Hestia Kitchen + Bar — Restaurant in Richmond

My sister booked this restaurant for her birthday dinner - and other than the good food, the service was terrible. We were a group of 7 people including an individual that is vegan. There were a number of instances that did not make the experience of dining here enjoyable.

1. We had a reservation for 4pm and after the whole party was present no one went up to us to take our order. Despite trying to make eye contact with any employee nearby no one looked or walked by our table. Note: the restaurant was not busy at these time - maybe 4 other tables with customers. I had to go up to a woman to let her know we were ready to order and she simply said “oh” and went to get a notepad to take our order.

2. The menu said they serve their lunch menu until 5pm, and their dinner menu starts at 5pm. We were prepared to order from their lunch menu but then she informed us that they were only serving their Happy hour menu and dinner menu at that time (4:40pm at this time). Their happy hour menu is from 2pm to 5pm so it doesn’t make sense to me how they can be serving dinner at the same time. Overall not a big deal but it was very misleading. The misleading doesn’t end there..

3. When my sister made the reservation she called the restaurant TWICE to confirm if they have dishes they can modify into a vegan meal. They said they can modify the mushroom rigatoni and cauliflower appetizer to be vegan. With this information, my sister proceeded with making a reservation and let them know that one person in our party is Vegan (to which they ensured they can make the necessary modifications - and even described the modifications that they could make). When my sister was placing the order she informed the woman taking our order about the Vegan modifications she was told they could do based on the phone call. The woman said no - they can’t do that. My sister even explained the specific modifications that she was told on the phone that could be made (no cheese, sub the sauce, etc). During the conversation, the server seemed to barely be looking at my sister while she was talking to her. After explaining that the restaurant previously confirmed they could make the modification and that we specified in the reservation that someone in our party was Vegan, she finally accepted the order.

4. When the rigatoni came out, there was cheese on it. We were able to send it back.

5. The bill couldn’t be separated per person based on our individual orders. They would only either split the bill equally by 7 or provide one bill. I understand that sometimes restaurants do that which is fine, but after the negative experiences it was just another frustrating thing we had to deal with.

The corrected rigatoni was served by a different person and after that the service was ok. We mainly had issues with the woman, based on her clothes I think she was the manager on duty and not a proper server considering the terrible service. It looks like this review was not the only negative review regarding the service here though.

Ultimately, I understand if restaurants can’t make modifications based on dietary preferences or needs - we could easily and happily seek dining elsewhere. However, don’t tell your customers over the phone that you can make modifications and then say the opposite in person.

If you don’t have any dietary restrictions, don’t mind waiting a long time to place the order, and have no preference with how to split the bill - then you may have an enjoyable dining experience here. The highlight of the experience for me was the egg in the center with the cutlery -...

I came here 30 mins early, as we booked reservations. I was feeling super light headed and dizzy that day, due to the heat.

I came in and was greeted by Connie, she offered me to come in early and to have a seat and made sure I had some water.

Once my family arrived we wanted to try everything. We ordered a lot. We ordered the: • Beef carpaccio • Butter garlic prawns • Bone marrow • New York striploin • Crab and prawn linguini • Steak and bone marrow bowl • Duck yolk chicken wings • Bbq chicken wings • Broccolini • Atlantic salmon • Risotto- butter poached lobster • Cheesecake

The beef carpaccio was really good. The meat slices were thin and they put a lot of cheese and arugula which was nice.

The butter garlic prawns comes with 2 pieces of bread. The prawns were cooked perfectly and the sauce was so tasty. The bread dips and soaks into the sauce. The sauce was super creamy.

The bone marrow, also comes with bread. The bone marrow was super tender and melted in your mouth. It was amazing.

New York striploin we ordered medium rare . This melted in your mouth. The meat was so tender. I'm not sure what the sauce was but we basically licked the plate clean. I really liked how the steak was cooked. Normally I eat rare, but it was so juicy and just cooked perfectly.

