Zia A New Mexican Cafe

There is some justice after all. I’m happy to hear this place closed. What an awful dining experience. The food was really boring and my girlfriend bit into a little rock in her food. Granted, I am an idiot and couldn’t quite put together the fact that it was a «New Mexican» café. I though they just meant that it was a new Mexican café. So it was more Tex-​Mex than Mexican, OK. It didn’t make up for the fact that it was terrible. With hundreds of Mexican options in the city, I was shocked to see this place survive as long as it did. Good ridance.

I stopped by Zia’s before I went to a concert at Park West. I wasn’t overly impressed by the food or the prices. I guess the prices reflect the nighborhood but I’m not a fan. I may need to try it again to see if I’m being too harsh but I doubt I would stop here again even if I was in the area. The cocktail I had was good though and worth the $ 8 price tag. Can’t recommend the place in good conscious.

Ick.
I am so happy this place closed. What a waste of space.
I live very close to this place. Went there once.
The owner, who was sitting on the counter when I walked in texting on his crackberry, was the only person in the restaurant.
I had a steak burrito that was cold, rare, $ 15, and took him 15 minutes to cook.
I don’t know how it lasted this long.

Spicy, spicy, spicy! I love this place because when they say spicy, they mean it. My realtor, who is from New Mexico, recommended we go there after I told her I love spicy food. It did not disappoint!
You can order most dishes with avocados instead of meat, which is a nice option for vegetarians or if you just want something on the lighter side. I recommend the enchiladas, which are cooked with a spicy red sauce that is very unlike the ketchup-​y sauce enchiladas are sometimes cooked in.
The margaritas are also very tasty. The downside is that it’s closed on Sunday nights.

If you’re looking for some Mexican food that isn’t just your «normal» burrito and nacho stuff, this is a good spot. The food is good but the drinks are actually better. If you go, make sure to get a Black Dog (you’ll thank me later).

Alright — it’s the only place that has New Mexican food in Chicago, but I think I just need to give up and wait until I’m in New Mexico or if I manage to make enough time to roast some chile on my gas stove.
This place tries, and for people who don’t know better that might be enough. But I know better, and that not enough for me. I need chile — lots of green luscious chile on my enchiladas. I want to taste it, and I want the chicken inside to taste like it. What I got just wasn’t it. Even the salsa that came with the chips was sub par. The green chile stew was decent, but it just made me crave the real thing. There is just not enough chile flavor, and everything in New Mexico is about that flavor.
Oh — and we may have come at an off time (we were the only people there), but we ended up having to speak to the only guy there in spanish to see if we could still eat before lunch was over.
I am going to give them dibs for trying, but I can’t give them the stars for making it.

Very disappointing mexican restaurant. I went to hang up my coat on a broken coatrack that proceeded to fall on top of me. The margaritas were bad and expensive and the chile con queso wasn’t as good as rotel and velveeta. Taco bell would be a better choice.

I spent this past Spring Break in the US Southwest, well just the best of it-​New Mexico & Arizona: X. My boyfriend and I were dying for the same tastes and delicious food that light our mouths on fire. Zia will not disappoint here and is the only Southwestern cuisine restaurant in Chicago. If you’re truly adventurous, get your meal Christmas (hopefully they’ll know what you mean if it’s true New Mexican) by having both red and green salsas. Don’t confuse these with Mexican salsas because they’re not, just better (our waitress from Mexico was the one who brought it up)! The house that Zia is in is really cute, yet small. Take advantage of the outdoor seating. Last but not least, get SOPAIPILLAS with honey for dessert. I found them here to be better than the it’s home. **Not handicap accessible due to stairs and its second floor location.

