Gaylord Fine Indian Cuisine

This place was on the 2016 Chicago Restaurant Week list, but they actually don’t have a special menu for it. We had a party of 4 and were going for the lunch buffet (priced at $ 13.95) but for some reason I thought it would be the standard CRW price of $ 22, plus well… something else? Maybe a mango lassi valued at $ 8? I don’t know, my train of thought made no sense, but I had been wanting to try this place for awhile so here we go.
CRW or not, their lunch buffet price didn’t change, so a heads up that this review is only for the lunch buffet. I’m not sure how their a la carte menus are, but based on other reviews, my hunch is that a la carte might have higher food ratings.
We all did the lunch buffet + soft drink. You also get naan and tandoori chicken, which made the price a great value. While the buffet had an assortment of dishes, they fell short in flavor and quality.
A few of the Buffet Entrée Options:
Rice
Samosas
Lentils
Chickpeas
Okra
Palak Paneer (spinach with cheese cubes)
Chicken
Buffet Sides/​Desserts:
A variety of chutneys & achaar (pickled veggies)
Strawberry Ice Cream
Bhelpuri: puffed fried rice with fresh diced veggies, kind of like an Indian salad/​snack
Rasgulla: I had to look this one up, but they are sweet cottage cheese balls soaked a rosewater/​creamy sauce
My two favorite things from this meal were the samosas (freshly fried, tons of potato and veggies) and the bhelpuri, which I was introduced to for the first time by my friend Hazel. I will call her the queen of Indian food, and if she approves, I definitely approve because I trust her judgement. She said the bhelpuri was great here, and I am just the messenger. I enjoyed the buffet-​style of chutneys and yogurt sauce, because I usually smother my Indian food with those. They also had the pickled vegetables (achaar) which I appreciated as part of the buffet because at other places (ie. Cumin) they will charge you for this.
The reason for the 2-​star rating is this: the quality of the buffet food was underwhelming (save for the two aforementioned items). Maybe the food wasn’t spicy enough, and the extra «kick» was missing. If you’re looking to eat a lunch where you will feel FULL, this is definitely a great place to go; the quantity is here. But if you’re looking for a place where you CRAVE the naan and tandoori chicken, you might want to look elsewhere.
All in all, their staff are very nice and when I made the reservation over the phone, their response was friendly and prompt. For a meal under $ 15 (buffet-​style in the loop) you will definitely get your fill.

Great portions and the food was delicious. The delivery arrived in a reasonable amount of time and food was nice and hot!

Being an Indian food brat and growing up on the authenticity of Devon Ave, Gaylord falls very short on meeting any of those standards when it comes to food.
Conveniently located across from Bloomingdales on Walton St, I’d consider Gaylord more of an upscale Indian restaurant. Not your typical hole in the wall. The ambiance is nice and the restaurant is very spacious for large group reservations. On certain days they have a buffet from what my parents were telling me.
The day we came here we ordered a la carte off the menu. The items we ordered were the shrimp biryani, tandoori murgh chicken, and keema naan.
All of these items seemed to be lacking taste and spice which is essential to Indian cooking. The tandoori chicken was too dry for my taste and the biryani especially just seemed very ordinary.
For checking in on Unilocal we got a free appetizer, so that was the only real upside to dinner.
For people who don’t know what real Indian food tastes like, I’m sure they’ll be blown away. However for the rest of us, let’s just stick to Devon.

One person can truly ruin a business.
I came here last night with family and we were initially seated at a dirty table. We were able to move right away, but it really isn’t clear why they would seat customers at a table with dirty linens.
The person who took our order was lovely. He was lively and polite. Once we received our food, we had to deal with another guy who was horrible!!! He kept putting his fingers in our dishes because he wanted to take everything away. We were not finished and he came back 4 times trying to take our food away!!! I kept telling him to leave us alone because we were not done. He was a shorter and older Indian guy working here.
This same horrible person bought us our bill. We paid for our bill by credit card and planned to give cash for the tip. He insisted on us adding a tip on our credit cards and got really upset when we said we wanted to leave cash. He watched very carefully as the bill was signed — as though we would run away if he looked the other way for a second. Then he refused to give us a copy of our bill.
The guy was horrible. I don’t understand how anyone could hire him — or maybe he is the owners brother or something and just feels bad for him. If you want good desi food, go somewhere else like Tandoor Char House.

