Grace’s African Restaurant

Ordered for a quick bite. When we got there the staff/​family of staff were all hanging out in the dining area. The place is definitely NOT for dine in. Just five people will make it crowded. We were ordering some plantains, which I believe are supposed to be a staple African dish… they were out. We ordered the Jollof Rice. It tasted ok but probably would have been better if it was fresh. When the order came out too fast, I knew they just nuked it for like 3 minutes and voila! Lastly, as I was paying I found out they don’t take cards, cash only. I don’t carry cash anymore… You know with the whole turn of the century and all. I probably won’t come back unless I am desperate and have no other choice.

Terrible. I wish I read the reviews before we went in to eat in here. Don’t go to this place the food was not fresh. It’s like they warmed up the food in a microwave. They don’t have any prices on the menu and we feel that they over charged us. We want to take a order of plantain home and they said they didn’t have any more. They rushed us out of the place. The owner was somewhat nice, he recommended a few dishes. Beans and plantains, rice with some spices chicken and fish and some other kind of rice with chicken and fish. The fish was old fish. Very difficult to eat with a ton of bones. Kinda greasy. The chicken was good. The bill was $ 60 which we were shocked. We will never go back. For $ 60 we would expect fresh quality food with great service.

I had dinner here last night, and I was really pleased.
It’s clear that some reviewers didn’t really go into the dining experience in the right frame of mind, so some things to consider:
1. Foreign cuisine doesn’t have a problem with bones; Americans are just lazy eaters. The fish will have lots of bones. The goat meat will have bones. The chicken will have bones. Just like Indian food.
2. This place is sort of a hole-​in-​the-​wall place mostly by and for the local African community.
I had the fish, which came with the mushy bread, spicy tomato chutney, chopped veggies and some BBQish sauce. I don’t recall the name of the dish, but I ate it with my hands and washed up with a finger bowl after.
The fish was really tasty, if bony. I’m not quite sure what kind of fish it was (it said Flying Fish, but the fish steak looked a bit big for that). The fish was fried quite well, but not to the point of being dry – even the skin was tasty. Not quite crispy. The bread went really well with the BBQ sauce and fish and fresh veggies.
Overall, I thought the food was pretty good quality, and really interesting. The staff and regulars were pretty friendly, too, and I didn’t get any flak for not being African.
Pretty good, for what it was: a hole-​in-​the-​wall ethnic joint. Not fine dining, but good food that you don’t usually find in the midwest.

This place was a great experience, one I didn’t expect in Chicago. I had a soup that came with a glob of white rice in the middle and two different kinds of meat (chicken and goat). First thing we got on the table was a bowl of warm water to wash our hands because you eat the stuff with your bare hands. I suggest using only one so that you got a clean one left.
This soup was one of the hottest (spiciest) dishes I ever had and even though you wash your hands afterwards, if you touch your eye with the hand you used for eating, it’ll burn. So this is another reason to use only one hand.
AIt’s a small restaurant with only a couple of tables. The interior is ok, neither is it super fancy nor worn off, just normal. Staff was friendly. Price reasonable.

OK, so we just got kicked out of Mali, so we were a bit desperate for West African chop, but we have to say we had a very nice experience. Mom is the cook, and I don’t think she has a lot of English. Her son Prince is very personable, and helped us order. When ordering at an African restaurant, the best luck is to ask what they have that is good [and readily available]; we had 4 different things; and each was quite good. There is some heat in the goat and fufu dish, and for other dishes, one can ask for more «shito» which is the Ghanaian pepper sauce. There was a bit of sticker shock; as the bill for four came to $ 55, but it was a very nice dining experience.

I just went here with a few friends the other night. I loved the food at the African Festival, but was always afraid to go sit in the restaurant because it appears to be very dark and I guess closed to people who aren’t really African. I know that sounds bad, but I guess it’s just my lack of confidence. I walked in and was really surprise, yeah its small, but its really cute inside. They had the movie Dodgeball playing in the background. We had to go up and order, but when the chef couldn’t understand my friend, he came out. Having an extensive history with African men I took a shot. We ordered the goat and chicken leg with white rice. Now I’m a sucker for Nigerian food mostly, Jollof rice is the one of the best things I’ve eaten, so Ghanian looked a little different. The chicken was delicious and perfectly seasoned and cooked. The goat was falling off the bones and melted in your mouth. The plate was huge and was loaded with rice, noodles, veggies, eggs, and the meat on top. We ordered 2 of them for 3 people, but 1 could have served us all. Our total was $ 22 and they gave us bottled water. To top it off, it’s a very good price for all the food. The service was good, not very friendly, but quick and cordial.

