Black Cow Chophouse — Restaurant in Charlottesville

Overall a nice steakhouse!

Atmosphere: -The overall vibe of a restaurant felt fancier than casual but less uptight than fine dining. They got cute and cool decors of cow on the wall that illustrates meat parts. One odd aspect that stood out was the entire restaurant was connected to their patio and wide open. So the noise level is definitely not quiet and can be distractive.

Service: -I came around 8PM Saturday night. Called ahead for the table and seated right away. Hostesses were welcoming and my server did a phenomenal job! (Forgot to grab her name). She came by my table at the just right moment when I needed her, was knowledgeable and explained the menu well, and overall had very chill vibe. Thank you for your service nice lady!

Food: -They have the daily cuts writtten on their chalkboard and you can also scan the QR code on the menu to look through the available cuts of meat. Back side of the menu contains explanations on temperatures and parts so thats a nice plus! -most of the meats were sourced. -I ordered 18oz boneless ribeye, horseradish-creme fraiche sauce and Brussels sprouts

Boneless ribeye: 4/5 -It was juicy and seasoned just right. Full of flavor and cooked to the right temperature I requested -Knocked off a star because it came out almost cold and oddly tough to chew. I did have to request it to be heated a little. Because the flavor of the steak and the sauce was amazing I assume maybe the meat itself was a tough bunch?

Brussel sprouts: 5/5!! -LOVED IT -The combination of apples, sprouts, and aioli was unbelievably good. Very surprised. -A lot of places either burn or overseason their brussels sprouts but this was amazing. One of the best steak side you can have here.

Side salad and bread( comes with all their entrees!) -I got the sherry vinaigrette and those two were nice to munch on while waiting for my steak.

They do their food well! I would come back to try their more tender cuts and...

Disappointing on too many levels.

The good: Fries and brussel sprouts were fantastic. Beef tartare flavor was great, but was chunkier than I've ever had and fairly tough. It needed a finer dice. Fried oysters were pretty standard and well seasoned. Salad that came with the steak was much larger than expected and well composed. Bread and butter was one of the best bites of the night. Wish we had ended there.

The not so good: Old fashioneds were not chilled and were served warm on a big rock. First few sips felt hotter than room temp, but it got better with time as it cooled. Still confused by these.

Lobster Mac side for $23 was pretty dry. Flavor was good, but this was another that just wasn't executed well.

The bad: We ordered the large Tomahawk steak medium rare. One hour after ordering it we heard the kitchen give out a tomahawk shout/chant and got ready as we assumed our food was coming out. Our waitress informed us they had just put it on the grill. 30+ minutes later it arrived. Our waitress informed us they had it in the sous vide prior to the finish, which is why it came out so fast (face palm). The meat was still quite raw, which we are okay with normally, but it wasn't medium rare and we couldn't chew through it. Best guess is the sous vide was set far too low and none of the fat rendered. Criminally, there was no crust/sear. We had an undercooked, tough piece of flaccid meat.

We also had a ribeye and crabcakes. Both were cooked and tasted as expected.

No dessert. We were fairly disappointed and looking for the check... And for 30 more minutes we waited to see our waitress. We tried to flag her down, one guy went outside to check on her, and finally we grabbed another waiter and he helped. She stopped by immediately after with an apology that no one believed,...

John our waiter took such lovely care of us. He was right. This steak (I got the boneless ribeye) was one of the top 10 steaks I've ever had in my life. You can tell the meat here is very high quality. The steak came out with a lovely sear. The flavor was rich and meaty; my steak was very well marbled and fatty. I loved that the steaks were served with flaked finishing salt that you could sprinkle on, yourself. I believe the biggest factor was that David cooked our steaks to PERFECTION. My husband got the NY Strip and he was over the moon. I tried a bite and it was just fantastic. I'm not even a NY trip eater! You can easily mess up a Strip. And yet it was juicy and tender.

I personally don't think the steak needed a sauce.

As for the appetizers and sides, the bread was excellent and fresh. The cesar salad was very very tasty. The shrimp cocktail was great! But the real show were those steaks. John, our waiter, encouraged us as first time guests to get steak (over the pork chop I was considering), and I'm so thrilled he did. A warm and genuinely friendly waiter, John made the night. I trusted his suggestions, and very happy I did. You can tell John loves his job, and he's good at it.

The prices were fair given the quality of the ingredients.

The ambiance of the restaurant was somewhat loud but that never hindered our conversations or evening.

The final suprise of the night was the desserts. The key lime pie was literally the best key lime pie I've ever had. Was such a perfect touch to a wonderful evening.

Kudos to this team. A giant thank you to John for taking such great care of us, and the highest compliments to David and the chefs who prepared the...