The Grand Lux Cafe: "Grand-Casual" Excess

Meredith Ashton

Restaurant Review

22 October 2016

The Grand Lux Café: “Grand-Casual” Excess

In 1949 Evelyn Overton made a cheesecake for her husband’s boss. It must have been one hell of a cheesecake, as this single dessert spawned The Cheesecake Factory, an international empire of chain restaurants fueled by customers’ love of ridiculously large portions. Evelyn’s son, David, designed the Grand Lux Café as a sibling chain to its famed counterpart, offering a slightly pricier menu of seafood and steaks than its more appetizer-and-burger focused antecedent.

The first Grand Lux Café opened in Las Vegas in 1999 at the famed Venetian Resort, Hotel, & Casino, where it fit the Vegas vibe of excess and splendor. Inspired by extensive European touring, the menu features “seductive flavor profiles” from around the globe, blending the grandeur of Europe with the more casual American dining experience. Chicago’s Grand Lux was the third location to open in the US.

Grand Lux Cafe Las Vegas

The Grand Lux embodies the spirit of its birthplace and founders, presenting an incredible feast for the senses as well as the stomach. The restaurant offers a fun dining experience for special occasions, but most definitely borders on the excessive for the everyday dinner.

The self-prescribed term “casual” is used very loosely to refer to Grand Lux dining.

The large venue and extensive menu provide “something for everyone,” however, the only cohesion between the dishes and the décor seems to be the elements of excessive decadence and portion sizes.

Indeed, it was a sensory experience to just make it to my dinner table. I started in the restaurant’s large, street-level foyer with marble walls detailed in shimmering gold accents, the noisy din of the restaurant floating down from the floor above. Next, I ascended to the restaurant’s mail floor via escalator (much to the delight of the little girl behind me—escalators are very exciting.) I was greeted with an onslaught of rapidly moving waiters, the clatter of cutlery and customer chatter, and the tantalizing aromas wafting from the open kitchen. While the business does not accept reservations, it was only a twenty minute wait for a table, which is excellent for a Friday night in Chicago.

The Grand Lux boasts more than 500 seats, spread strategically throughout a handful of cavernous dining rooms. I suggest you take a minute and drink it all in. If you’re like me, you’ll probably shamelessly spin in a full 360—admiring the large hand-blown glass light fixtures and chandeliers draped from the ceiling, illuminating the intricate murals of geometric patterns and classical cultural scenes. The decadent décor was dizzying. It was with a sigh of relief that I retreated into the haven of my little booth in an adjacent space set apart from the central dining room. This smaller room was more intimate, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Chicago’s evening skyline; the lightly pulsing electric signs and headlights from the street traffic below charmingly lit up our cozy-leather-lined booth.

The Grand Lux’s menu is both daunting and oxymoronic.

Self-described as globe-trotting “grand-casual” food, for the unprepared diner the  diverse selection can be overwhelming. Many items on the menu blur the line of traditional “American” cuisine by combining foreign ingredients and techniques with familiar dishes.  While, in general, the Grand Lux excels with its main courses, the accompanying side dishes do not receive the same level of attention and detail in the kitchen.

The emphasis is clearly on constructing what is familiar, and in no way could the Lux’s “international” cuisine stand up to a restaurant focused on a single ethnic cuisine.

The Creamy Spinach & Cheese Dip arrived in what could best be described as a large ceramic vat. In addition to its wide girth, the dish delivered in the cheesiness department, offering a rich and creamy mixture of spinach and various cheeses. The spicy bite of the accompanying salsa added a surprising accent to the otherwise savory dish. There were, unfortunately, hardly enough chips to finish half the dish, and neither were said tortillas salted, which seemed an odd area in which to skimp.

It was after the appetizer that our server, who had been polite but disengaged, was suddenly substituted for a younger, far more enthusiastic (and close-talking) waiter who filled our glasses after every few sips. The food came very quickly, with little thought to the pacing of the meal for the guests. We were still wading through the spinach dip when our entrees arrived.

Miso Glazed Salmon

The Grand Lux is known for their meat and seafood, so I gamely trudged through several pages of the menu until I found their specialty dishes. The Miso Glazed Salmon with rice and stir-fried vegetables presented an interesting take on a classic “American” dish with Japanese-inspired culinary elements. Miso is a paste made from fermented soybeans and barely malt, and while I had enjoyed miso soup before, I was a tad skeptical about smothering it on a fish. It turned out to be freaking delicious. The salmon absorbed the sweet-and-sour miso flavor and was so perfectly cooked that it fell off my fork upon carving into the fish. The sauce tied the salmon together with the accompanying stir-fried veggies, which offered a light crunch to the fish, and the rice, while nothing noteworthy, created a lovely, although bland, base for the rest of the flavorful dish.

I’ll preface my description of the Parmesan Crusted Pork Chop with a confession: I am a lifelong vegetarian of nearly twenty years. As such, take it as you will when I say that the garlic-buttered breadcrumb crust added a delicious crunch to the tender pork beneath. It was one of the few meat dishes that I would like to try again. The accompanying cooked carrots, however, were reduced to a tasteless mush, a true tragedy compared to the rest of the dish.

New Orleans Beignets

For guests with second stomachs, the Grand Lux has an in-house bakery from which customers can order directly. I was intrigued by the New Orleans Beignets on the menu, and a quick internet search identified them as “fried squares of dough sprinkled with confectioners sugar.” In a serendipitous turn of events, I discovered that beignets are, in fact, just fancy donuts! I might even venture to say that they’re slightly superior to their rich cousins, as their light and fluffy consistency allows the guest to consume the entire basket of the round, powdered sugar dough-balls (or at least, that was my experience) after the enormous entrée course. While the chocolate sauce was solidified and the strawberry sauce a sickly sweet concoction, the yellow cream was the perfect compliment for beignet-dipping.

After the final dessert course, if you’re not absolutely stuffed to the brim with food, then you haven’t done the Grand Lux correctly. For me, it was a pleasant sensory overload soaked in creamy cheese dip and savory miso sauce, sprinkled with confectioners sugar. If you’re looking for a stimulating, full-body dining experience, then The Grand Lux Cafe is the place for you. As for the fainter of heart, or those simply desiring a reasonably-portioned, lighter meal, I would suggest looking elsewhere. The Lux has definitely super-sized since the days of Evelyn’s single cheesecake.