According to Eater, Jaleo and its downstairs bar, Pigtail, are closing as of Jan 25.
Other Andres concepts are unaffected.
I ate there with my wife for our anniversary a year and a half ago, and had impeccable service and lovely food. Sad to see it go.
by TheRedSe7en
14 Comments
i absolutely love jose andres, and will support anything he does, to help fund WCK if nothing else, but jaleo was not a very good restaurant. I assume that it was ultimately a financial decision more than anything. I dont think that the chicago location was bad, it was just as good as las vegas (never been to Dubai) at least. but with his other local spots, I assume he’s just competing against himself for business more than anything. I assume also of course, that whatever customers would want to go to Jaleo will just as quickly end up at Bazaar Meats or Bar Mar.
Worst spanish food in the city. Incredibly disappointing for a high profile chef. Also everyone who I’ve talked to about this place was equally disappointed.
I grew up in DC as a huge Andres fan, picking out his spots for birthdays, and all sorts of other big milestones in my family, so I’m definitely a little bummed about this closure, *but* I’d only been to the Chicago Jaleo once, and even with my hefty pro-Andres bias, it was disappointing. Just not quite up to the standards of the original in most ways (freshness, food quality, service), so I guess I’m not all that surprised.
When I saw them trying to crowdfund restaurants on Instagram I started getting suspicious of their finances. They likely over leveraged and then opened at exactly the wrong time.
As an immigrant myself I have the utmost respect for Jose Andres and what he does but I’ll be honest the food at Jaleo frankly just kinda sucked imo. Went there 3 times thinking it was just a bad day every time and regretted going every time
I remember them requiring patrons to be vaccinated before the government did. Good riddance.
Pigtail closing downstairs is the bigger loss IMO. I agree that Jaleo unfortunately wasn’t very good. I wish we had better Spanish options in the city. (RIP Cafe Iberico)
I have so much respect for Jose Andres. I also used to live in Spain. I don’t think Jaleo was very good. I really disliked their drinks and the food was super inconsistent. Sometimes you would get something perfectly cooked and sometimes you would get raw shrimp
It was also incredibly expensive, even for river north, for what it was. I dont want to pay $100 for like 3 bites of food that arent some magical spectacular ingredient.
Eta: service was always bizarrely slow. Pickup orders were always so late that my bf and i started going like 20 minutes after the suggested time. Even when we went in person it would take forever to get a tiny dish that often required no cooking
I thought Jaleo was below average food. Not surprised to see it go
I remember I was super hungry and saving my appetite for this place, I was sooo upset bc I hated the food and I never returned back & I hate even looking at the sign of the place when I pass by lol. I’m glad is closing not gonna lie
Dang I really like the croquetas
It may not be a huge loss to the food scene here, but I will miss those endive cups
Oh, that’s sad. I went only once (I’m in Chicago regularly but don’t live there, and there are so many places on my list to eat through!), but it was a really great, quiet solo meal. I’d returned from Spain just a few months before and was craving the food. The bartender was friendly and I was pleased with the meal.
I have a coworker who was also bartending there and they were told that they’re going to rebrand in a few months with a new concept, although i feel like sometimes companies just say that to try to hold onto employees