Tillery Kitchen and Bar — Restaurant in Austin

Skip the late reservation!

Foreword: To all my readers, I regret not taking pictures. This review would be a lot funnier.

It was Valentine’s Day and I wanted to book a spot with some riverfront ambiance. After finding a couple positive Google reviews and a 9pm reservation on Opentable, the deal was done and I was excited to surprise my date with a fancy four-course dinner.

Upon arriving at Tillery we valeted, sat down, and promptly ordered our first course. My date (and girlfriend, if you must know. Get off my back about it! But yeah, things are going well) ordered wine. And then we waited 40 minutes.

I thought the timing was off standard, so I made sure to ask our waitress about it occasionally. She repeatedly affirmed we were there, and eventually arrived with the appetizers and the wine. Which brings us to…

Course One: Lox Crostini

I think crostini is Italian for “small toasted bread.” Truthfully I’m not sure, but in my experience that is all crostini has ever been. Until tonight, when it was an untoasted slice of white sandwich bread. The lox was a quarter-sized shearing of salmon on top of tartar-y sauce and pickled onions. On top of white sandwich bread. The description of this decadent appetizer was a paragraph long on the menu, but accoutrement be damned that is what I received. I scarfed it, as I was ravenous from the initial wait. But, once I came to my senses, I asked a nearby staff member what was up. She said a few things, but these actual words were in there: “We made food for 150 people, and you made a late reservation. By my estimate you are in the 180’s. I apologize.”

I took her confession as a free pass to leave. My girlfriend can be optimistic, though, and suggested that maybe they only ran out of first course supplies. So we put in an order for a second course. 25 minutes later our food arrived, and I felt our table sink a little deeper into the Twilight Zone.

Course Two: French Onion Soup

In the bottom half of a small teacup was a brown liquid that I did put in my mouth. It could only have been comprised of equal parts salt, beef broth, and vinegar. The best part? In absence of the promised melted cheeses and toasted baguette floated one lonely square of white bread. This experience was topped only by my girlfriend’s beet salad…

GF’s Course Two: Sliced Beets

…that contained no beets. Rather, it was a pile of kale leaves with a sliced strawberry on top. I think that if I was a chef and someone asked me for sliced beets, but all I had was some kale and a strawberry, I would be inclined to tell the person that they wouldn’t be getting beets. Bold move, Tillery.

At this point I was far too famished and my mouth too puckered from the soup to issue a formal complaint. Luckily my girlfriend did all of the real talking as I retrieved the car, and reported back that the manager let us leave for free (that was a nice touch) but was fully aware of the situation. In the future, Tillery, I would urge you to tell people when you run out of food, because I felt like I just attended the Fyre Festival of set-menu Valentine’s Day dinners.

Fortunately Chicfila’s drive thru was still open and Auditorium Shores also provides a romantic...

We had high hopes and really wanted to enjoy our long awaited brunch at Tillery. Sunday Brunch was without kids, finally!! But we were disappointed. We booked an 1130 table to beat the crowd, but there was no crowd.

The menu is awkwardly written so you don't know if the salads are entree sized because they are listed under appetizers but there is a side salad listed under sides. There is a beautiful artistic print of a tree on the menu but that makes it hard to read. It looked like they needed to fit the salads/protein add-ons somewhere on the page but there was no space in the entrees column. Out off the 10 or so items listed under appetizers, only 4 or 5 seemed like actual appetizers. Menu was awkward. Separate alcohol menu and separate coffee menu. Seems like putting desserts on a separate menu also would have given more space to make the menu less awkward.

Jam was a Smucker's packet. Yes. My MIL's French onion soup was spicy (?) but her breakfast plate was good. My husband's fritatta was served in a ramekin so awkward to eat with a knife and fork, so we dumped it onto the plate. But is was very dense/firm, not light and fluffy. Bland fruit was served in an overstuffed Mason jar so awkward to eat, falls out when you stick a fork in. Salad came out as an entree size but on an overstuffed rectangular Sushi-like plate so you can't pour the dressing and mix it around, you have to pour a bit at a time or dip the salad into the sauce container. Have be very careful not to spill off the plate. A bowl would have made the experience normal.

Drinks were good and salad was tasty. Just an awkward experience. Seems like a lot of Mason jars and ramekins were in stock but they weren't functional to eat out of. Maybe if we had ordered chicken and waffles on a round plate, it would have been a better experience. Seems like people enjoyed them!

It was sunny day with a great view, but the food did not match the stature and elegance of the building. We were comped the dense fritatta and drinks and declined a free dessert, would not go back. Assuming they have lost a chef or the executive chef is out of touch with the restaurant and some other staff are gone too. Only 2 servers and I felt bad for them. We usually go to Jacoby for dates or Sawyer for brunch, will stick to them.

Disappointing and did I mention, awkward? Loses a lot in missed details. We went to a patisserie afterward to redeem our brunch...

I post this for others to be aware of the downfalls of using TIllery K+B as a venue to host an event. Two months prior to our wedding, this venue called and canceled on us. I booked Tillery K+B as my wedding venue. I was excited and also relieved that they would provide the venue, the service staff, the food and the drinks - this is a huge part of wedding planning - and it was nice to have that all taken care of. I communicated with the owner/event coordinator frequently via email (once a week to once every two weeks). I will say that communication was spotty at times - as in responses from the venue were abbreviated and not thorough - and that should have been a forewarning for me. Two months before the wedding, they said they had double booked two weddings on the same night. The amount of money they offered to comp us to move the wedding to another night was insulting. I took my money and business elsewhere, because I lost complete confidence in their ability to pull off such an important event. It's hard to understand how a venue doesn't know it's double booked itself for months. I want to say that I've been calm and collected in the aftermath while trying to find a new venue, but the distress and workload that this created for me cannot be underestimated. I had to scramble to find a new venue just two months prior to my wedding; I had to start taking bids for catering and for bar service. I ended up having to obtain a wedding planner because the amount of last minute work that I'm having to do is impossible to do alone at this point for someone who works full-time and was trying to plan a wedding. My wedding costs have gone up significantly because of this mistake Tillery K+B made - mostly because everything is being done last minute now and I just don't have time to try and find better deals, etc. Tillery K+B is a beautiful setting. It's unfortunate that they offer wedding service, when they are not equipped or staffed to appropriately do so. Perhaps a dedicated event coordinator would mitigate this problem. Until they change how they handle event services, I caution you from using...