CHIReview
Included In
This large, two-story West Loop Greek spot has all the usual suspects of a social media honey trap: giant hanging basket lights, infrared lighting typically reserved for reptiles, thumping electronic music, and a menu full of elaborate, expensive dishes, many of which are prepared tableside. And on the right kind of night, with the right kind of budget, all of the above can be fun. But at Nisos, it’s not.
At first things seem promising. That soft lighting makes your skin glow like polished marble, rendering filters immediately unnecessary. And the staff is nice—the hosts seem genuinely glad to seat you, bartenders are friendly, and pretty much anyone who works here smiles with actual warmth. But Nisos’ insistence on gimmicky tableside antics sets the servers up for failure, and the overcomplicated, pricey food isn’t good enough to compensate.
photo credit: Anthony Tahlier
At several points during the night—whether your drink is empty, you need the check, or you’d like fresh plates since yours is covered in lemon gel from the sea bass carpaccio—you’ll wonder where your server is. Look no further than a few tables over. You’re almost guaranteed to see them carving a salt-crusted branzino with the mild panic of someone in the middle of a nightmare where they somehow find themselves performing open-heart surgery naked.
The long Mediterranean menu is hard to navigate, with deceptively unhelpful sections like “from the sea” and “from the fish counter” and “for the table.” And from the tableside $54 lamb shank to the $70 langoustines, your server will be putting in work: carving, flambeing, deshelling, mixing, serving. All that fussing sounds like a nice touch, but just means that the food will likely be cold by the time it’s ready to be eaten.
Dishes are full of unexpected twists that no one asked for, like a deconstructed moussaka that involves dry ice, potato strings, and aerated gruyere. Flavor-wise it’s fine, but the eggplant is mushy, and you’re forced to wait for an uncomfortably long time for it to be plated while “cinnamon scented” tea smoke crawls across the table like an ‘80s horror movie special effect. Tiropita is also given the slice-and-serve treatment, and the dry, feta-filled pastry is topped with a pile of freeze-dried honeycomb reminiscent of Airheads candy both in texture and its affinity for getting stuck in your teeth. Even straightforward dishes, like the tenderloin tartare, are disappointing. The overly-minced meat is topped with an inch of herbs, and comes with two tiny, cow-shaped parmesan crisps that disintegrate on impact.
Nisos joins Avli, Lyra, and Andros Taverna in Chicago's seemingly endless procession of upscale, buzzy Greek restaurants. And we don’t mind places that exist to satisfy a social media algorithm when the food is at least average. But even if you have money to waste to watch someone deshelling Jurassic Park-sized langoustines at a snail’s pace in perfect lighting, the food at Nisos is too underwhelming to be worth a trip here for dinner. Maybe just for a cocktail at the bar where you’ll at least get a smile from a friendly bartender before heading elsewhere in the West Loop.
Food Rundown
Oysters
photo credit: Anthony Tahlier
Sea Bass Carpaccio
Tenderloin Tartare
Tiropita
photo credit: Anthony Tahlier