There are many activities that should not be performed on an empty stomach, including swimming, surgery, and swimming 30 minutes after having your appendix removed. Ensure that your stomach is ready for life's challenges with today's Groupon: for $15, you get $30 worth of Italian cuisine and drinks at O'Neil's in Winnetka.
Amid its granite-topped tables and cappuccino-colored walls illuminated by muted wall sconces, O'Neil's packs both inventive and traditional tastes into its lunch and dinner menus. Patrons can pair a quaff from the fully-stocked bar with a saucy starter of barbecue flatbread topped with chicken, red onion, and a tangy sauce ($11) before moving onto the crisp roasted duck ($20), served with orzo and a side of verdant vegetables. Seafarers, meanwhile, will find much to love in the grilled salmon ($22), delivered fresh each day, or the cioppino's ($23) edible undersea musical number of mussels, shrimp, xylophone-playing calamari, clams, crab legs, and fresh fish. A dessert of the fresh-baked praline basket ($7.95) overflowing with french vanilla ice cream and topped with raspberry sauce finishes the feast on a sweet note, no matter how often your blind date insists on gutting his or her own fish.
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Reviews
Yelpers give O'Neil's a 3.5-star average:
- This place is terrific. They are very accommodating, the food is delicious, and there are lots of choices for wine. – Janna N.
- I really enjoy dining at O"Neils [sic]. The wait staff are helpful, but they also give you time to talk with friends. I don't feel rushed. I have eaten both indoors and outdoors and enjoyed both. I love their salads at lunch. – Sheila G.
O'Neil's
Southern-style sides such as collard greens, macaroni and cheese, and sweet potato fries flank Little Ricky's entrees of signature baby back ribs and overstuffed sandwiches. Bartenders nimbly find their way around a vast array of top-shelf liquors to mix drinks such as the North Shore Iced Tea, Ricky's Manhattan, and locally produced North Shore tapwater, but won't turn up their noses at a request to crack one of about 40 bottled beers in stock. With full-wall windows facing a low-lit room done up in black and crimson, Little Ricky's interior combines the professional polish of a national chain with the easygoing local charm of the neighborhood hangout its founders intended it to be.