Brigade — Restaurant in Bozeman

I could recommend this place for the starters, but not for the entrees. We had reservations on a busy Saturday night, and I'm willing to believe the kitchen just had a very off-night, based on other reviews.

Shared- We had oysters on the half shell and the preserved salmon jar. The salmon is unique! I would recommend trying, and then potentially stopping there.

Entrees- We ordered the tagliatelle, duck confit, and cauliflower steak. And none of them were....good?

The tagliatelle is listed first because it had the least amount of problems - and arguably that's because it has the least amount of flavor. The pasta was fine, but it seems that the basil & garlic pistou was not there, or balanced well enough, to notice. Additionally, the goat cheese that was on top disintegrated pretty quickly once it was delivered to the table (and who knew that goat cheese could just disintegrate.)

The duck confit, recommended as the server's favorite dish, comes with bacon-wild rice. All three of us tasted the rice and decided it was very, very undercooked (and lacked flavor.) Just imagine chewing a raw grain of rice, and you'll experience the same reaction.

The most memorable entree (that I would tell other diners to stay away from, unless the business changes how it's cooked) is the cauliflower steak. The description sounds delicious. When I think "steak", I think "a thicker cut of 'whatever vegetable is listed' - in this case, cauliflower.

On the plate was what seemed to be a head of cauliflower, stemmed, quartered, and then maybe seared on only the tops, to make it look brown. (So, they're not presenting it as a "steak" but rather "a head of cauliflower with some browning on top.) Underneath the browned portions, the rest of the cauliflower was close to raw. (Which, looking back, would be funny if the restaurants was going for a 'raw steak' experience for vegans.) This entree comes with lentils and a lemongrass and coconut cream curry. Pairing cauliflower and lentils could be good, but neither have a taste - by themselves - that screams "order me!" The curry - the saving grace, flavor-wise, of this entree - seemed to be too thin to taste.

So maybe our tastebuds don't align with what the restaurant is trying to do. I sat with these thoughts for a couple weeks before writing this review, to make sure I wasn't being reactionary. I also hadn't seen anyone else mention the cauliflower steak in review and wanted to make sure others were aware, if they too look at reviews before deciding on...

I’ll start with the good: the Crispy pork ribs. They were incredible! 10/10, great texture, perfect balance, and filling portions. Unfortunately the other food we ordered was less memorable. The charcuterie board was disappointing. For $24, we got 3 pieces of salami, 1 piece of prosciutto, 2 small wedges of cheese, some mustard, honey and salmon mousse. The 4 crackers we got were like matzah. Would not order again. Then we ordered the oyster mushroom entree. We paid $5 to split the plate, which was great! I appreciated the texture of the mushroom, very crispy and meaty, however it lacked any kind of flavor. It did mesh well with the sweet potato and sauce, of which had nice savory and light flavors. I just wish I had more of it. Lastly, and most oddly, our server just left and ended her shift without finishing our table. And we were about ready for the check when she walked out. There was no hand off or explanation. So we sat and waited and waited. Another girl came to clear our plates and was going to bring us water but then became to intrigued by the conversation with her coworkers at the bar that we were again left to wait. Finally another girl came by with a pitcher of water and we asked for the check. She promptly brought us the check. By this point the girl who cleared our plates came back and laughed about forgetting us. I handed her the card so we could leave, as we had a 6 month old that we needed to get back to. Service was a 2/10. Extremely disappointing and very unprofessional. The food has lots of potential and I think there are some better options on the menu to order that would blow your socks off. The service needs a...

We were looking forward to trying this place, but the ambiance is about the only thing I can recommend about it. We had the salmon starter and arugula salad to start, both of which were fine but not great. For dinner we had two risottos, the wagyu, and the duck. The risotto was about the same flavor as instant mashed potatoes and crunchy, the wagyu was somehow over sauced and under salted, and the duck was the lone decent dish though the side rice was also crunchy.

As it’s a new restaurant we figured we should let them know the risotto was terrible, at which point the waitress asked us not to finish a dish we didn’t like. We didn’t want to wait for a new entree (and frankly were a little dubious about risking a new dish), so we sent the 2 risottos back for another round of our starters. Meanwhile, a member of our party got up for the bathroom and the wait staff walked off with his half finished duck plate. The second round of starters then showed up and we were left without a fork for another 5 minutes, and the accompanying bread showed up about 5 minutes after that. This time the arugula salad was over salted to the point of being inedible. We got comped a $10 dessert the width of an Oreo cookie (actually) and didn’t pay for the risottos but didn’t get any other discounts and still walked out paying over $50 a person.

The staff had an opportunity to remedy the situation but we were left feeling somewhat comically mistreated. Do...