Updated August 2026. Saturday brunch for four at Ambar in River North, Chicago. We paid our own way and ordered a la carte.
The corner of Clark and Huron does not look like a place that serves Balkan food. It looks like the ground floor of a River North high rise, which is exactly what it is, except somebody has buried the entrance under a wall of sunflowers and roses and hung a blue awning over the whole corner. This used to be Etta. Now it is Ambar, and on a Saturday at noon the patio was full.
We sat outside under the awning. It was overcast and spitting rain, which sounds like a complaint and is not one. The patio is covered, and I will take seventy five degrees and grey over ninety degrees and blazing every weekend of the summer.
Our server walked us through the unlimited option before we had opened anything. Thirty seven dollars a person, order as much as you want off the brunch menu, add fifteen for unlimited mimosas if you want them. Then the part that decided our afternoon. Unlimited runs on a two hour clock, and the whole table has to be in on it together.
We had a dinner commitment at four. We ordered a la carte, and the four of us ate for forty seven dollars and forty two cents.
The Room Is Doing a Lot of Work Before the Food Arrives
Inside, you pass through a small vestibule wrapped in pink Balkan pattern wallpaper, under a beaded chandelier, and then the space opens up and keeps going. Timber beams. Wisteria and greenery hanging off them. A gallery wall of gilt framed pictures down one side and a back bar signed Vino, Ziveli, Rakija. Herringbone floors. Iron lanterns the length of the main bar.
It is a lot, and it works. There is a version of this room that would feel like a set, and Ambar lands on the right side of it, mostly because the place was busy and loud and nobody was treating it preciously. Our kids clocked the flowers immediately. That is not nothing. A room a teenager will look up from their phone for is a room that has done its job.
The open kitchen sits at the back with a wood burning oven and braids of dried peppers hanging over the pass under copper heat lamps. If you are eating inside and you get a table near it, take it. It is the most interesting thing to look at in the building.
Food Comes Out as It Is Made, Not in Courses
Worth knowing before you sit down, because it changes how the two hour clock feels. Ambar runs on a tapas rhythm. Plates land when the kitchen finishes them, not together, not coursed. One person is eating while another is waiting, then it flips.
For a table that came to graze, that is the right way to serve this food. For a table on the unlimited clock, it is the detail that matters most and nobody mentions. You are not ordering rounds and receiving rounds. You are ordering and then waiting on a kitchen that is firing for a full room, and the two hours are running the entire time. If you buy unlimited planning to work through six or seven plates, the rhythm of the room is a bigger constraint than your appetite.
What We Ordered and What We Thought
Here is the honest version of how our table ate, and it is not how all you can eat usually gets written up. Nobody raced. Vika and I split one pulled pork benedict between us. Josh and Emily split one order of Ambar sliders. Four people, two plates, and we all left full enough.
The Pulled Pork Benedict
Slow cooked pork shoulder under two poached eggs and hollandaise, on an English muffin, with sun dried tomato underneath and breakfast potatoes and a mixed green salad alongside.
The Ambar Sliders, and the Sauce That Split Our Kids
Three sliders on brioche, beef with smoked gouda melting over it, bacon, pickled red onion and lettuce, with a pile of roasted breakfast potatoes and a ramekin of ketchup.
Josh gave them the review a teenager gives when he does not want to be enthusiastic about anything. “It’s good,” he said, and left it there. Then he talked about that slider for the rest of the day. What he kept coming back to was the sauce on the meat. He thought it ran a little sweet and he loved it anyway. He would have taken the bacon crisper, which is a preference, not a complaint.
Emily went the other way on the exact same thing. She took her sliders apart and ate the meat out of the middle, because the sauce was not for her. She still ate them, and if you have a kid like this you know that is the real review. When Emily genuinely does not like something, it stays on the plate. She thought the meat was fine. The sauce was just not her thing.