Was really excited to come here after our trip to New Mexico left us jonesing for the kick ass food from vacation. We were super disappointed. The restaurant itself was really cute and small.
I had the chilie rellenos, which was basically the rellenos (with nacho cheese sauce?) and beans and rice smashed together on a plastic plate and cheese covering the entire plate. It really wasn’t discernable which item was which. It seemed like cafeteria food, which I wasn’t expecting considering the price (not too expensive, but pricing indicative of discernable food items on my plate). The margaritas were pretty gross too.
We were really disappointed, considering we had the same things in New Mexico a few weeks earlier and wanted to enjoy them again.
Summary: The service was decent and the décor was cute. The food wasn’t BAD, but it definitely left a lot to be desired.

We didn’t start off our day planning on coming here. We went to LPZ, then wandered into Lincoln Park and then it started to rain, a lot. We needed a place to eat and to get out of the rain, STAT!
Luckily enough Zia’s welcomed us in with open arms, yummy appetizers and really good margaritas!
You always cross your fingers when you haven’t done your research on a restaurant ahead of time but this place did not disappoint.
The best part was the plentiful vegetarian options. We’ll be back.

I am no expert on New Mexican food, or the difference between Mexican and New Mexican, but I ate here last night and I was extremely pleased — the overriding theme of my review is freshness. The food seemed very fresh. Something about the taste.
I tried many things, and they were all outstanding — enchiladas, chili relleno, taco, quesadilla. Something about the taste of this food — ummm. .. there is not as much discussion of the Margaritas in other reviews as I expected — I thought the margaritas, made with Cointreau and Grand Marnier, were outstanding.
The waitress was super nice, they were playing Bob Marley, and the original paintings on the wall were pretty cool.
Overall, the food was fresh, and although I am no expert in New Mexican cuisine, I do eat a lot of Mexican food, and this is on par with some of the best I have had. I highly recommend this place. Also reasonable prices.

I usually order Zia’s to go, since I live across the street. I really love the steak salad, and the chips are good too. They could use a little salt.
Issues:
1. One more than one occasion, they have given me my salad without dressing. Uh, what?
2. They keep really weird hours. 11:30 to 2, and then 5 to 8:30 I believe. Why? They are right next to Park West; it would be in their best interest to stay open until like 10 or 10:30, to grab after-​show crowds, right?

It’s the best New Mexican food I’ve had in the midwest (well, really the only New Mexican food I’ve had in the midwest…).
It’s spicy and it’s good — although, I will admit, it can’t really compare to the real thing in New Mexico. The green and red chilies are great, but the food itself wasn’t seasoned quite enough.
Normally I’d give this place 3 stars, but since they are the ONLY New Mexican cuisine I’ve seen in the city, they get an extra star. I’m all for bringing the New Mexican flavor to the midwest!
When you go, please remember: This ISN’T MEXICAN FOOD. THIS IS NEW MEXICAN FOOD. New Mexican food is different than Mexican food. New Mexican food has a lot of the same fare that Mexican food does (enchiladas, etc), but it’s smothered in either a red or green chilie (different flavors of spicy). There’s your lesson for the day.
PS. Their sopapillas and honey are amazing.

WOW. People don’t know the difference between Mexican and New Mexican cuisine. ZIA is the only restaurant in the Midwest, let alone the Chicagoland area that serves authentic New Mexican food. And in my opinion the test is the Green Chile Chesse Fries. They hold up. The chile they use is Hatch Green Chile from NM. The Red Chile has a great flavor and is better than the Green, but it doesn’t hurt to go Christmas every once in awhile. Whenever I need a chile fix, ZIA is the place to go. It is great inexpensive NM cuisine 1200 miles from home.

