The League Kitchen & Tavern — Restaurant in Austin

We stopped by The League Kitchen recently on a Friday evening in search of fish and chips, which, per many online reviews, received top billing from quite a few reviewers. Our experience, unfortunately, was not the best. I arrived early and took a seat at the bar, perused the specialty cocktail list and opted for the El Guapo Shandy, a very good cocktail consisting of ruby red vodka, lemon and lime juices, honey and a splash of cream ale. Refreshing taste!

Once seated, we decided to start with the tuna tartare tacos, which could have been better. One consistent theme that emerged during meal is the smothering of dishes with sweet sauces. The tuna tacos were the first fatality of that process. As the picture shows, the dish is soaking in the spicy mayo sauce that was poured all over the tacos and slaw. After digging through the sauce to retrieve the tuna, the tuna was spectacular; and, the few bites of slaw salvaged from under the blanket of sauce were very good too. The sauce overwhelmed the wonton shell "tortillas" which made them pretty soggy. Serving suggestion ... IMHO, sauce on the side, let the diner choose the amount of sauce to use eating the tacos.

Main courses included the sought-after fish and chips and the fresh catch of the day special... hot and crunchy trout. When ordering fish and chips anywhere, we stress our preference for fish and the fries "hot out of the fryer" and not food sitting under the lights for any length of time. The fish and chips met that goal 50/50. The fish, super hot to the touch, almost impossible to eat at first (which is what we want! LOL), the batter was nice and thin, the fish tasted great. The fries were slightly above room temperature when served, not enjoyable at all, especially since we had upgraded to the truffle/cheese topping. The "malted tartar sauce" was not very good, we would have preferred just regular tartar sauce.

The hot and crunchy trout saw the return of the over-sauced seafood malady. The cornflake/almond crust was really thick, too much for a thin trout filet. (See the partially eaten trout pic for an idea of the thickness of the crust... twice as much crust as fish.) Perhaps a thick piece cod could stand up to that crust. As the tacos suffered, so the trout suffered from a copious amount of chipotle/mango aioli. (See pic of dish as delivered). Does anyone actually like that much sauce? The overly thick crust also fell victim to the over-abundance of sauce, making the crust pretty soggy. Here, IMHO, the same suggestion as the tacos, sauce on the side. Despite the thick crust, the trout was very good, just not a very good dish overall. Note: the online picture of the trout dish shows much less sauce, likely a more appropriate amount and placement on the plate, most of the sauce on the side of the plate, not on the fish and green beans.

We finished with a complimentary piece of The League's dump cake, which first time diners are provided. The dessert was the star of the show! It's a "deconstructed" dump cake that many of us had as children (at least I did), very, soft, moist chocolate cake, topped with homemade toffee chips, served with pecans and vanilla bean ice cream. Good combination, great dish!

Overall, the service was great! Our server Noah was attentive but not intrusive. He didn't deliver on the hot fries, but he was a good waiter, and explained the restaurant concept and items on the menu very well. The restaurant was not super busy. It has a fun feel, some retro furniture and fixtures, and very moderate noise level. The music was a bit loud in the bar area, but in the dining area that was not an issue. Not sure whether we'll be back, although we may stop by for dessert to have more of the...

Well I'd love to give this place a higher rating, but the only reason I even gave it a 1 star is because the food is actually pretty good, but everything else is not so good.

We came here on a Monday night and apparently there is a BOGO Burger Special every Monday that is not listed anywhere on the menu or in the restaurant, but our serverS plural failed to mention them to us. Well be mindful that on Monday's if you order anything besides a burger it will take you 40 minutes to receive it.

There are probably some servers here that a great, because I saw a girl going back and forth to the kitchen getting her tables taken care of and refilling their drinks.

The initial girl who greeted us and introduced herself was never to be seen after she got out drink orders and brought them. Some other guy came and took our orders and then never came out of the back every again. After waiting 40 minutes with no one coming by to check on us or even fill us in on the whereabouts of our food, I finally saw him to flag him down and ask here what happened to our food. I also had to ask if there was a burger special, all he said was yeah Buy One Get One. Cool thanks for the details and telling us about it, really appreciate it.

Once our food finally arrives, the spoon that accompanied my pot pie was clearly disgusting and dirty. I left the spoon on the edge of the table, in hopes I would get a new spoon, well no one ever came to check back on us, so I had to eat it with a fork. Steven the manager stopped by to express he was sorry our food had taken so long and offered no other help. He did stroll by our table and look down and see our drinks were both empty, did not offer to refill them or ask us how the food turned out. Actually no one asked us how the food turned out.

I will give The League that the food is good, but I guess at that point after waiting and freezing in the restaurant for so long anything could be good.

The only think that our server was quick to do was drop of the check.

We were seated in the corner by the bathrooms and kitchen, where every server is required to say corner when they are coming and going, while sitting there waiting nearly an hour for your food, that is bound to get real annoying real quick.

Overall the experience and service was quite awful, but the food was at least a saving grace for waiting nearly an hour while watching every other table get served their orders.

I would have wished that Steven had refilled our drinks at least after knowing we had waited so long for our food or at least checked back in to see how we enjoyed the food. In addition, the server clearly was able to tell the manger that the food had taken so long, but never actually said anything about it himself. He knew we were obviously upset since we had to ask him about the food, but made no mentions about it...

We’ve never been to a League Kitchen and Tavern until a couple of weeks back on a Sunday afternoon. The service was not the best. It seemed like she didn’t want to be there and it was a bit slow. However, food was pretty good. Husband and I came back for a date on a different day and had a way better experience with the server. He went above and beyond to make sure we had a good experience. He asked us if we’d been there before and we said yes. He then asked if we’d had their dessert and we said no. He proceeded to tell us that they offer complimentary desserts. It was delicious. We were a bit surprised though, because that was never offered to us during our first experience. We came back a third time today(on a Sunday, same time as our first) and it was the same waitress we had two weeks prior. Side note: Kitchen side was not busy at all! It is after this experience that we will not be coming back. It clearly shows that she does not want to be there. Very minimum effort in everything. We waited way too long to get food ordered and to receive it. At one point in between, I glanced in the kitchen several times and seen food sitting there, waiting to be picked up by a server. It looked to be our food. Once we received it, we could immediately tell our food had been sitting out. It did not look fresh. I not only used to work in the restaurant industry for years but I have a family history of chefs and I have years of customer service experience under my belt, so I’m aware of the dos and don’ts when it comes to this industry and can tell when food is old or has been sitting out. That being said, my families food wasn’t the best. Fries were old and most were hard. Hostess and another server did not seem happy either. So I’m not sure if this is a management issue due to poor leadership skills or it’s just the servers but something definitely needs to change. We are also big advocates on tipping servers. I can count on one hand when I didn’t tip well on all of my adult years when going out to eat, based on service and this was one of those times. Our 2nd server is the only reason we give it 3 stars. Other wise,...