Stunningly well presented and beautiful place. It is clear that a great deal of money and "thoughtful thought", right down to the details, has gone into the building and appearances. Lovely curved entry stairway, top flight plantings, artfully arranged. I would say that the appearance...is that of a place intending to rank with the very best in certainly the state and probably the Northeast, along the lines of, say, Primo or Black Point Inn.
But the human element seems to have taken a far second place. For one thing, and I agree that this is a nit, the greeter was dressed in some sort of outlandish combo of mismatched clothing that looked like it might have been on sale at Goodwill. And he stated that he was a part owner. It may have made a statement, but that statement should have been blacked out.
And the food was really interesting - a chef that was trying way too hard to be "inventive" without taking care of the basics. The presentation of the dishes LOOKED beautiful, but the oxtail pasta, while it tasted great, had at least one piece of bone in it and numerous chunks of basically inedible fat. And the strawberry shortcake went far astray with the weird idea of using cornbread instead of biscuit and had unsweetened whipped cream. Sadly, it just didn't work.
About service: there was only one server, way too few. She said that the restaurant had not expected as much business and had sent the other server or servers home. An exemplar of the general lack of experience in the place.
So, I am afraid for the future of this beautiful place. We went on an afternoon. Down the road apiece was Dolphin, with an hour wait and a packed parking lot. When we arrived here at about 5 PM, we were the about the second couple and the parking lot was empty. A few diners arrived later. People vote with their feet (or cars), and this particular candidate is behind so far.
There have been countless restaurants that have come and gone where the owners have had perhaps good intentions and lots of money but no common sense or solid restaurant experience instead of sticking to excellent basics. This looks like it may become one of them. If they don't know what they're doing, they need to hire an experienced and presentable manager and a careful chef and get out of the way. That way could lie great success. I wish them the best.More