The Elm Restaurant — Restaurant in Bloomington

The food at The Elm is mediocre at best. While the kitchen clearly attempts to elevate their dishes, the components on each plate simply don’t make sense together. Flavors clash rather than complement, and textures fight each other instead of creating harmony. I understand their desire to showcase locally sourced ingredients, but the kitchen team desperately needs to reassess what belongs on their menu. Good ingredients don’t automatically translate to good dishes when they’re poorly composed.

The service is where The Elm truly fails, and it’s been consistently terrible across four visits. First visit shortly after opening: called ahead asking about parking and was brushed off dismissively, as if I should have magically known their parking situation. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, thinking new staff might still be learning. Second visit for a business meeting was tolerable but unremarkable. Third visit for coffee: staff were standing around chatting with each other while I waited to place my order. Nobody acknowledged me or seemed interested in doing their job.

Fourth and final visit was the breaking point. When I asked about a dish my friend had recommended, the waitress immediately copped an attitude, snapping “we change the menu seasonally” with pure disdain. Throughout the evening, she begrudgingly took our orders despite us being clear we wanted drinks and small plates. When the food arrived, she couldn’t explain what was on the plates without consulting her notes—completely unacceptable for a restaurant trying to position itself as fine dining. Worse, she avoided eye contact with everyone at the table and rushed through her explanations like she couldn’t wait to escape.

You might wonder why I kept returning after such poor experiences. I believe in giving restaurants fair chances, understanding that service can be inconsistent and establishments need time to work out kinks. But four visits with consistently poor service speaks volumes. This isn’t about growing pains—this is about fundamental failures in staff training and management.

The Elm’s biggest crime is false advertising. They market themselves as upscale dining but deliver subpar food and actively hostile service. I don’t mind paying premium prices when restaurants deliver what they promise, but The Elm falls short on every front. You’d get better service and a more enjoyable experience at a random restaurant on Fourth Street.

Skip The Elm entirely. If you’re willing to spend $100 per person, go to C3 instead. At least their staff actually want you there and know how to...

My first impression of the Elm was the design and atmosphere. They really nailed it. The tables are far enough apart conversations are still private. The esthetic is amazing and I really appreciated just looking around while eating at all the design elements. Some booths have a glass window view of the kitchen which I thought was really cool. Our table ordered a charcuterie board to split as am appetizer and we all really enjoyed it! After such a great start we were really looking forward to our main entrees. But unfortunately that is where it went downhill… The menu descriptions are very vague and in fact the descriptions are just as confusing as the name of the dish so you really have to rely on how your waiter explains the dish. Unfortunately you could tell our waiter was trained to describe the food in a “fancy” manner that left us all still a little unsure what exactly we were ordering. I ordered the cacio el Pepe pasta. When I got my plate i was immediately disappointed. The portion size was tiny and the flavor was bland with too much lemon juice that overpowered the dish. My mother ordered the lobster girasole- She took one bite and couldn’t eat any more. She truly just didn’t like it. The rest of us agreed it was not good at all. Also again tiny portion size for the price. Our waitress offered to get a menu to order something else but did not offer to replace the dish for another. My father ordered the veggie burger- also just okay. We all agreed it was too heavily spiced with maybe thyme and too salty. My husband did enjoy his food he ordered the duo of pork. Overall - I gave three stars because the place really is beautiful! But unfortunately the prices are too high, the portions are too small, and the food was just not good. Hopefully they can work on their menu because we would love to give them a second chance it really is a...

I want to begin by saying I really love the atmosphere. The tables are spaced out enough that there is not much noise and it’s easy to talk to your table. The interior decoration is also very beautiful. There is not much parking but I live close so I walked. The food was delicious but there were just enough weird things that made me give 4 instead of 5 stars. The bread and butter (which is its own appetizer) is OK but definitely not anything to write home about, the butter pat was cold so not easily spreadable. I ordered the cauliflower main dish with sauce and golden raisins knowing it would be lighter than a meat main. However, with the price of the dish, I was expecting a bit more than 1/4 of a cauliflower head for my main meal. I know inflation and prices are high but cauliflower? Seems they could’ve spared a bit more. Additionally the olive oil cake with rhubarb and strawberry ice cream was good but the ice cream stole the show! The cake itself was just ok and the rhubarb had not been sweetened enough to make it palatable, I ended up taking it off. The service was good but not great, we had a new server and she made a few missteps that ultimately would have cost our party money if we hadn’t spoken up (as opposed to slow service, etc). Overall, I definitely want to go back to the elm, i will just choose my dishes...