Lighthouse Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Bellingham

Overall (weighted*) Rating (4.3 Stars) Menu Variety: (4 Stars) Food Quality/Taste: (4 Stars) Presentation: (4 Stars) Service: (3.5 Stars) Ambience: (5 Stars) Prices: ($$$$) Summer Sunday Afternoon Value: (4 Stars) -- Worth the Splurge

I confess that I define a perfect summer Sunday afternoon as listening to great jazz over drinks and hors d'oeuvres overlooking Bellingham Bay. Even so, when for of us were thinking about getting together for drinks yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, The Lighthouse Bar & Grill didn't even occur to me. Fortunately, one of my companions was better prepared, suggesting we meet there 5-ish for Happy Hour!

As it turned out, the Lighthouse does not offer special Happy Hour pricing on Sundays, but we didn't let that stand in our way (and you shouldn't, either).

Located at the Bellwether Hotel, The Lighthouse Bar & Grill might seem a little overpriced if one only considers the menu, food quality, presentation and service, but on a lazy summer afternoon, ambience counts!

Offering comfortable patio seating overlooking the bay, some of the northwest's best jazz musicians and perfect summer weather, The Lighthouse Bar & Grill is, "hands-down," one of Bellingham's best dining/entertainment values.

Simply set aside any guilt you might have about this particular summer splurge and, as they say in Niketown, "Just Do It!" And, since Sunday Jazz on the patio at the Lighthouse Bar & Grill is one of Bellingham's summer highlights, I encourage everyone to do it slightly more often than they think they can afford.

We started out with a round of drinks. The guys ordered local $6 microbrews from a modest selection of draft beer on tap. One of our companions ordered an $8 glass of wine while the other embraced the spirit of the place and ordered a Cosmopolitan ($13).

Ordering off the Happy Hour Menu (sans HH pricing), we supplemented our intake of fresh air, alcohol and jazz with a half-dozen oysters on the half-shell, a house salad, an order of fried calamari, an ahi tuna dish and two orders of fish tacos (3 street tacos on each plate).

Our waiter readily honored our request to serve the hors d'oeuvres "family-style" as food arrived from the kitchen, better enabling us to share. Naturally, the Oysters ($18) Ahi ($16) and house salad ($9) arrived first, rapidly followed by the Calamari ($12) and Fish Tacos ($16/order).

The local Oysters, served with a selection of mild, raw horseradish, traditional cocktail sauce and soy sauce, were small, but tasty. I'm not sure I would order them again at $3 each, but they were fresh and nicely presented.

Both the House Salad and fish tacos were tasty. Each fish taco (3/order) featured a relatively large piece of pan-fried fish -- tasty, nicely presented -- but, nothing special.

The Ahi and Calamari, however, were noteworthy. The Ahi was fresh and attractively served sashimi-style with thin slices of mild peppers on a bed of guacamole. The Fried Calamari was perfectly prepared without a hint of greasiness and served in a large bowl with a mix of sliced peppers served al dente and enhanced with mild, flavorful spices.

The key to great calamari is to start with fresh, quality ingredients -- serving it hot without overcooking it. Consistently serving perfect fried calamari is a testament to both the kitchen and waitstaff's ability to deliver a dish to the table without delay. At only $12, this is the best value on the menu.

Not counting a tip for the musicians, but providing a generous, but we'll-earned tip for the waitstaff, our tab approached $50 per seat alcohol accounted for only 15 percent of the total), so The Lighthouse Bar & Grill ain't cheap, but it's worth every penny if you can afford the splurge.

Like life, summer is all too short. I don't know if I recommend eating dessert first, but be sure to spend as many summer Sunday afternoons on The Lighthouse patio as you can!

*Weighted Overall Rating (35% Taste; 35% Service; 10% each for Menu Variety, Presentation and Ambience). Feel free to adjust the importance of each category to fit...

Fantastic service trapped in a restaurant that doesn’t know how to cook.

If I were rating the staff alone, this would easily be five stars. Our server was attentive, professional, and genuinely kind — one of the best I’ve had in months. The host and hostess in training were polite and welcoming, and even the hotel receptionist went above and beyond, helping with Wi-Fi and offering cookies with a smile. Every single employee I interacted with was warm, observant, and trying their best.

