Serena Restaurant
Michelle Foy · 781 Google reviewsSerena Restaurant — neighborhood indian in Devon Avenue. The menu takes creative swings, and lands them. Knowledgeable staff, so ask for guidance, and solid veggie options. Wendy Wheeler: "The chicken and beef dishes were perfectly seasoned—rich, aromatic, and cooked to perfection" [$$]
What 756 diners keep saying
What 756 diners keep saying
verbatim, from Google
“Generous portions and reasonable prices. Authentic tasting food, great servers as well.”
“Amazing biryani! The place is clean and fancy the service was fast and the taste of the food perfectly I definitely recommend this place if you want a good and quiet place to get a nice meal. Even a simple kids meal nuggets and fries were nice and perfectly served every single thing was fresh and you can’t complain about the prices the portions are huge! I’ll be back on my next trip to Chicago”
“I’ve visited this spot during Ramadan when they had their iftaar buffet and enjoyed the food they offered. I’ve also tried out their weekend buffet which had lots of options and plenty to offer with their achar and drinks (lassi and chai). The servers are very attentive to people and take orders as well. They have the buffet on the weekends only it seems from their advertising.”
“Extensive buffet options at this restaurant. It has ample seating capacity. There are different types of dishes from Chicken Mutton to Vegetable options for everyone. The taste is good too. Since it is located on a very competitive place with lots of other restaurants in this area. They should look into some good desert options too”
“Updated Review 8/9/2025 We tried Serena buffet again after a very long time. We were pleasantly surprised with their improvements on the weekend AYCE buffet. All the food is delicious, authentic and fresh! They offer so many choices; nihari, paya, Haleem, chicken chapli & boti kabobs, chicken biryani, goat pilau, puri halwa and several veggie dishes. The naans and puris are served fresh made hot to the table compared to the other buffet places where they are cooked and jumbled up in a big pile on the buffet! This buffet offers everything you want! Hot, fresh, neat and clean surroundings too. Mango and plain lassis along with hot tea made with real milk! We liked that the Mali kheer desert was the real deal and a delicious ending to a perfect meal! ————————————————— Serena Restaurant moved its location and is not that far down the street. It’s closer to all the other shops now. The AYCE buffet is $20 and offers a lot of specialty meat dishes including chicken tikka and chapli kabob, goat piye (stew like dish eaten with roti), chicken biryani, beef nihari, beef keema, goat pilau and a bunch of vegetable dishes along with puri halwa. It also included mango and plain lassi, tea and desert. Food was ok but the stars of the buffet were the chicken tikka and the beef nihari. It’s a good variety of food for the price and they did a good job keeping all the items replenished. They are open til 4pm for the buffet where others only go til 3pm. Mango and plain lassi’s were pretty good. The tea at the end of the meal was almost empty (it’s self serve) and didn’t taste like desi chai. I think because it had been sitting in the warmer too long and it really needed a fresh batch.”
“Stopped for a quick lunch with my wife and my baby, they gave us a baby seat immediately. Which was nice and my baby made a mess for which I felt bad. Now for the food, it's typical Pakistani style food. Don't expect Indian flavors at a Pakistani restaurant as I have noticed that a few of you guys have been reviewing this place and comparing the flavors. For me, I thought that the service itself was a 5 star service from the two gentlemen that helped our table. One was from Gujrat and the other was from hyderabad. We ordered the plater 1 and mixed and matched a few items. Garlic Naan was really good and then the mutton pulav was amazing as well as the mutton karahi. Now they did give us one item wrong but we ate it anyway so they not only brought us the correct item but also gave us a complimentary dessert which we were so happy to see that they didn't had to but they did it anyway. Pakistani hospitality is as always the best. Loved our food and service and would definitely go here again for the quiet family friendly ambience and their dessert was so good that I wanted to pay for it. Pricing is very reasonable compared to other restaurants in Chicago area. Thank you for such a pleasant experience.”
“A great find for deshi food! Loved the lamb chops, mutton biriyani. Also really enjoyed their lassi and desserts. Good place to have tea as well. Definitely going back”
“We had an exceptionally great experience. The Buffet service was very good, the staff was very actively refilling all the dishes. The Nihari and Tandoori naan was really great, amazingly delicious taste. The Paalik and Daal was great, Qorma was excellent.”
“The service was good but food wasn’t great and didn’t taste as I thought the dish would be. As all the other restaurants add gratuities party of 6 or more they charged us gratuity of party of 4 and the charges are also too high.”
“The seating arrangement is poorly designed for accommodating more people and disregards standard etiquette. The buffet rarely refills the food, and the quality is mediocre at best. The Rogan Gosht and Malay chicken are the better options available.”
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