I always wanted to try out this place, and when I did i was glad because i knew i would never want to come back here again! The ambience tricked me and my friends and we had almost decided that this will be our place to go for indian food, but it did not take us long to think again! Cold tea, bland chat, stale naan and the stupidest palak paneer! May be we chose the worst in their menu or they do not know what they are doing selling indian cuisine in downtown! What a shame. Not to mention, whoever was supposed to greet people, the person despite being an indian is the most racist being i have met. Back to devon!

I have been going to this restaurant since 1990, when they were located on Clark. This review is weighed heavily, in part, to the poor to non-​existent service. The food is usually pretty good and the buffet is an excellent deal, if they have items that you enjoy. Mind you, the buffet does not require any service.
That being said, I made the mistake of trying to order off the menu.
It was a Tuesday afternoon at 2 PM and the restaurant was literally empty. I sat down and requested a menu. I was told that since I did not go with the buffet, my meal would take at least a half hour. No rush. Okay. I had been given a coupon by a staff member of the restaurant at Chicago Gourmet, and I informed the server. A little patience isn’t a bad thing. He explains how much I need to spend and I inform him that I am aware of it.
Okay, at this point, it seems that I am inconveniencing them and they want me out of there.
I attempt to order a drink. After quite a bit more time, I request a wine/​beer list and place an order, along with my food order.
After a five minute wait, instead of bringing me food or a drink, the server returns and states that although the coupon is for beverages AND food, anything with alcohol is not considered a beverage. I politely disagreed and he attempted to return my coupon, which I declined. After fifteen minutes wasted, I opted for another restaurant in the area.
My advice is if you go there, stick with the buffet. If you want to order a specific meal from the menu with a little service, forget about it. If you cannot make it to Devon Avenue and are In the River North area, Indian Garden and Indian House are much better options.

Updated review doesn’t change the overall star rating but I did want to acknowledge how large their portions are when we did takeout last night!
The taste of the food is okay, nothing great or special, but it’s convenient for us and they have takeout orders ready quickly. Their naan & roti were the best tasting of everything we ordered.

Fantastic food and interesting cocktails menu. Apple martini is just sooo good

Went there on a Saturday for a lunch buffet. Good spread. Non veg items were a little limited. Did not have a red meat option. The naans were a little thick. The food was not spicy at all.
Staff is friendly and helpful. Restaurant is clean bright.

We worked with Ritesh Rathod for catering for a special event few months back. Ritesh was amazing to work with! He listened to all our needs and ideas and came through on the day of the event. I had pinterested many different ideas for presentation, and he was very patient and worked with me on arranging everything needed to execute them. The food served looked like straight out of magazine! The taste was just as good! All of our guests raved about the food and asked who our caterer was. Thanks Ritesh for great service & food. We would highly recommend Ritesh and gaylord for catering for Wedding/​Reception or any other special event.

My parents have enjoyed their food in the past, so when they came down for dinner one Saturday night, we decided to head over for dinner. I made a reservation but when we got there, the place was not busy at all, so it wasn’t really necessary (but I’ve come to find out in Chicago, you’re better safe than sorry!)
Like I said, the place was not busy by any means, yet the service was insanely horrible. The excuse our waiter kept giving was that «they are packed and it is so busy», but I would hardly consider a restaurant that has half their tables vacant (if not more), packed or remotely «so busy».
The guy refilling our water must have come by no less than 4 times before we were actually greeted by our server. I checked in on Unilocal when we first sat down so I was able to easily keep track of the time, and our waiter welcomed us and took our drink orders 21 minutes after we sat down and blamed it on the busy night… We ordered everything right away since we didn’t know when we would see him next. (Good thing we did, we didn’t see him until we were almost done with our entrees when he rushed by to ask how we were enjoying everything– at least he did that, I guess). I used a check in offer for a free app and got the appetizer sampler, which ended up on our bill. We didn’t notice it, which is our mistake, but once we did– rather than blaming us and telling us they’ll give us a free one next time (yeah right), the charge should have been reversed.
As far as the food goes, it was pretty good– but not anything extraordinary which would make me want to return after bad service. The appetizer was pretty good– it came with a samosa, some pakoras (peppers, squash, potatoes), and cutlets. the potato filling in the samosa was flavorful. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the pakoras– there wasn’t much taste to them, just plain deep fried vegetables with no taste to the batter. I LOVED the cutlets. Very flavorful and decently spicy. And I liked the green chutney that came with it. They have a table where you can pick up some papad (fried dough), chutneys, veggies, pickles, etc. That was a very nice complimentary touch and was helpful when we needed more chutney for the samosas and our waiter was nowhere to be found. For entrees, we ordered the palak paneer, dal makhani, and bainghan bhartha (excuse my spelling!!). The palak paneer (spinach with Indian cheese) was decent. A nice kick to it and pretty tasty. I wasn’t a big fan of the dal makhani (lentils) — it was pretty average. The bainghan bhartha was not to my taste because it was a bit sweet, but my parents really enjoyed it– so that’s just my personal preference. For breads, I got the garlic naan which was huge and absolutely delicious! My mom ordered the rumali roti, which is an incredibly large, super thin roti and my stepdad ordered the paratha– they both enjoyed their breads as well.
Like I said, food was decent, but service was lacking. With plenty of other Indian restaurants within walking distance, I don’t think I’ll be returning soon, but maybe it was an off night as far as service goes since the rest of the reviews are favorable– so maybe give it a shot?