I was walking home from errands and stopped in here for lunch on a whim. The restaurant name is nondescript regarding its specific cuisine, but the menu says the dishes are Ghanian. Being no African food connoisseur myself, I asked for a recommendation. The guy working there recommended Waakye, the first dish on the menu, which is fish with rice, beans, and vegetables in a tomato sauce. Interestingly, there were also a few pieces of beef in the mix, which is not mentioned on the menu. I asked for a side of fried plantains, but the guy (manager? waiter? I don’t know) said he didn’t have any. I found that a little strange considering nearly half the menu contains them.
The food was fresh and flavorful, if not spectacular. Not a lot of meat but extremely generous portion of the rice, beans, and veggies. The guy who took my order seemed more interested in getting me out of there than anything else, but the other gentleman working (presumably the owner) was very friendly. Atmosphere-​wise, it seems like a family establishment short on frills. It’s a good place to grab a quick meal or food to go; not a date spot. I’ll probably stop back in periodically and would recommend this to someone looking for a change-​up from routine.

So for those complaining about the food: First of all it is GHANAIAN not GHANESE!
Secondly, if you are trying something different then you have to be open minded. How do you expect to eat «American style-​Ghanaian food?» The food they make is authentically Ghanaian so it helps to ask questions, that way you will be guided to what works best for your palette.
Ghanaians like their meat not too tender and not too hard, we don’t cook falling off the bone tender because that means the meat will fall apart in the sauce.
I am Ghananian and an excellent cook. Grace is as close to what I would cook or eat back home. If you don’t have an open mind that different nations cook differently, how do you enjoy the experience?
Anywho, I will be at Grace tomorrow to pick up some waakye and banku, feel free to join me.

We stopped in here, at around midnight, on a whim after the poetry slam at the Green Mill. I think that they had officially stopped serving food but they still welcomed us in with open arms and fed us some really yummy, spicy, African food. There was music playing and whole families dancing and having a blast. everyone was so nice to us and so welcoming. I am a little familiar with different foods from Africa and the style of cooking and eating. It is hard for Americans to get used to being served fish with all the bones still in; so I would suggest that people who don’t want that stick to the chicken dishes.
I can’t say enough that the people who own/​run this little restaurant are some of the sweetest people you could hope to meet in all of Chicago.

Giving this place one star is too much credit. I am not a complaining person but this one I just couldn’t let go. I stopped by this place for the first time, on my way to an appointment. Now I am completely famished because I haven’t had anything to eat all day. I place an order for a dish that is called pronounced Wachee, which consists of rice, fish a spicy tomato like sauce… so I thought. When I get to my appointment and start chowing down, I bite into a piece of beef. I take another bite (the bite that seals my fate) just to make sure I’m not mistaken. No it’s beef. To shorten a long story, I call the restaurant to
make arrangements to get a refund because my appointment won’t finish well after 5:00. Stop. I am no business major, but I do have a little common sense. Wouldn’t it make sense to eat the 10 bucks, refund the customer in hopes of getting some referral and repeat business, especially when you F– — - — –d up! The two COMPLETE idiots (who I assume were the managers) proceeded to raise their voices at me, tell me that I had eaten some of the food and was not going to be refunded. I exchanged words with them naturally and pissed them off when I took a snapshot of their storefront. I was then
followed out onto Broadway street and had to the threaten the shouting manager/​cook to back off or I would hail down a police car.
This type of behavior is just plain in excusable. These people should not be permitted to operate a business.

haha, Me ye obruni, nanso me ka twi bosa bosa, né me pe chop bar nei paa… I lived in Ghana for about a year, so I know a little about the food. Despite the other reviews, this place is solid — you have to either be Ghanaian or know about the food/​culture, so if your knowledge is lacking in this respect, please go with someone familiar with the food/​African restaurant mentality. The wakye is quite good, and somewhat close to what you’d get in Ghana, but nothing beats fresh wakye in Tamale. Naturally, most of the food is better in Ghana, but this place comes very close, though it doesn’t have the occasional pebble in the beans and/​or rice. I wish it served kokoo né edwia (red red), though once I asked for it (in Twi) and they made it for me on the spot. Very good homemade shito. And coming from someone who’s killed his own goat to eat while in Ghana; goat is goat guys! Stop whining and enjoy what it is!

I was strolling down Broadway looking for a new adventure, so Grace African caught my eye. I cook some African at home, so I was expecting to be wowed. Oh my. Have these people ever heard of tenderizer? The goat meat was unchewable, and I had it on top of waachi, which is really just Ghanese for spicy hoppin john, so how can you screw that up? Amazingly they did. A good third of my dish was one big clump. I had to go to Starbuck to get something to wash the taste of it out of my mouth.

This place was terrible. bits of bone fragments sprinkled throughout my rice and goat meat. the rice with beans was dry and clumpy. My canned drink that said $ 0.99 on the side was actually $ 2
And the food stunk. I’ll never return to this awful place again. They also overcharged me by $ 10, my original meal was $ 10. Now, I have to deal with THAT.
Go elsewhere for sure.
*edit*
I went back to their location to show them from my statement I printed online where they charged me double. They wouldn’t give me the credit back since I don’t have the receipt. I probably threw the receipt away. I am now having to dispute it through my bank.