Zydeco Kitchen & Cocktails — Restaurant in Bend

Sunday dinner, around 6:30 p.m. The hostess' stand was very pleasant and accommodating. In fact, the entire staff at Zydeco was all very pleasant and eager to help/serve. Service at is easily 5/5!

We sat outside on this makeshift patio area, which borders the street and the sidewalk. It sits right in between. I chose to sit out here as the weather was warm, and it was nice to be outside.

While the service and decor were "great," in our opinions the food was just "good." Not bad, but also not terrific. For the positive rating this restaurant has, and for the prices, I was expecting a little better.

Drinks 4/5: Wife had Cloudchaser (gin, grapefruit, egg white, bitters) and I had a Jameson, neat. The pour on the Jameson was pretty darn stingy, haha. At $12 it seemed a little steep. I had a beer later on in the meal, since my micro-shot of Jameson was gone in a flash. My wife had a glass of wine toward the end too, a white Sancerre.

Appetizer 4/5: We had the bread + $1 butter option (sweet butter) but the ratio of butter to bread was funny. Way too much butter to only a few small slices of bread. Plus the butter was really hard. The salt was a nice touch. The real star was the Grilled Spanish Octopus with house made capicola and an olive tapenade. Yummy dish! Octopus was not chewey, and was the perfect grill texture.

Main 3/5: We ordered the 12oz. Ribeye, which was on the special menu and costs $62. It came with a small portion of potatoes au gratin, summer mushrooms, and asparagus. We ordered our steak medium. The asparagus was way too over-salted, to the point that I was picking off large pieces of maldon salt flakes. The steak was oddly medium on one half, and yet practically over-done on the other. Never seen such a thing, haha. My wife didn't mind since she likes it cooked a little more on the well-done side, so not a total loss, but when you're paying $62 for a steak it'd be nice if it was prepared the way you order it. All in all a filling steak, albeit the way it was cooked, and the salt content being too high.

Dessert 3/5: We tried the Oregon Cherry Cobbler. The cherries were the real star of this dish, but the biscuit pieces were overcooked, hard, and super dry. I was hoping for more of a biscuit texture, light, flaky. What we got were 5 pieces of overcooked dough in the shape of almonds. Ice cream was good, but it was such a tiny scoop that it threw off the ratio—it wasn't enough for the dessert.

Overall 4/5: we enjoyed our meal, and thought the restaurant had a lot of excellent options to choose from. I'd like to return and try some other options on their menu. Looking...

11/29/24 visit: Rough start this time, but delicious meal. We made reservations in advance, was told about the patio seating and heaters, and even told they had blankets, so we would be warm with my little small dog. Checking in was quite uncomfortable as they stated they didn't offer patio seating in the winter. I was super uncomfortable, trying not to panic and feeling a heavy wave of anxiety. I had been looking forward to this meal for a while, especially after having a very rough month and a not so pleasant breakfast experience earlier in the day. They had the manager approach me as well, and I felt like I was supposed to leave. I felt interrogated as she asked me about the reservation and said they don't do outside dining because they don't winterize for it. I felt like she was calling me a liar because she asked who I had talked to. The manager left no sincere apology for the unpleasantness of the rough start. I was waiting by myself because my partner had dropped me off, as it was Black Friday and no nearby parking. He didn't want me to walk in the cold a long way with our very tiny dog. I had to explain the situation further, and they ended up accommodating us. Meanwhile, I felt like I was getting weird looks from other staff, but that could have been my anxiety. We were very clear in advance about the patio seating. I'm glad they ended up accommodating us as there weren't many other options for dining at this point since it was a busy holiday weekend.

Cajun styled baked oysters was the star of the show. The pasta was perfectly al dente. The blackened redfish was crisp on the outside but not overcooked. I think they gave us their A Team server, who timed everything from start to finish. I always come back to Zydeco whenever in town. I'm glad they honored the patio seating since I had my little boy with me.

09/2024 Always love this place whenever I'm in town. Was a spur of a moment trip, so I was surprised to get seated without a reservation. I strongly suggest making one, though!

10/2021: Always delicious; they never disappoint....

Great food, no doubt about it. Dinner both got off and ended on the wrong foot though. Generally people bring a bottle of wine because it is a special bottle, something they really enjoy or perhaps feel it would pair well with the food. We brought a bottle of 2023 Ken Wright Chardonnay. It is wonderful wine and sure enough it paired perfectly with everything we ordered which included oysters, the peach salad, the pork chop and the blacked red fish. All the dishes were solid and delicious. However, upon first coming to our table, the first thing the server says to us is, "Oh, we have that one back there, but that's ok". Gee, glad that's ok, but no, no you didn't. Or at least you did not have it on the menu. While you did have some great selections, I made sure to look before bringing the wine in. It also was no where to be seen in your coolers on the way to the restroom. Simply not the way to set the tone for dinner with your guests.

From there the meal went pretty standard. However, to end the night we were charged a "Large Party" fee on our bill. There were only two of us eating dinner. I luckily noticed it in the sub total and had to tell the nice gentlemen who came to our table to take the check. I did appreciate the reasonable corkage fee though.

Both small annoyances in the scheme of things, but frankly left a subtly bad taste on the experience considering the price of the meal. May come back someday, but will be checking out other potentially great options in the downtown during trips back to bend for the...