Eleven at Crystal Bridges — Restaurant in Bentonville

I sent a personal note to the restaurant 9 days ago with direct feedback about our recent visit and received no response … we have traveled the world and I don’t believe we have experienced a total lack of response from a restaurant when providing feedback. After our dinner at Eleven a week ago, we were asked on a survey why we liked being a frequent visitor of Eleven’s restaurant? When Chef Bill Lyle was at Eleven, we visited often because of the excellent food and the ambience. The restaurant was our favorite date night spot. We honestly were not enthusiastic about the the new menu (the descriptions of the food seemed boring and lacking in creativity) … so we reluctantly decided to give the dinner menu a try before an art class on a Friday night. Very disappointed. We absolutely loved the bruschetta with Gorgonzola, local honey, figs and walnuts. Nothing compared in the appetizer options on the new menu. We reluctantly tried the pickles. The dill emulsion was way too strong and the pickles were like small, dry pickle crumbs. Our meals were nothing special. We ordered the chicken and the steak. The steak was sous-vided and not as juicy as you might expect and it was served just barely lukewarm? I prefer my steaks grilled or pan roasted and sizzling hot. Especially if it is described with butter! The potatoes were not good (sort of lightly seared on the cut side, but tasteless and mushy overall. Needed salt!) and carrots and celery were just kinda boring and super firm. My husband’s chicken was cooked with rosemary and/or thyme. Not very good. Overall everything was lacking flavor or uniqueness. Definitely not worth the $27-35 per entree we paid. And the wine by the glass options — Meiomi is the only option for Pinot Noir ... $10-12/glass. This is available at Walmart for about $18/bottle. And, the taste is terrible in my opinion ... I do not want my wine options to be the options I can buy at my local Walmart. I tried the Michael David Chardonnay instead and it was heavy and kinda bitter. Not good. The few servers we talked to were having a hard time saying anything nice about food options so they were polite, just smiled and did not say much … or they agreed with us about flavors or missing items from the menu. I have heard the new chef came from MOD where he was known for innovation + great, unique flavors. I feel like he’s really dumbed things down and created a lot of tasteless options. We paid about $100 (with tip) for our meal with 1 glass of wine, 1 appetizer and 2 entrees … it was not worth it. It is disappointing to have such a beautiful atmosphere and lovely setting with bland, underwhelming and...

A wonderful restaurant at Crystal Bridges it is absolutely essential having lunch here on a visit. Delicious southern food with a little elegance. Shockingly affordable it makes you feel like you're in a much nicer venue than a museum cafeteria, although Crystal Bridges is far from just any old museum.

My favorite is always the beans and cornbread. Truthfully the best cornbread I have had anywhere including hole in the wall diners and old southern grandma's kitchens. Sadly it used to come as a much larger portion as a wedge, but now comes as a cube toasted on all sides topped with a slightly spicy, herby compound bitter. The beans are scarlet runners, fat and juicy in a rich broth studded with tender, smoky pork. My favorite way to it them is always to crumble about half the cornbread and butter over the top.

Other menu items are also delicious and varied, but pale in comparison to the beans and cornbread and a tasso ham dish that sadly seems to have disappeared from the menu.

The dining hall is beautiful built over a waterway, however the water is pretty much always muddy and less than beautiful. There is a labyrinth weir that can be seen to the north that is a fascinating engineering feat, as is the entire building, if you're at all interested in that sort of thing.

The only thing keeping this from a 5/5 for me is the absence of two or three outstanding dishes like the beans and cornbread. The beans and cornbread themself are a 6/5 and worth going for, just hope you get there before...

Food was okay, coffee was bad. I ordered the Eleven burger. I was asked if it was okay with it being cooked medium. I said I preferred it. Two others in my party requested medium, as well. All three of our burgers were well done. Altogether, the food was pretty good, though. Really liked the simple menu and quick service. The coffee, however, was terrible. They use coffee from Onyx, one of the best roasters in the nation, but are not trained adequately on how to serve espresso drinks. I ordered a cortado and my girlfriend ordered an espresso shot. Both were served in paper cups and both were double the volume they should have been. My cortado was the volume of a cappuccino and was piping hot with thin, mostly espresso sitting beneath a layer of foam. Not typical of a cortado. The espresso shot was enormous and bitter tasting. Way too hot to drink as well. Another in our party ordered an earl gray tea and the tea bag was comically overstuffed. Probably 4x more tea than necessary. While staff was kind and seemed to care about serving customers, the product is so far off the mark. They have a specialty coffee menu and equipment, but there were no trained baristas. Since there’s a relationship there, it could be worthwhile to have someone from Onyx come for a day to help improve the...