The Kitchen American Bistro — Restaurant in Boulder

TLDR - some parts of the menu are fantastically made, most of it isn’t.

It’s a little bit of a contraction of a place. We had the ubiquitous burrata for starter. This was superb, peaches, basil oil, greens, nuts and bread lightly toasted to perfection. It did have a balsamic glaze on it, which wasn’t really needed the basil oil would have been far better to stand out but it was still great. The person on this section of the menu is en-pointe and proud of their food they serve. If you went and had just this, then yes give it 5 stars and leave happy.

I wish it could be the same for the additional main items. A fried chicken sandwich with garlic fries and a cheeseburger with fries. Let’s start with the common failings for both of these dishes. This person doesn’t care about you or the food you get served. I’m not entirely sure they’ve been trained to any culinary standard and realistically they need to be trained or just let go.

The bread for both rolls was inedible, stale and smothered in a gallon of something we will generously call sauce but realistically was mayo with some scrapings from a spice pot added to it. The sauce was unable to penetrate the stale bread so just sat there oozing and causing offence to everything else on the plate. The fried chicken was burnt, the cheeseburger had forgotten to have cheese added to it and the remaining vegetables had unfortunately been coated in the ‘sauce’ rendering them inedible. In fact the lettuce looked like 50% of it was sauce and if it could make a sound it would have been that if someone slowly weeping.

The fries were a travesty. A few were crispy and fluffy, which was nice despite being caked in salt. The vast majority however felt like someone had cooked them 3 hours ago and left them under a damp tepid cloth to chill and turn into the worst kind of potato dish i think I or my wife have ever tasted. Quite frankly the mains were the most foul meal I’ve been served in the USA in the last two weeks and all my other times visiting. One can only hope that the staff are let go so this travesty to the culinary arts isn’t continued for the rest of humanity.

I did try and explain to the manager what was wrong. I asked a member of staff to get them and was pointed to the gentleman looking after the pass. However after explaining at length, he admitted he was the barman and was just filling in. Which explains the complete lack of quality control at a critical point in the kitchen. The person doing the burrata and salads knew their job and were proud of their work. The ‘mains section’ obviously didn’t care about their work or the customers. The servers flit around and disappear when they realise there is a problem with your meal.

So a +5 for the starters, a 2 for the serving staff and a -5 for the mains leaving us at a 2 overall. Hopefully the owners can action some change as they do have some...

This was my first visit. Upon arrival, there was no one in sight and I stood at the front door for approximately 5 minutes before anyone approached me and finally seated me. There was only one table occupied at the time I arrived in mid afternoon. The first waitress was wonderful and first class without question. However, her shift was over and another waitress took over. The second waitress seemed extremely annoyed that I was staying beyond my meal and made me feel as if she was wanting to turn over my table as the restaurant was starting to fill up and I was just taking up space as one individual and a two top table. I clearly requested a wine list. However, she just brought me a very short wine by the glass list making me feel once again as just a way to speed up my departure. Her demeanor was short and unfriendly. Then I asked once again for the full wine list. I was belittled as I was lectured that the wine list was very extensive and by the bottle and much more expensive. So I had to eyeball her and request it, once again… I ended up ordering a $150 bottle of wine, however, sometime later, I was told they were out of that particular wine but the wine steward immediately came out with an excellent alternative in the same price range and I was very pleased indeed. After that I decided to try a light type of appetizer as I was still a little hungry and just wanted to try it. I believe it was a Thai fried rice with crab and a crispy egg. I ordered an extra egg and extra crab. At this time, I guess since I had ordered a fairly expensive wine, I started to get more service and a third waitress took my order. When I asked for extra crab I immediately warned that it was really expensive crab and asked if I was really sure that I wanted it. I answered by saying it’s perfectly fine and to please add the extra crab. It was like pulling teeth to try and spend money there for some strange reason. It appeared that the young wait people misjudged by trying to judge a book by its cover. But again, once I ordered the wine, attitudes started to change immediately. Lastly, and I realize it’s no one’s direct fault, but there was an unusual amount of annoying flys buzzing around me as I was eating. Then some other type of bug ended up committing suicide in my glass of wine. But the bartenders were kind enough to fish it out. I truly enjoyed the food and wine and would highly recommend both indeed. I just think it rather obvious that a small portion of the staff rethink how they treat their customers. With tip, I spent close to $300 for just stopping by to try it out. I would definitely go back but probably request a couple...

4/5 - The atmosphere carries - Dining with party of four, personally I had the scallops with fresno chili and kale, and sampled the gnocchi and fried cauliflower. Seated in the upper level, in a booth near the bar.

Atmosphere is 5/5, both the walls and decor spoke of opulence; it felt fancy and high class, and set the guest up for what to expect from the food, in effect, the atmosphere primes the guest for what is to come. Coming up the stairs to the upper level had a nice compression/expansion effect, and the seating was secluded yet open enough to see some of the restaurant, allowing the guest to absorb what the designer wants you to feel. Ambiance was nice; music was fairly low-key but played at a good volume, lighting was dialed down but artfully placed so as to expose the more present features of the restaurant such as the bar.

Service is 3/5; My party was small and we did not order very much, and so at times it felt like the servers prioritized tables where there were more guests. Accordingly, service was sparse, and we were waited on once to order, once to serve, and once for the check. Notably we were not checked on to see if the food was ok or if we needed anything; we had to flag a waiter down to ask for some sides.

Food is 4/5, for the dishes I sampled, every single one depended on butter, or otherwise lacked the depth of flavor I feel is necessary for the price. Gnocchi 5/5: Melt in your mouth texture, good cook on the pasta, was very rich and creamy. Scallops 4/5: Very buttery scallops, rich in flavor, though I found that there was no balance for the fresno chilis, as they were very sharply spicy, and there was nothing on the plate to balance it out, so they ended up overpowering the scallops. Otherwise, they were quite good. Fried Cauliflower 3/5: Fell flat for me in terms of seasoning, as it is served as a whole head of cauliflower, which means it is difficult to season the inside. The outer parts were crisp and well done, however the dish as a whole was not particularly cohesive. I felt that dish cohesiveness as well as menu organization could be improved upon, at times it felt like not very much thought had gone in to designing these elements. Ordering from the menu was confusing because portion sizes were not accurately reflected in cost nor in separation; everything is in one big list.

Would dine again.. though perhaps ordering...