One sauce, two kids, opposite verdicts, and both of them fed. If you are bringing children, that is the useful thing to know about this plate: the sauce is sweet and it is assertive, and it is the part they will have an opinion about.
The Potatoes, and a Warning Worth Having
The breakfast potatoes come with both dishes and they were the thing I kept going back to. Properly crisp, not the soft diced hash you usually get at brunch, and seasoned like somebody’s kitchen rather than a line. They tasted home made to me.
Emily read them differently. She thought they were spicy. To my palate they are mild with real seasoning on them rather than heat, but that is my read and hers is hers, and if you are bringing a kid who is sensitive to that sort of thing, the potatoes are the plate to watch.
How the Unlimited Brunch Actually Works
This is the part that is hard to find anywhere online, so here it is in plain terms.
Ambar sells brunch two ways. You can order a la carte off the regular brunch menu, or you can buy the unlimited experience and order as much as you want from it. The unlimited price is per guest. The menu fine print sets out the rest:
Our Unlimited Dining Experience is priced per guest, includes a two hour time limit per table and must be enjoyed by the entire table.
Three separate rules in one sentence, and each one matters.
Does Everyone at the Table Have to Get the Unlimited Brunch?
Yes. The unlimited experience must be taken by the entire table, so you cannot have two people on unlimited and two people ordering a la carte. Your whole party goes one way or the other, and you decide before anyone orders. For a family with a light eater, a kid who only wants potatoes, or one adult who is not hungry, that is the rule that usually settles it.
Is There a Time Limit at Ambar Chicago?
Yes, on the unlimited experience. It carries a two hour time limit per table. A la carte has no clock on it. Our server explained the two hours to us up front, before we ordered, so it was not a surprise buried in the fine print. Fair warning given, and it still made the decision for us.
Can You Order a La Carte at Ambar Chicago Brunch?
Yes, and the a la carte brunch menu is priced. Ambar’s website only publishes the unlimited brunch page, so these prices are not online anywhere. Here is what is on the physical menu.
Handhelds. Ambar Sliders 21. Fried Chicken Sliders 20. Balkano Sliders 20. Crispy Cheese Sliders 18.
Entrees. Kebab Pita 19. Salmon Benedict 24. Pulled Pork Benedict 20. Breakfast Skillet 19. Egg White Omelette 17. Steak and Eggs 27.
Salads and sweets. Balkan Caesar 15, add shrimp 13 or chicken 7. S’mores Waffle. Strawberry Waffle. Caramel Apple Waffle. Fruit Granola.
Why We Ordered a La Carte Instead
The two hour clock is not a punishment, it is a business decision, and for the right table it is generous. Thirty seven dollars for as much Balkan food as you can get through in two hours is a real deal if two hours is what you came to spend.
What Four of Us Actually Paid
Two plates, split two ways each, no drinks.
Ambar Sliders, a la carte 21,00
Pulled Pork Benedict, a la carte 20,00
Restaurant surcharge, 3.5% 1,44
Subtotal 42,44
Tax 4,98
Total 47,42
Under twelve dollars a head. The unlimited experience for the same four people would have been one hundred and forty eight dollars before tax, because it is priced per guest and there is no family rate for teenagers. Children under seven eat free and ages seven to twelve are half price, so a younger family does better. Ours is past that.
That is not a gotcha, and to be clear, I think thirty seven dollars is a fair price for what is on that menu. Unlimited needs roughly two plates a person to make sense against handhelds that run eighteen to twenty one dollars, and the food is good enough that two plates a person is a pleasant afternoon rather than a challenge. We just ate half a plate each, because that is how our table eats.
One thing worth knowing before the check lands: that 3.5 percent restaurant surcharge goes on every check, and Ambar’s own site says guests may ask for it to be removed. Nobody at our table knew that at the time. Parties of twelve or more also carry a 22 percent service charge.
What Our Friends Thought, and What We All Agreed On
We did not find this place. The friends we met there did, on TikTok, and they picked it.