I love New Mexican food, and I’m glad there’s at least ONE restaurant in Chicago where I can finally satisfy my cravings for green chile stew! First of all, just to reiterate… this is «New Mexican» as in the state, not «the opposite of old.» Totally different ingredients, different spices, etc.
Anyway I finally made it to Zia’s last night with a friend who had never eaten NM food. One thing he noticed on the menu right off the bat was a note about letting your server know if you’re a vegetarian. This was very exciting and appreciated, because it meant that he didn’t have to worry if the refried beans that came with his entrée had any meat in them! All in all, the service was great — extra care about the vegetarian stuff, our water glasses were refilled about 6 times, and everyone was very nice.
On to the food! The free chips to start dinner were excellent — nothing better than hot tortilla chips and fresh salsa, ya know? I went with the green chile stew as my entrée, which was quite a deal for $ 5 — I couldn’t even finish the whole bowl. Very hearty, packed with pulled chicken, beef, chiles, potato, and topped with cheese and tortilla chips. My only complain was that it was a bit heavy on chopped onions, but they were added on top so that would be an easy adjustment to make next time I order the stew. Anyway it was almost as good as the stew I remember in Santa Fe…
My friend ordered the vegetarian enchiladas with red chile. He really enjoyed them and I of course snuck a bite. Zia’s red chile is very spicy and smoky, and once you get over the initial hit of the spice, the dish was quite flavorful. I’m more of a green chile kind of gal, but try both and see which one you prefer.
If you go, be sure to order sopapillas — they’re almost like hollow, pillow-​shaped doughnuts, that you eat with honey. In NM they have them on every table like a breadbasket; I didn’t even see them on the menu at Zia but I knew they had ‘em. Even though they’re sweet, I’d recommend ordering them with your entrée because they’re great for giving yourself a break and combatting the spiciness of the rest of the food!
All in all… flavorful dishes, great service, cute atmosphere, and fair prices. I’ll be going back very soon. One note — it’s pretty small so don’t go with a group bigger than 4.

went here for a bite to eat with a friend after getting my ear pierced and to celebrate my re-​birthday. The chips were homemade and I don’t usually like chips, but these were interesting. The strawberry margarita was good but tasted different – turns out he said he just didnt put a lot of the sweet mix in, which was fine by me. My main dish, enchilada, was only ok. Spicier than a motherfreaker but at the same time still kind of bland.
I really want to support local businesses, so I might try it again and order something different.

Wow — no reviews. I recommend this place to pretty much everybody. It’s good quasi-​Mexican. I say quasi-​Mexican because it’s actually New Mexican. You have a choice between red and green sauces. I always go for the red — it’s spicier, but the green is awesome. Prices are fair. For 2 people with an awesome margarita the cost usually between $ 25 – 30. I usually stick with the chicken enchiladas (only once were they bland). The rice and beans as sides are definately good. But… the best part of the meal is the sopapillas (fried sweet dough) that COMES with the meal. Use the honey on the table. The chile reyannos were definately good also.

Sorry, have to chime in on this one. I can easily name 20 better mexican places in the city. If by referring to themselves as «*New* Mexican» they mean buying frozen Mexican goods from Costco and replating them for their customers, then I guess they’ve succeeded. All I recall from my last experience was bad artwork, awkward service, and a «chile relleno» that was a dead ringer for a jalapeño popper.

I’m a native New Mexican, so I crave New Mexican food. So far this is the only place. Unfortunately it did not quench my yearning for NMexcian food. The green chile was mild, the sopapilla dough fermented and thus the sopapillas tasted sour. What was shocking was that one had to order sopapillas as an extra/​dessert and that they weren’t a standard side as in New Mexico. That was a real shocker!
I was pretty surprised about the food after reading about the owner’s history. The dishes are traditional New Mexican, but don’t exactly remind me of home when it comes to taste (a bit bland, perhaps to suit the more tame Midwestern palate, I reckon).
As far as red or green goes, a good rule of thumb is red with beef and pork dishes and green with chicken or vegetarian dishes.
All-​in-​all, I’m happy this café is here and that it’s survived!

First you need to realize that this is a New Mexican Café so it is different then Mexican food. This is a very small and casual restaurant. You walk in and will seat yourself. I would say the food is average but a bit bland on occasion. The Chile Queso was great and I have to say I really enjoyed the Margarita. The margarita is like a real margarita don’t expect a whole lot of sweet and sour enjoy a true southwestern margarita. I had the fajitas and the meat was very tender but it was a bit bland. I went with a friend and she had the enchiladas which she said were good and the chicken was tender but it wasn’t the best thing she ever had. The sopapillas were very good though.