• 1490 W Maple St.New Lenox, IL 60441
• (815) 485-8585
• Considered a gastropub
• $$
• ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

How does a restaurant separate itself from the millions of other restaurants around the world? Maybe it is by having huge portion sizes or maybe by lighting cheese on your entree on fire at your table. Williamson’s Bar and Grill in New Lenox, IL does both of these things to try and entertain guests and .

An associate and I recently visited Williamson’s Restaurant and Pub in New Lenox. The parking lot was completely empty when we arrived which is not normally the case for any decent restaurants at 5pm on a Friday. Though this did make finding a parking spot pretty easy. Also there was no wait and we were taken straight to our table.

All of the staff that talked to us were very nice and dressed professionally in all black and with there hair out of their faces if it was long. They also all had name tags. The restaurant was not loud and had two separate rooms. One for the bar and one for dining. This is a very good idea, because it helps lower the amount of noise the people eating hear from the bar.

Once we were seated at our table, which was a fairly clean booth near the back of the restaurant, it only took 3-5 minutes for a waitress to great us.

The bathrooms and bar seemed to be pretty clean and had no annoying or unacceptable features to them.

The menu was five pages long and they had daily specials. There were 3 daily specials and 3 choices for soup that day. We had just the right amount to pick from. I do not think the menu was too long or did not have enough items on it. Some items like the desserts did not have prices on them, which is pretty strange.

We ordered calamari as an appetizer after receiving our waters and it took 10-15 minutes for it to be brought out. Though it definitely was not the worst I have had, it definitely was not the best calamari I have ever had. It was lacking in flavor but was not a rubbery texture. It came with marinara sauce which I was very happy about. The sauce was sort of watery and should have been thicker but it had nice flavor. Overall not the worst calamari and marinara sauce I have ever had but definitely not the best.

After the calamari, our waiter brought out our soup. We both ordered the same soup, Cream of chicken and rice. When I asked my associate about the soup he said “it warms my soul.” I thought it was a great consistency and was not too thick but also not thin. Though it was a little lacking in the amount of chicken that came in my bowl of soup.

With the soup we were given a loaf of bread and butter. The bread was great, it was crunchy but soft on the inside and warm. It came with a honey butter that was also pretty good. It wasn’t too sweet like some flavored butters can be but there was also enough flavor that you could tell it wasn’t normal butter. When we were first given the bread, our first thought was whether or not it was as good as Texas Road House’s biscuits and apple butter. To me no. I do not think it was as good as Texas Road House but it was definitely pretty close. I prefer the soft, flakey texture of the biscuits at Texas Road House compared to the crunchy french bread texture of Williamson’s.

Our waiter was very good at clearing off the table whenever more food was brought out. We did not have dirty dishes sitting on our table the whole time. She also filled out waters up regularly and my cup only got to empty once throughout the dinner.

While waiting for our food, a waiter brought out the food for a nearby table and lite the top layer of cheese on one of the dishes on fire. This gave the dish a very nice golden-brown color. I thought it was a pretty cool thing to do, but it did cause the area near the table and the waiter for that table to smell like burnt cheese.

Once my entree arrived, Chicken Fettuccine Carbonara, the only thing I could think of was “how in the world am I going to eat all of this.” The bowl of pasta was gigantic. It was pretty good, had a good amount of chicken which was not too dry, and the pasta was not chewy. It was a little oily but not terrible.

My associate’s meal was fairly large as well with steak and shrimp special with garlic mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables. This was one of the daily specials for Friday. The steak was cooked to what my associate asked for and was not chewy or dry. It had a decent amount of seasoning and flavor on it also. The garlic mashed potatoes were not lumpy and you could definitely tell that they had garlic in them, maybe a little too much garlic. The shrimp were not terrible but they are definitely not on my favorite shrimp list. They did not have a lot of flavor and were a little dry. The mixed vegetables were definitely the worst thing we ordered that night. They were palish colored and had no seasoning. They seemed like they were from a bag of frozen vegetables that you would get from a store. The vegetables were also overcooked and soggy.

Overall I believe that Williamson’s is a pretty good restaurant and it does not have any huge problems with it, but I also think that it does not have anything special to separate it from the even just hundreds of restaurants near and in New Lenox. If huge portion sizes and setting cheese on fire is enough excitement for you, then this is a perfect place for you, but if it takes more than that to excite you, I would probably find somewhere else.