done (or maybe medium well nearest the bone.) I don’t like to complain and I did it in a very nice laughing way, but this was 3 strikes.

I told the waitress that we were seated ½ an hour after our reservation time which was 45 minutes after we got there. I told the girl when I called that we had a baby with us. My wife was given the wrong dish and my $30 steak is cooked wrong. She promised to send the manager over. 10 minutes our waitress came back by and told us that dessert was definitely on them. As I am eating my steak she took away my wife’s pasta to box it up and asked it wanted mine boxed. I told her I was still eating.
After a bit she asked if we had thought about what we wanted for desert, we had already decided that we didn’t want anything but I was never given a menu. It may have been on the table, I never looked. We told her no thanks.

The manager then came up and apologized that we had a bad night and took my steak off the bill. I wanted to explain to her everything that kinda sucked but I just said thanks.

Enough rambling, the bottom line:

The service pretty much sucked from start to end. I understand that we are not in Napa Valley or Bordeaux , but wine is an experience. If that is what they are going for, they need to work on it quite a bit. Something about it seemed like winery fast-food. May have been the lack of love.

On a lighter note..
The food was actually pretty damn good. My wife’s pasta was a nice size portion and it had a lot of flavor. My steak though not cooked perfectly was really good, great cut of meat, nice presentation, the asparagus was perfectly crunchy, and the potatoes were great.

On that note, I will go back and give it another shot.
One scary thing, I spoke with a guy next to me who’s friend is supposedly going to be on Check Please and they is recommending Cooper’s Hawk. I can’t imagine the parking lot and wait times then. I will definitely make it a weeknight.

The wines were pretty good too. As I mentioned the Red flight was a great deal and had some nice wines in it. The winemaker must be a big fan of oak as most of them were pretty heavily oaked, I bet they would smooth out nicely over a year or two. I probably would have bought some under different circumstances. When I read their website I was planning on ordering the fruit wine flight with dessert as I am an amateur winemaker and wanted to see how I stacked up. Maybe next time.

GreenFish wrote:My horseradish crust was just right (not overly tangy like it can sometimes be), but they undercooked my filet just a tad - it was more medium rare than medium. The broccoli side was just okay, too. My husband had a side of cheesy "riced" potatoes. It was like an au gratin with the potatoes being riced instead of sliced, if that makes sense. I personally found them a bit too rich for my taste.

The food and slightly unimaginative atmosphere could use some help, but, you know.... for the suburbs - and particularly, this area, this is a place I would go back to again - maybe to try something I haven't tried before - and definitely to order some wine. How fun!

I did not read this thread before I went, but our perceptions on most points seem consistent.

- Food is good, if not strikingly innovative.
- Wine is surprisingly good -- I guess my expectations were not high, but we had several good whites and reds.
- Service is inconsistent and sometimes odd; it seems strange when servers arrive at the table and stand holding your plates, waiting for you to remove bread plates and silver so they can do their jobs, fer crissakes.
- Ambiance is blank; those overhead lights cast a mortuary pallor over the room that I found most un-festive.

The Wife had the filet with horseradish crust and we both liked it quite a bit -- spuds were super rich, but still, I dug 'em.

I sent back my ahi tuna (it was supposed to be simply seared but was actually cold in the center; me no like) and when it came back it was over-cooked, so I sent it back again. Manager came out with new piece, apologized, made sure all was well, which I thought quite cool and appropriate but not usual (at least at most of the places I tend to go).

This place is a hike for me (45 minutes from Oak Park, south), so I probably won't go again, but I thought it was a good place, not unreasonably priced, and worthy of attention, especially if you're a local.

Were I to go again, I'd definitely opt for the flights, though one would be sufficient -- I saw a few go by and it looked like many oz. of booze there.

Hammond

Since my last post I have been back to Cooper's Hawk five or six times.
The service has been inconsistent, but not nearly as bad as my first experience.
I can't stop ordering the cowboy steak. It's very good. Others have ordered it on my recommendation and called me a week later and mentioned how good it was.
I did order the ribs (i believe they were braised short ribs) once and enjoyed them as well.
I haven't had a starter that I am in love with yet.
The wines are very good, I usually get a flight but have enjoyed a bottle or two as well, plus they serve it in the fancy decanter at the table.
In short, the food has overcome the issues I had with the service. I haven't heard any complaints from others in the area about the food either, everyone seems to like the place.

I have to say, given the area and the lack of decent, independently owned restaurants, this place is on my list of "acceptable" restaurants. I like the fact that their wine is reasonably priced and fairly decent. Their food is acceptable.

I think service issues are something you tend to deal with in this area; for whatever reason, I haven't found a restaurant in the far SW suburbs that has really outstanding service on a consistent basis.

The only exception to that would be Courtright's in Willow Springs, but that's really not the type of place I go to all the time, either, given their price point.

Also: I love the tall decanters Cooper's Hawk uses to serve the bottles of wine! They're really an interesting conversation piece. At some point, I'm going to get one of those for my house.

I recently dined at the new Cooper's Hawk location in Burr Ridge, just off of 55 in the mall off of County Line. It appears they like having poor parking because it is akward to park here as well with the restaurant have a corner location in the outdoor mall and mall parking being farily limited to store front parking.

My meal seemed consistent with what others have said. Good quality food at reasonable prices with some items hit or miss. Service was attentive but akward because of a bad table location in a corner that did not allow the server to access the table fully and left us by a cold window.
The wines were quite good, I noticed their drink menu had Coopers Hawk Ale or some such on it. They did not actually have it at this location yet but I learned that it is a contract brewed beer. I believe it is actually Goose Island 312.

My wife and I will probably go back and I will present a better review then. I went with a large group so many of the details elude me.

