Excellent! Pleasant surprise, great service, great food! If you love Polish food you will enjoy…read morethis spot! Highly recommended, as someone who visits Poland often and enjoys good food and drinks!

Truly one of the best meals I've had in a very long time in a beautiful, clean restaurant…read more The Polish Plate is worth every dollar. The pierogi were some of the softest, most flavorful ones I've ever had. The gołabki was incredibly tender. The kapusta was sweet and tart in the best way. The pickles with bread were incredible- a hint of spice and garlic. The food came out quickly, and service was great.

The food is great, not an overwhelming menu which is great because they have traditional Polish…read moredishes as well as moderns options (like their appetizers including fried pickles) with good size portions. Inside is impressively clean compared to the old school exterior and they have a little bit of everything when it comes to their hard liquor choices. Brenda is an awesome bartender! The owner clearly trained the kitchen well because food was delicious. We will be back!

Mostly a neighborhood bar, that serves Good homemade Polish food. They've been there for many…read moreyears, and always GREAT food!

We have been here twice and each time the food has been above and beyond what is expected. The…read moreservice is excellent but if you expecting a fast dining experience this is not the restaurant for you. The craftsmanship of the food takes time so you do need to have patience for it. The ambiance and atmosphere is quiet and cozy which adds to an overall great dining experience.

What a find! Let's call it a more modern approach to polish food with real good cocktails! Fresh…read moreingredients and afterwards I did not feel bloated or full.

I don't like giving a place five stars after only one visit but this place is an exception…read more Being of Polish extraction, I always try to have Polish food when I visit Chicago. This time, my host recommended Smakosz and I was quite impressed! I wish I had a bigger appetite because there was so much that was appealing on the menu! I settled on gołąbki, which is a dish my wife and I have made at home. The cabbage leaves on Smakosz's gołąbki were incredibly tender, and the flavor was everything I'd come to expect. Our server was delightful and attentive, and the ambiance is warm and cozy. If you're in the area and love good Polish food, I think you'll be quite happy you visited.

I've been here plenty of times throughout the years from having my graduation party in the back…read moreroom to throwing my mom's 70th birthday here or just coming here to eat or ordering food out. The food has always been delicious and fresh. If you want polish food, this is the place to come.

I absolutely love this store!! The ready made food choices are delicious!! Variety polish sausage…read moreis to die for! You won't be disappointed!!!

'A breath of Fresh Air'! Maybe…read more.. Grab some fresh Polish Sausage and enjoy a waft of garlic while strolling the Meat Counter! Hold tight to your picnic basket as you toss in some Buttery Mashed Potatoes, hand crafted Kraut and a home-made Ham Sandwich. The aromas quickly develop; the ride home will be pure torture.

I came here today for the first time. I decided to go with the $10.99 plate. The gentleman in line…read morenext to me was very nice and he recommended the meatballs in a mushroom sauce. The meatballs were delicious, the sauce actually was very good and I don't even like mushrooms at all. The second item I got was the meat filled dumplings, and those were really good. They were actually a lot better than I thought they would be. The third item I tried was the smoked Polish sausage. I will be honest, this was not my favorite. It was not bad, but the flavor on it I did not like as much as other Polish places I've tried. I definitely want to go back and try their cabbage and noodles and pigs in a blanket. They also have desserts that I will have to try as well. They do sell sandwiches, Chicago style hotdogs, and have a small grocery store inside.

This was a cool place to check out. Yes, the shop is tiny so the aisles are made for one person to…read moreget through. However, this place is kind of tucked away so it wasn't busy at all in the afternoon. The outside of the building just says Deli. If you like Polish food, you'll love it here. I read some people exaggerating about the wait times. It does not take long for them to help you. Like Jewel or Mariano's, they're not going to slice your meat in 10 seconds if that's what you're hoping for. Btw the staff was nice. I think the Karen's that complain about them being rude are not very cultured and only know American culture. I ordered the signature pastrami sandwich for $10.99 and it was a very generous portion size. She put a ton of meat in it. The pastrami wasn't tough, it was fresh and soft. Honestly, I had Katz's in NY and this was a really great pastrami sandwich. I also got a large cannoli and meat pierogis. The cannoli was delicious. The pierogis were good but I like to have softer skin. The meat filling was fine but the outside was a bit too tough. I've been to a number of Polish restaurants and they usually make the skins very soft to cut. I would rate these pierogis like a 4. Overall, it's about a 4.5. Prices were very cheap. I got everything for $20. I will definitely return to try more items.