Crab and prawn linguini, the sauce was soaked in the linguini which made it so soft. Every bite was like a bite of gold.

Steak and bone marrow bowl, we had to get another bone marrow with it. It was too good. The meat we chose was the slow braised short rib. It just came right off the bone. The bowl is really hot.. don't touch it. I did by accident lol.

Duck yolk & BBQ chicken wings. The duck yolk was quite interesting, never tried it anywhere before. Both the wings were juice, had a lot of sauce to it. It wasn't dry either.

Broccolini, we needed a vegetable. Just kidding! The broccolini was cooked well. Not too hard or soft, just perfect. The sauce was similar to a peanut sauce. Paired well together.

Atlantic salmon, the portion of the fish was huge! The sauce was good. It did have some like apple pie crumbs but I didn't think it paired well. Eating it alone was good though.

Risotto - butter poached lobster, the sauce with the risotto was nice. I rarely eat a risotto in general but I think I finished the rest of this because we were super full. And it was pretty delicious, so I didn't want it to go to waste.

And lastly a cheesecake, it was sweet and the berry sauce was not over hearing. Just the right amount.

Overall I highly enjoyed Hestia. The food was delicious, I'll be coming back for sure. I'll know exactly what I want when I come in again.

The atmosphere was very chic. It was very eye pleasing to look at. It's a bit dim, to set the atmosphere, which I thought was lovely. They even have a silver egg on the table and when you twist it open, it has cutlery inside. Pretty cool.

The service was top notch. Connie who was our server was very nice, and welcoming. We even had a small stick with a hand on it and were playing around and pointing everywhere with it. She loved it too and even asked to try it out. And another server came to try it out too. We didn't get her name, but she was very nice as well! Connie really made our first experience the best. Super friendly, down to earth, and just made us feel so welcomed.

Thank you Hestia & Connie for making my birthday...

We walked into the soft opening, the restaurant is situated in what looks like the back warehouse but turned into an industrial feeling fine dining experience. We had reservations and were seated and our drink orders taken but we settled for water. We were given a chrome egg which held all the cutlery and took up quite a bit of real estate on a table for two. It's a neat idea but when you open the egg and the cutlery is face up (aka handle side down) this can be very unsanitary as the cutlery eggs are reused on different tables. Also if you are trying to go for the fine dining experience maybe the cutlery needs to be polished before putting it in the cutlery eggs. For new cutlery they were dull and I could polish it back to new with my napkin.

We ordered the Cream Butter Garlic Prawns and Fried Chicken + Garlic Panko to start. The prawns were huge and cooked to perfection and not overcooked, and the cream butter sauce was a perfect combo. The fried chicken came with a hair which we sent back to the kitchen, and when the new one came it was very delicious with the garlic panko. It only needed more sauce or a side of the sauce. The chicken was moist and not dry. While we were still enjoying the starters the mains came in, like we didn't have much time to enjoy the food we already had and I was only on my first piece of chicken. Their timing was off and I was feeling like the food was rushing us.

We had the Scallop & Crab Risotto and the Foie Gras + Steak for our mains. The seafood was done very well but the scallops were only seared on one side which is a no-no by Ramsey standard. The risotto was cooked well but the sweet potato flavor also included sweet potato chunks which seemed weird to have a starch with a starch. In my opinion, just blend it into the sauce for the flavor. The foie gras was good but when you are served slices of meat which you don't get to choose your temperature you can't call it a steak! I was served slices from a top sirloin ROAST which is far from a steak. The mashed potatoes were chunky and needed to be mashed more to give it more of a smooth fine dining texture. The broccolini had no seasoning (salt) but just paprika and needed more char as it just tasted steamed. The red wine sauce needed to be reduced more as I could still taste the alcohol from the wine.

Overall the experience was good but definitely needs improvement to get to the five star rating. I would have expected more for a restaurant with already...