Coopers Hawk Winery & Restaurant
510 Village Center Dr
Burr Ridge, IL 60527

The Daily Herald recently had a blurb about the Wheeling Village board approving a permit for this place. The permit allows for a restaurant, winery, and outdoor seating. Construction will begin within the next month.

Apparently it's going to be located in the same development as the Westin hotel on Milwaukee Ave.

Kim

That Wheeling location is now open and the in-laws are taking us there tonight. We got them a gift certificate for a birthday last year. I think they used part of it at one of the other locations and now that the closer location is open, we'll be the beneficiaries of the balance.

Any advice on what to get? I perused the menu online- I like the Mexican Drunken Shrimp, Lobster Stuffed Potato Skins or Mini Crab Cakes for appetizers. For an entree, I'm thinking the Blackened Bacon Wrapped Scallops, Asian Pork Tenderloin, Filet Mignon, Strip Steak or Tenderloin Medallions.

I've got my fingers crossed that we get a good server. Mr. Maki and I have a different definition from the in-laws of of what the reasonable amount of time to wait for things in a restaurant is and sometimes going out with them can be quite the high anxiety experience.

Looks like there will be a 4th location opening in South Barrington soon, in a retail development called The Arboretum, located at Higgins & Bartlett Rd.

I eat lunch @ the Burr Ridge location occasionally for the sole reason of getting the lobster, crab, and cshrimp bisque. A pretty good version, not on the level of the Joes Stone Crab - Stone crab bisque(few if any are), but pretty good. Typically I get a burger which is decent.

Well, dinner was pretty good, and service wasn't bad, especially considering it was only their second day open.

We ended up getting both the lobster-stuffed potato skins....more like lobster *topped* than stuffed, but those were really, really good! We also got the Mexican Drunken Shrimp and those were okay. Nothing wrong with them, but not nearly as good as the potato skins.

I went with the Strip Steak. I switched out the onion strings and got mac & cheese instead. It was very good mac & cheese- It was made with tubetti pasta and had a really nice crisp bread crumb crust on top. My only complaint is that some things were a little on the salty side, but I am salt-sensitive, so I may not be the best judge. The steak was very good. I ordered it medium-rare, and it was definitely more on the rare end of that, but I'd much rather that than the other way.

Mr. Maki and I split a serving of the Banoffee Pie, which was a graham cracker crust tart, filled with sliced bananas and toffee pudding, with whipped cream, caramel and chocolate on top. It was good; banana desserts are like crack to me, and I think I probably would have been happier with the bananas foster cheesecake.

I also had a white sangria- I'm a fan of traditional sangria and this was my first white sangria. It was okay- seemed a little syrup-y. They're probably not making batches of it ahead of time, so they have to create the flavor rather than soaking fruit in wine for several hours.

Service was fine. At times it was a little awkward, but I'd attribute that more to the fact that it was their second day than what it will be like in the future. My only service-related complaint is that they packed the four of us into a curved booth, which really wasn't enough room. Mr. Maki's mom and I were in the middle, and Mr. Maki on my left. The only place to put my left foot was at a really uncomfortable angle, basically resting on his right foot. I felt worse for the booth next to us- they stuffed five people into that one! I don't know why they were trying to not put people in the stand-alone tables in the middle of the room. It seemed like no one, until about 7:15 or so, was seated in the stand-alone tables. Next time there's more than 3 of us, I'll be sure to request at least a regular, straight booth, if not a stand-alone table.

Just thought I'd add my two cents on our dinning experience.

As Abe said, we started off with the lobster-stuffed potato skins, which I rather enjoyed despite not normally being all that big a lobster fan. Not to contradict my SO, but I actually seemed to have quite a bit of lobster meat mixed in with my spud and not just the pieces sprinkled on top. I completely concur about the Drunken Shrimp, which were just okay and certainly not anything to write home about.

After seeing some of the reviews here, I decided to go with the Cowboy steak ordered medium-rare. The steak had a nice char on it and the inside was pretty much as requested, though like Abe's mine was a little closer to rare, but that didn't really bother me. It was a fun steak to try as I generally tend to lean more towards the Porterhouse or Filet Mignon end of the spectrum and I definitely thought they did a nice job with it.

My entrée came with the "Betty's Potatoes", which is the restaurant’s name for cheddar-smothered harsh browns with some peppers and onions thrown in. Overall I thought the side was pretty good, but the potatoes were a bit underdone for my tastes. Not that the spuds weren't cooked through, but there was no browning on them, which was disappointing.

For the wine my father picked out the '06 cabernet sauvignon. I have no gift for describing the subtleties of wine consumption, but I will say that I enjoyed it quite a bit both on its own and as a nice compliment to my meal. I was also quite amused by the Rube Goldberg device they used to dispense the wine. It was explained to us that the glass bauble and filter at the top of the device was there to strain sediment, but I'm fairly certain it was just there to look cool. If so, mission accomplished.

I agree with Abe's assessment of the seating situation. Overall though I thought the service was good and the general atmosphere pleasant. Definitely a nice addition to Wheeling's restaurant row and a place I'd like to investigate further.

Who would think combining the risky restaurant and wine businesses would yield $121 million a year? Tim McEnery, of Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurants, did

http://www.wsj.com/articles/tim-mcenery ... 1418407857

Dave148 wrote:

Who would think combining the risky restaurant and wine businesses would yield $121 million a year? Tim McEnery, of Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurants, did

http://www.wsj.com/articles/tim-mcenery ... 1418407857

Good for them but that's a fairly misleading headline they posted over at wsj.com since the revenue was $121MM, not the 'yield.'

=R=

Popular Suburban Winery Chain to Open First City Location in Gold Coast

https://chicago.eater.com/2019/4/22/185 ... uire-space