When I asked them afterwards what they made of it, the first answer back was that it was not bad but nothing special. Which is a fair thing to say about a meal where nobody at the table bought the thing the restaurant is actually built around. They said as much themselves: we did not have the full experience.
So I asked the question that actually settles a restaurant. Forget the format. Was the food good enough that you would come back? Because sometimes you try a place, it is fine, and you still never return.
The answer was yes, most likely, and it matched where we had landed. All of us want to go back and do the unlimited properly. That is the verdict on the food. Then we agreed on the part that matters more.
Is the Ambar Chicago Unlimited Brunch Worth It?
It depends entirely on where you are starting from, and this is the honest answer rather than the useful sounding one.
If you already live in the city, or you are downtown for the day anyway, it is an absolute yes. Build the afternoon around it. Book brunch, take the full two hours, order until you are done, and have something in the late afternoon to walk to afterwards. A show, a museum, anything that turns the two hour clock from a constraint into a schedule. That is Ambar at its best and thirty seven dollars is a good deal for it.
If you live in the suburbs, this is not worth the drive on its own. Neither we nor our friends would get in the car and come into the city purely to eat this brunch, and we all liked the food. That is not a knock on the kitchen. It is what happens when a two hour commitment sits on top of a drive, parking, and an afternoon you have to give up to justify it. There are plenty of restaurants worth that trip. For an all you can eat brunch, this one is not the one you build the day around from thirty miles out.
We will be back for the full experience. The only question is when we are next in the city with an afternoon to spend, and that is the most honest verdict I can give you.
Ambar Chicago: Address, Hours and Reservations
Ambar Chicago
700 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60654, at the corner of Clark and Huron in River North
Phone: (312) 547-1700
Neighborhood: River North, Near North Side
Hours. Sunday 10:00am to 10:00pm. Monday to Thursday 12:00pm to 10:00pm. Friday 12:00pm to 11:00pm. Saturday 10:00am to 11:00pm.
Brunch runs Saturday and Sunday from 10:00am to 3:30pm. There is a service gap between 3:30pm and 4:00pm, so if you are aiming for brunch on a weekend, do not turn up at a quarter past three.
Reserve. The room was full at noon on a Saturday and it is not the kind of place you walk into with a family and get seated quickly. Street parking only, which for anyone driving in from the suburbs is worth planning around, and is part of why we would not make the trip for brunch alone.
Questions We Get Asked
Is Ambar Chicago Good for Kids?
Yes, with a caveat. Children under seven eat free on the unlimited experience and ages seven to twelve are half price, which makes unlimited far more reasonable for a younger family than the headline number suggests. The caveat is the whole table rule. If one of your kids is not going to eat thirty seven dollars worth of food and is too old for the discounted rate, the whole table is still committed. The sliders come in a sweet sauce that our two split hard over, so if your kid is particular, that is the plate to ask about.
Do You Need a Reservation at Ambar Chicago?
Book one. The dining rooms were full through the middle of a Saturday and the space, while large, fills from the front.
Where Do You Park Near Ambar Chicago?
Street parking. There is no lot attached to the restaurant, so budget time for it or use a garage nearby if you are coming in with the family for a weekend brunch.
Is There Outdoor Seating at Ambar Chicago?
Yes, a covered patio wrapping the corner of Clark and Huron, which is where we ate. Covered matters in Chicago. It was drizzling on and off through our meal and we stayed dry.
What Is the Dress Code at Ambar Chicago?
Smart casual. Nobody was dressed up and nobody looked out of place in shorts on a Saturday.
Is Ambar Chicago Good for Breakfast?
It is brunch rather than breakfast in the diner sense. Service starts at ten on weekends, and the menu is benedicts, sliders, waffles and Balkan small plates rather than eggs and toast.
More Chicagoland eating: e Sushi in Mount Prospect, our other all you can eat review, which lands on the opposite side of the same question.