I would give 6 stars if I could!
Went with 4 friends and we ordered 3 vegetarian «currys» and a variety of naan bread and rice. The food and I mean every single dish was absolutely delicious!!!
Must have is the Indian spinach with the cheese … Amazing!
We ended up paying $ 30 per Person … But couldnt finish all dishes because it was simply to much!
Would recommend coming here to everyone that enjoys Indian food and likes awesome service!!! (They kept the restaurant open for 30 minutes longer so that we had enough time to eat)!
So:

First time trying their food and it was pretty good compared to the other Indian restaurants I have tried in Chicago. Was not the biggest fan of the dal makhani, that’s why I am giving it a 4 out of 5 stars.

We came here on a Saturday morning and the buffet was great. We had eaten at Fogo the night before so we wanted some veggies so we were pleased that there were lots of vegetarian options. If you want more meat options, you are probably better off at the India House buffet. However, Gaylord’s offers a couple meat dishes as well. The buffet is also only 13.95 which is cheaper than India House. We will be back. Super tasty and affordable!

Indian food is something I must have once a month. It’s also usually safe for me to eat when I need to (or want to) eat out. I pretty much follow a Jain-​like diet and most Indian restaurants understand this diet so it tends to be easier to dine at Indian restaurants.
We got breakfast down the road from this place and passed by it. To my surprise, Hubby mentioned it when it was time for lunch so we returned. I guess he wanted something salty and heavier than the usual sandwiches that we had mostly been limited to on our trip. Indian food was pretty safe — the question was what could they offer us.
They had some tables already seated. At least half of them were Indian. That’s a good sign! They had what looked like a pretty extensive buffet going on which I was tempted to view, but decided not to. I hate it when I can’t eat something and I don’t quite enjoy torturing myself if I have the choice, because I was about 110% sure we wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the buffet, other than probably the breads and dessert. The décor was definitely geared towards «fine dining» with cloth-​covered tables and wine glasses for your water. They also had a bar near the entrance.
We were seated and our glasses filled. I then told the man that we ate Jain and that we would need the menu. He looked amazed. (East) Asian people? Jain? He questioned us and I told him that we pretty much followed their diet (easier that way). I’m not sure if he quite understood it. In fact, I’m pretty sure he thought I was telling him we were actually Jain, but either way, as long as he understood what we could and could not eat, I didn’t care too much. We were told we could only have three items on their menu. Not too shabby, but not all that great of a selection, either. Especially when you see how many items there are on their menu (and buffet). Couldn’t complain too much though! It was still food and it wasn’t a sandwich or a salad. In fact, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t all that healthy either.
We got the Bombay Aloo (spiced potatoes) and the Paneer Makhani (Indian cheese in a butter-​tomato-​cream curry sauce) with some naan. Carbs and fat. Awesome. I felt like I needed it, though. Unilocal had some sort of deal where you can get a free appetizer. I mentioned Unilocal and before I could finish, the man told me that yes, I would get an extra 10% off my bill. O_​o Well, why not? It’s likely what I could have on the appetizer menu would have been underwhelming so having a discount of sorts would have been better. I took it.
It took a little bit of time but the food did come out. I could hear the man-​waiter talk to another person about us being Jain. I stifled a giggle. We were going to order a lassi to share and even considered something else like an appetizer, but it’s a good thing we didn’t. The dishes themselves weren’t huge, but the portions coupled with the actual content and rice — not to mention the naan — was going to be crazy. With us traveling and not likely to return to the hotel until night, we really didn’t want to have leftovers to take out.
We did it! We finished every bit of the potato and paneer as well as the sauce and sides. Both were good and mildly spiced. The potato was tender but not falling apart and mashed potato-​esque. It was well spiced and flavorful. The makhani had a decent amount of paneer in it and the sauce itself was rich. It frankly reminded me of Tomato Bisque. O_​o In fact, were there any spices in there? By the time we were done, I was completely stuffed and more than satisfied.
Service: amusing and helpful, but felt somewhat awkward at times.
Food: good; could do with more choices, but can’t really blame them (much)
Facilities: not too loud and pretty clean… bathrooms could do with a little bit of work, though. It’s ‘fine dining’ but a number of the customers were dressed pretty casually and that bathroom definitely wasn’t upscale.
Verdict: a pretty popular place (buffet seems to be very popular… boo on how I couldn’t experience it) and the food I could eat was good. Struggled at around 3.4 stars, but decided to round up, just because it was the only hot, savory, and filling meal we had in Chicago other than sandwiches, but that doesn’t count.