My daughter and I had such a wonderful dinner here tonight, and it was truly special for us while…read morevisiting from Colorado. I grew up in the Ukrainian Village living in Portage Park for 30 yrs. We shared every plate and enjoyed a beautiful tour of Ukrainian comfort food done right. My Ukrainian mom who still cooks many traditional dishes (especially amazing varenyky/pierogi), so my daughter has grown up eating her Babcia's versions at home. She wanted to experience those same dishes prepared outside our family kitchen -- and this restaurant absolutely delivered. We shared the potato and cheese varenyky, holubtsi (cabbage rolls), mushroom broth soup, deruny (potato pancakes), and finished with sweet cheese crepes for dessert. Every single dish was delicious -- comforting, flavorful, and clearly made with care and tradition in mind. We ate until we were well beyond full and loved every bite. It felt like a taste of home, but also something new for the both of us, and that made the experience even more meaningful. This will absolutely be a must-revisit the next time we're back in Chicago visiting my mom. Highly recommend for anyone looking for authentic, soul-warming Ukrainian food. The dining area decor is very low key with decor found in most Ukrainian homes. Ukrainian dance music played bringing memories of weddings and dancing polkas.

Under no circumstance whatsoever would I ever use the term "comfort food." So normie, so NPC, so…read morerevolting. At least, I thought I would never apply this opprobrious term. But what other word exists for capably made Ukranian food? It is comfort food qua comfort food. The Platonic ideal of such. Savory in the extreme with more subtle notes of sweet and tart. On a previous trip to Chicago I lodged in a neighborhood bordering Ukraine Village. The proximity allowed me to sample a few establishments from the Ukraine. Things were fine; nothing extraordinary. On this more recent trip, I braved an excursion to the western suburbs, just for the Magic Jug. A food blogger named Hammond said it's the best. He did not lie. So it's in the occidental hinterlands of the city. And yet, my fellow diners were all from the Ukraine. So Ukranian, in fact, they all spoke the mother tongue. Besides that, the surroundings were not particularly Slavic. Minimalist pinewood interior makes you think moreso of Japan and less so of the Eastern Bloc. But anyhow. The chief feature that makes it so good is that everything is seasoned and flavored perfectly. The cooks - all from the Ukraine and all women - each possess palates with sniper rifle precision. The pelmeni (stuffed dumplings of similar appearance to tortellini). So beefy. So oniony. And finished with an herbaceous garlicky seasoning. The golubtsi (stuffed cabbage) at Magic Jug is without it's usually tomato sauce, giving you breathing room to really basque in the chicken broth in which the rice and veg were cooked. The effect: think a reconstructed chicken noodle soup - only with a fat dollop of smetana (sour cream). And the stewed liver. Really like a liver Diane. Don't be a wuss, eat the liver. Get it with mashed potatoes. I had mine with buckwheat so you don't have to. They also have several selections of house made bread. I ordered the one that's like a pull-apart brioche. Too full to appreciate it from on a visceral level, I was still able to note the craft involved. Within it, there contained the balancing act of well developed gluten and pliant interior.

My wife and I are big fans of german food and there aren't enough German restaurants around. We…read morefinally remembered Renate's last night and stopped in. They remodelled in May and the place is so charming and quaint, yet updated. The server was wonderful, and dressed in traditional clothing. The food was the highlight though. Saurbraten was tangy and tender and Rouladen was juicy with a wondeful dark brown gravy. The sautkraut was german style, not sweet, which I love and the red cabbage was so good, even my wife who doesn't like it said it was good and continued eating it. Spaetzle was perfect and the warm potato salad was excellent. I love the boiled herb potatoes that came with the main course. Just excellent all around. Highest recommendation.

I was really excited to try this place because normally I love German food. I wanted to try out…read moreanother restaurant vs the usual spot close to us. First thing I noticed was that the restaurant was unusually empty on a Saturday night, we were the only ones there. No problem because we have been to other empty restaurants before but the food was good. Second thing I noticed was that we can hear the microwave turn on frequently and the sound is disturbingly obvious. We ordered apple pancakes, Renate's sampler platter, cheesy spaetzle, and Kleiner haxen. We got the liver dumpling soup with each of our entrees. Most of it was bad but I'll talk about the good first. Complimentary bread was fine, it tasted like pretzel. It was soft and not too salty. Liver dumpling soup was hearty and the meat was tender. Broth was good. The brat was fine, tender and flavorful. Mashed potatoes were fine. Here comes the bad. Apple pancakes were too crunchy like reheated. It's not soft like regular pancakes. Not a lot of apples inside. The hammock was still frozen which was why it was so difficult to cut. I've had hock before and if it's made fresh, it'll cut easily. This one was frozen solid in the middle. We can hear them putting it back in the microwave. We took it home to reheat it in the oven. The sampler platter was mostly terrible. The schnitzel didn't even look like one (I've had it many times at other German restaurants). The sauerbraten and the gulasch bowl both had tough meats. You'll be chewing on this for like forever. The cheesy spaetzle they actually forgot but reheated it when I inquired about my order. Definitely wasn't fresh. It was unflavored. The owners did give us the cheesy spaetzle for free and 20% of the hock order. However, I think they should have given us the entire order of hock for free or 75% off. After all, it wasn't even cooked fresh and was still frozen in the middle. The husband was very apologetic but yeah apologies couldn't save this horrendous experience. I do not recommend coming here. If you do come, eat at your own risk.