A few posts ago I linked to the Restaurant Guys podcast, as I have several times in the past. I love those guys and listen to them often in my kitchen as they interview authors, cooks and food and drink professionals. I got a chance to eat again at one of their restaurants - Catherine Lombardi. I had eaten there around Christmas once before.
It’s a lovely place, obviously designed with much care. Large tables, lots of room, a great bar, (excellent cocktails with fresh ingredients), the menu and the food are put together with a reverence for tradition and quality. These qualities are also evident in their downstairs restaurant, Stage Left.
Unfortunately, when a place strives for that level of dining, and bills the diners at that level, it needs to come off as flawless or any errors are magnified.
I ordered the Cumare Nancy’s Stuffed Calamari with Red Sauce and the stuffed veal chop - the arugula and pancetta stuffing sold me on the chop, over trying the osso bucco or the scallopini.
One of my table mates doesn’t eat cheese, and the roasted (unstuffed) veal chop with the polenta (with cheese), when he asked for a substitution, which they had happily complied with.
I love their stuffed calamari - perfectly soft pillows.
When the chops came, I was slightly distracted by the fact the table mate that doesn’t eat cheese got the polenta, instead of the substitution. I tasted my polenta which definitely had cheese in it. We waved down the waiter who apologized for forgetting to tell us that the chef had made the polenta without cheese, instead of plating a substitution. Then as any food blogger does, I stuck my lens in my food. It was only then that I realized that my chop wasn’t stuffed.
Same cut of meat, but it was kind of a bummer, since the stuffing is what sold me on the chop. And it took awhile to get someone’s attention, and get an answer to whether I could get it replaced in a reasonable amount of time. It couldn’t be done so I just went ahead and ate my cooling piece of meat. It was an excellent chop, juicy, tender, just on the right side of rare.
After dinner Francis, one of the owners, came up to our table and asked how everything was. I explained the error and he asked if it had been replaced. I told him the chef had said there wasn’t time. We talked for a bit about our wine (a nice Brunello) and his podcast and its growing audience. He’s the kind of guy you could easily spend the rest of the night at the bar with, listening to his stories. I didn’t mention food blogging or the fact I gave him a plug recently.
Dessert was good, they make a fine cheesecake, served with a little dollop of marscapone on the side, which is a nice touch. The waiter brought us a few extras, a plate of cookies and a zabaglione to share. And perhaps as an apology, some snifters of Sambuca, with a very rare touch - the bottle was left on the table.
The Sambuca, cookies and zabaglione were comped of course, but I had a bit of a feeling of unsatisifaction about the error. I’m not really sure I was really bothered by it, it’s just rare you get a mistake like that, in a place like that, especially when you’re ordering the most expensive thing on the menu (45 bucks).
I don’t seek out flaws in food or service to write about like a professional reviewer. I’m not an advocate for the diner, nor an adversary to the restaurantuers. But I’m not sure whether I’ve toned this review down a bit just because I like these guys. On the other hand, I can’t overcome the feeling of an unbalanced price-to-quality-of-service ratio. Perhaps because my memory of my last meal at their more upscale Stage Left was the same.
1 response so far ↓
1 Mark // Feb 15, 2008 at 11:13 am
Too bad we didn’t read your review earlier!
Last night, we went to Catherine Lombardi’s for Valentines’ eve dinner. We have never had such ‘adequate’ food accompanied by such awful service in our lives!
We were seated at six-thirty for our pre-paid Valentines’ prix fixe dinner and finally managed to get our check at nine-thirty. When we were not being ignored, we were being treated as an interruption or a burden to the staff. We saw our main server 7 times - to order, receive our drinks, second drinks, to be offered grated parmesan for our pasta, to be offered coffee or cordials, to receive a second bottle of water and to receive our bill. Our food and table water was delivered by two other individuals who failed to describe the food or ask if we had any requests.
I spoke to the manager upon leaving, telling him of our dissatisfaction and he responded that he was sorry I felt that way, but that other guests had not made any remarks. True; all the tables around us turned over twice in the time we were there. He commented and I agreed that he, the manager, had passed our table a number of times. I noted that we had seen him but he seemed to be avoiding eye contact because he was hurrying off to be somewhere else. He again said, “I am sorry you feel that way.” Oh well…
As an added bonus, the check included a 20% gratuity which was added *after* the valet parking and *after* the sales tax. Is that appropriate? I believe that the gratuity ought to be calculated on the value of the food and beverage total, not the sales tax. Secondly, why did we pay a gratuity on the valet service? In fairness, I checked the menu and the website advert for a notation that the gratuity was fixed. I did not find any such notice.
In cases when a gratuity is fixed, it usually indicates that the evening is a holiday or special event situation and the management has scheduled a larger staff and must be able to adequately — even generously — compensate the team for the extra effort. It is a big task to handle a full dining room for a five or six hour stretch and the team needs to be motivated. This management team failed to adequately staff the dining room with properly trained people. As a result we did not receive proper service and the restaurant did not turn our table efficiently — a prime table in front of the fireplace — and likely turned away other diners and their money last night. Oh well…
When we left to find the valet, they were over at the Heldrich. When we walked over they were surprised to see us, since they were told they would be called by the restaurant in time to bring the car up before we exited. It was cold and we were grumpy, but we weren’t amazed that the lousy service we had received continued even after we were out the door…
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