I feel this place is actually better than Indian Garden. So if you decided to have lunch in streeterville area, I recommend this one over Indian Garden.
They have a wider variety of dishes for their lunch buffet, I love the shrimp curry, which is not offered at Indian Garden. They have typical saga paneer, vege curry, lentile curry etc. My favorite thing at Gaylord is their ICECREAM!!! The flavors differ from day to day, so far I’ve had pistahcio and Mango. They are heavenly tasty: D
It’s really quite inside, so nice dining environment if you wanna talk with friends during lunch. At least you can hear each other easily without yelling.
They offer 10% for NU students.

We had waited a long time to try this place. Went late on a Weds. night. We were surprised how good it was. Garlic naan and cilantro/​pepper naan both good. It was nice and quiet.
Reasonably priced wine list (for downtown Chicago that is).
We had the chicken tikki masala, samosa chat, chicken pepper (especially good), and
We enjoyed them all.
Free Unilocal appetizer if you check in which the waiter spotted before I even said anything.
The service was terrific!

My favorite Indian restaurant in the Gold Coast /​Streeterville area. They deliver, which is convenient. Despite large portions, I think they are a little overpriced. However, that doesn’t stop me from ordering when I have a craving for Indian food. They haven’t always been consistent with levels of spiciness from order to order.
Favorite dishes include chicken vindaloo, murg makhani, mutter paneer, navrratan korma, and garlic naan.

I would really like to give this place 4.5 stars. I can’t believe we almost didn’t come here because of the subpar rating. Do not be dissuaded!
We’ve tried quite a few Indian places in Chicago (Rangoli, India House, a few along Devon) and Gaylord was definitively the best. The saag paneer, Kerala fish curry, and onion kulcha were seriously amazing. The fish was perfectly cooked and the saag was creamy with tons of paneer. I highly recommend both of those dishes. With our Unilocal coupon we also got a samosa chat for an appetizer, which was like a samosa curry with tamarind sauce, mint chutney, and chickpeas. Really yummy and spicy. And it’s right near Sprinkles which is great for dessert, though we’d love to try Gaylord’s desserts sometime soon.
This place is not hip like India House, but the atmosphere and wait staff are warm and cozy. The owner is kinda intimidating but he’s doing a great job, so no complaints here! On top of all, Gaylord is excellently priced. Highly recommended!

I’m a fan of Gaylord’s as i’ve experienced them at their best. Went for their Sunday buffet and the theme was southern Indian. We found most of the dishes were either mediocre rice, breads or other «fillers» and were a little light on meat and/​or vegetable options. I get the southern Indian cuisine style but the value was just not there for the buffet options we were given.
What really put us off was the «Bum’s Rush» we were given by the waitstaff, like they couldn’t wait to get rid of us, even though the restaurant was not full, not closing and people were still being seated for dinner. We found it strange and rude. They kept taking our silverware, napkins and asking us if we were done. What’s up with that?
I’m a fan Gaylords but this was atypical for you. Make me proud next time I come in.