Proxi

Address | 565 W Randolph St, Chicago, IL 60661

One evening we headed to Chicago’s West Loop restaurant row to have a meal at celebrated restaurant, Proxi. Led by Chef Andrew Zimmerman, the menu—which you can order as a tasting menu or a la carte—is a contemporary take on global street foods. The setting is beautiful, similar to Andros Taverna, the dinning room is large and airy and accented by low lighting and dark decor. It’s an incredibly busy scene for which we found the service was ill-equipped to handle. We were seated with a view to the open kitchen which was nice.

We started the meal with speciality cocktails. One arrived and maybe 20 minutes later the second arrived. Having had a late brunch, we decided to order a la carte and share the plates. The dishes themselves were very good however again there was a big problem with the timing of when everything was brought out with huge time gaps and delays. At one point we wanted to order more dishes but the inattentiveness of an overbooked server and a floor manager noticeably pacing rather than taking action and helping deliver food and beverage to tables or maybe even entertain waiting guests was a huge turnoff.

Perhaps it was just the night we were there, but Proxi seems to have a management problem which overshadows well executed food and beverage. While I would want to come back for the food I would think twice based on the service.