Five Kitchen & Bar — Restaurant in Cincinnati

I’ve been coming to this restaurant for a long time, at one point, even twice a week. Each visit, we would spend well over $100, and we always tipped 20% out of respect, no matter what the service was like. Sadly, the service here has been consistently disappointing, especially from the male staff, and after too many bad experiences, I will not be returning.

The atmosphere from some of the male servers is extremely off putting. They are passive aggressive, inattentive, and often make us feel neglected compared to other tables. My boyfriend and I have noticed this pattern repeatedly. It feels like we are being treated differently because we are younger, and they may assume we won’t tip well. But again, we always tipped generously.

One waiter in particular (a ginger) has stood out for his unprofessionalism. On multiple occasions, he has completely ignored me, never looked at me, never addressed me, and would only speak directly to my boyfriend as if I wasn’t even sitting at the table. It’s disrespectful and degrading, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s rooted in sexism or racism. The final straw was when he rushed through our table, asked “anything else?” while walking away, and when I politely asked for ketchup, he actually paused, hesitated for a long moment, and said no. He eventually brought it, but the way he handled it was unprofessional and completely unnecessary.

To make things worse, another male staff member (with white hair) has also given us strange treatment. Despite the fact that we came in regularly, and he was our waiter many times, every time we walked in, he would ask, “Have you been here before?” It made us feel uncomfortable and dismissed, as though our loyalty and repeated business didn’t matter at all. At one point I was dining here twice a week, and I know he recognized us. It just added to the overall sense that we weren’t valued as customers.

Throughout all of this, our water glasses were rarely refilled, our table was neglected, and the staff’s attitude made what should have been enjoyable meals feel frustrating. The only reason we kept coming back was because the food itself is good, and I had even introduced this restaurant to so many of my friends and family. But at this point, enough is enough.

This is the very first negative review I’ve ever written in my life, which says a lot, I’m not the type to complain publicly. But after experiencing this level of repeated disrespect, I can’t stay silent. I’m deeply disappointed, and unfortunately, I will not...

I can only assume the chef had the day off when we came. We had very high expectations that were not met and, unfortunately, we were here for our anniversary. I’ll preface by saying I have 20 years of back of house experience and my wife has 25+ years of front of house experience. I’ll start with the positives; the place itself is very nice: beautifully decorated and a very elegant, cozy ambience. Our server was very kind, professional, attentive, and quite knowledgeable. For the first course we ordered the artichoke. This was the star of the show. We both loved it! Grilled with garlic, herbs, spices and olive oil in the center and the aioli was excellent. It was a really great, uncommon dish. We really enjoyed it! The next course we split the wedge salad. It was excellent as well. We loved the pork belly juice that pre-dressed the salad creating an extra layer of flavor once you add the creamy ranch dressing. Very tasty! Things went south once we got our entrees. My wife got the shrimp & crab scampi. There was supposed to be a buerre blanc, but instead the bottom of the dish was a pool of butter. It’s not like the sauce was broken, it was just melted butter. I had to remove the shrimp from the bowl and place them on a plate in hopes the butter would drain off. They were ok, but saturated and definitely not even close to being worth the $45 they charge for this dish. I ordered the squid ink spaghetti with clams and you could see the sides of the bowl had a river of butter. It was so buttery I didn’t even notice that it was overly salty at first. A few bites and I deemed it inedible. Fortunately, I was able to still enjoy the clams. Such a shame because the potential was there. We didn’t want to say anything to our server as it was our anniversary and such a fine dining restaurant shouldn’t need second chances. Finally we ordered the budino which is supposed to be an Italian custard. However, this presentation was more like chocolate syrup. The shell on top was good, the toasted marshmallow was good, but, unfortunately, the main component made the dish into an overly sweet chocolate soup. After the check was presented and paid for, my wife did mention to the server that the dessert was not the correct consistency. The server took it back to the kitchen and agreed with us as she handed us a piece of cheesecake to-go. I can only hope the culinary team can learn from this experience and do better for the next couple’s...

Let me start by saying our server Brian should be cloned and put in every restaurant in the city! He made our time here even more enjoyable. We started with a glass of rose and a Maker's Old Fashioned. He suggested the OTR Wellington appetizer because it's unique to this restaurant. Wellington is a bit misleading as they were more like pigs in a blanket (which he told us). The sausage inside was lovely, but we didn't discern hardly any mushroom. They were so good with the mustard sauce! Then, because we have never really eaten artichokes in their "raw" form, we tried those. They come grilled with a rich butter sauce that spreads to each leaf as you eat it. This is probably not a good choice for a first date because it was very messy and took a long time to finish. Because Brian was on it, he coursed our meal perfectly giving us time to finish each leaf of the artichokes.

For our mains we chose the truffle fettucine and the coconut curry mussels. The fettucine was cooked al dente, but was more dense of a noodle than we were expecting. The sauce was fantastic! It was a hearty dish, not a delicate one. The mussels were prepared perfectly in a broth that was perfectly balanced between coconut and curry. Both were very "light" tasting making the broth more refreshing than cream heavy (which other places seem to mess up a lot). The portion is generous with an ample of amount of broth. The playful pesto- drizzled bread was great to soak up some broth.

By this time we were very full, but Brian had mentioned this three carrot risotto earlier, so when he asked if we cared for dessert, I said "We'll have the risotto!" That put a cute, shocked look on his face momentarily. But it was a great choice, because that risotto was my favorite dish of the night. And it was still as good for lunch the next day. Brian happily want back and told the kitchen how much we loved it.

Two final notes; it's hard to find comfortable chairs and bar stools in restaurants these days. Five on Vine has the most comfortable chairs! A guy at the bar actually turned a stool upside down to see who made them. And, THANK YOU for being open on Sundays. We frequently eat out on Sundays so we...