But no amount of good service can make up for food this badly conceived and poorly executed.

The food itself was worse than disappointing — it was misleading, flavorless, and in some cases inedible. Garlic butter and bread: How does one manage to make garlic butter that doesn’t taste like garlic? Somehow, Lighthouse did. The bread was decent, but the butter was pale, timid, and devoid of the punch that makes the pairing enjoyable.

Melon gazpacho: The menu promised “seasonal melon, cucumber, basil,” which suggested a refreshing chilled soup. What arrived was literally a small portion of cold watermelon juice with a basil leaf, a cucumber shaving, and a garnish floating on top. Not only is that not gazpacho, it’s frankly insulting to call it so. If I wanted a fruit drink, I could have ordered one.

Duck entrée ($54): The menu listed “seasonal fruit gastrique, demi-glace, seasonal vegetables, cabernet veal reduction, mille feuille potatoes, fresh plum.” It sounded layered, balanced, complex. What arrived was duck cooked medium rare by default, without even asking my preference. Now, I’ve had duck in Michelin-starred restaurants across Europe and North America, and never once has a chef automatically sent it out half raw without checking the diner’s taste. The result was tough, stringy, and so chewy I had to discreetly spit out nearly half the portion. The potatoes, which should have been delicate layers of crisped and seasoned goodness, were simply bland and forgettable. Sprinkling a pinch of tarragon or even grey sea salt could've made them so much better.

The kitchen here clearly knows how to plate food worthy Instagram — but that’s where their talent ends. Everything looked like it should be good, but once eaten, it revealed itself as hollow, unseasoned, and amateurish.

To be blunt: Lighthouse Bar & Grill is pretending to be fine dining without having any of the culinary skill to back it up. The prices are laughable for what’s delivered. I don’t mind paying $50+ for a duck dish when it’s carefully executed, balanced, and delicious. I’ve happily paid twice that elsewhere. But to pay this much for duck I couldn’t even eat half of, potatoes without flavor, and a soup that completely counteracts the very definition of what it pretends to be, is insulting and misleading.

In short: the staff deserves a better kitchen, the guests deserve food worthy of the price, and the management needs to decide whether this is a restaurant or just a hotel bar with delusions of grandeur. Until then, I won’t...

My husband and I and another couple decided to celebrate valentines day on Feb 13th and the lighthouse bar and grill. It's a very nice restaurant withing the Bellwether right on the water. The scene was set but the mood was soon to be ruined by a horrible watress and extremely overpriced food. They had a valentines day special with 3 items on it. We tried to order off the menu but our waitress, Shelby H., informed is that 2 of the specials was sold out. It was 7pm the day before valentines day and they already sold out of 2 of the specials and a 3 item menu? Ok, anyways, we decided to order off of the regular menu instead. Since they only have burgers and fish and chips we wanted something kinda fancy for vday so we ordered the steak. For $36 you get a piece of steak with fries. We wanted some veggies so we ordered that as a side. We also wanted to eat regular potatoes instead of fries so we asked Shelby if we can do that and she said sure. After waiting for over an hour for our food we were getting hungry and started looking around just to notice that every other table had a bread basket. We asked Shelby how come we didn't get one and she said we have to ask. How would we know there's a complimentary bread basket if we've never been there? I think she just tried to cover her butt. I also asked what's taking so long for the food and she said it's because the steaks take a long time to cook. About 10 minutes later we got our bread basket and food. My husband likes his steak well done and his was medium rare, dripping with blood. So he had to send it back and wait even longer for his food. I should also mention, Shelby never came by to refill our waters or to see how we're doing. When it was time to pay we noticed there was an upcharge for our potatoes instead of fries. $18 upcharge for 5 fingerling potatoes!! When confronting Shelby about that, she said she told us about the charge which was a straight up lie because if we knew that we would have just stuck with the fries. We finally complained to the manager who gave us a discount on the steak for being raw. So because of the nice scenery and the manager, I will give it a 2 star review but because of the waitress Shelby H and the outrageous prices, we won't be coming back and we will be sure to tell everyone...