Que Sera — Restaurant in Black Mountain

You feel the atmosphere and ambience of Que Sera as you walk toward the restored brick building and seem to breathe in the setting.

Que Sera and Tayloe’s Osyter Bar have shared seating - a fact I didn’t realize until this visit.

Our first visit to Que Sera was a year or so ago and I remembered loving everything.

Our recent visit was on that romantic holiday where everyone wants to eat out, so we chose Que Sera for our party of 4.

We were seated on the Tayloe’s side, which has a different feel than the Que Sera entrance side. On the QS side, you enter by the hostess table and view the open seating around the restaurant on that side. A very New Orleans feel of the classic Uptown restaurants in that city, which points to the owner who is from the New Orleans area.

Look closely and you will find many nods to New Orleans in the menu - gumbo, shrimp, blue crab- and the cocktail names - Sazerac, along with many others. You will also find Bear Bryant memorabilia on the Tayloe’s side.

The Tayloe’s side is more like an upscale bar with the addition of tables that have service. I love the first side, but honestly I think I like the Tayloe’s side better. The tables seem to have more privacy and the noise along with cold air gusts from the front door are more noticeable on the QS side.

We were promptly greeted and served drinks.

We started with the blue crab claws as an appetizer and they were well received by all. Highly recommended.

Next two of us ordered salads - the salad on special was a Granny Smith apple salad and the beet salad. Both were offered as half sized to go along with our entrees and were perfection.

The entrees our table ordered: Redfish Hal - recommended by the wait staff and was an excellent dish Prime Rib - a daily special - which was also very good. 2 orders of the Grouper daily special. Well… I really hate to report that both of us thought that dish was much less than expected.

To start off, I was shocked to see that “topped with jumbo shrimp” meant that maybe 1 jumbo prawn was chopped up to tiny pieces and sprinkled on top.. what was that?? It was not as I had imagined. Literally I might have had 6 or 7 tiny less-than-bite sized crumbs of shrimp. The other dish actually had a few more sprinkles. It was served on some sort of thin corn cake pancake and browned butter sauce. The fish itself was not over the top as expected. Neither one of us could put our finger on it, but both agreed it was not great. I would rank it as an ok entree, maybe.

We smiled and continued with dessert. Raspberry cobbler & bread pudding were the two our table chose. The cobbler was great and the bread pudding was tasty, but not as expected.

I will say here that every restaurant that offers bread pudding, has their own interpretation and presentation. I guess I’m tainted in that we know New Orleans bread pudding as a gooey very moist bread pudding topped with a generous amount of sauce. I opted for bread pudding in hopes that this would be what I wanted. I did not ask for a description from the waitress, which most likely would have caused me to choose something else.

The flavors were there last night, but the bread pudding reminded me of a moist breakfast cake. There was a slight drizzle of sauce on top. Certainly in the top 10% of bread puddings, but not what I expected from a restaurant with such a New Orleans cuisine theme.

Overall, I gave Que Sera 4 stars due to falling short on two dishes of the grouper special. If it’s not “special”, let’s not offer it 🤷‍♀️

Atmosphere amazing Serve staff over the top amazing.

Will we be back? You bet we will! Highly...

We haven't been to Que Sera in a few years and wanted to try it again. However it was a disappointment. My husband said his trout dinner was very good. The strawberry/blueberry salad was good but he ordered a small salad and received and was charged for a large one. I had shrimp scampi which was below average. Absolutely no seasoning on the shrimp. Just throw boiled shrimp on the plate. Also artichoke hearts right out of the can. And grape tomatoes, no seasoning, Just plop them on the plate and heat them up a bit. The pasta was good, but I had higher expectations for the prices and reputation of this restaurant. Also, very short-handed. They should be able to get servers at an upscale establishment. The restaurant was packed and there were some large parties. There were only two servers which was totally insufficient. Our server worked her patoosh off but could not keep up. We had to wait for long periods for the check, for dessert, for the check to come back after she took our credit card. She returned the wrong credit card to us, being in a hurry. She did not offer dessert, but just brought the check. Then when we ordered dessert she had to take the check back, cancel it and bring a new check, all of which made for more delays. Not blaming the server, she had more than she could handle. A final note. If you want to have a conversation, forget it. It was extremely noisy being packed full of people and nothing to break...

3.75 / 5

Wanted to love this place.

The store front was very cool.

Inside was nice, clean and comfortable.

We started with the 222 oysters and the oysters deviled.

The flavors were fine but didn't jump out at you. The temps seemed to be off on all (this would become a theme for the evening). The fried oysters on the Deviled ranged from cool to slightly warm.

The 222 oysters seemed to be at about room temp across the board.

We had the pear cider and highland gaelic. The cider was amazing but my beer (which I drink regularly) was off. The first one had way too much head and tasted soapy. Second was fine.

We ordered the redfish and Steak Diane (special) for entrees.

The fish was perfectly cooked / well seasoned and the temp was fine - but the grit cake wasn't nearly warm enough.

The steak was cooked to correct temp and reasonably warm. The "Diane" was pretty pedestrian.

Sides were flavorful but not nearly warm enough. The broccoli was great, would have been better if it were hot.

I was pretty disappointed in the steak cut for $36.

The bread pudding was excellent and piping hot.

Our server was absolutely wonderful. Highlight of the night.

Total for two with three beers and the items above was $145 before tip. Seems like a lot of clams for what...