Blu Wolf Bistro — Restaurant in City of Rochester

Eating here really made me wish that I was a professional food critic. First, I'll give credit where it's due. The wait staff was just okay, not the worst but not the most caring. At the time of seating it was good, then during the meal there was no questions asked by staff to see if we needed anything like drinks or anything else. Also, the fries were really good, but that's the only part of the meal that was notable in any sorts in a good way. The burgers we ordered tasted like fish oil and all three burgers were overcooked. Two of us ordered medium, not well done like how the burgers were cooked. Also, my burger was not plated well at all, it looked more like a salad. I had to put it all together because nothing was on the bun. We decided to try each others' burgers to see if we would notice how bad they tasted to verify we weren't going crazy, and we all agreed that it was terrible. Also, the sweet potatoes fries had some sort of home fries mixed in, which were burned. It was a hefty amount of burned home fries, to add. Immediately as we left, after we paid over 80 dollars for our food, my girlfriend and I got sick and had to rush home for the bathroom. I don't know what the food was cooked in, perhaps the stovetop was never cleaned off before they prepared our food, but McDonald's would have been a far superior choice. If I could rate less than one star I can assure you that I would. One of the worst tasting restaurants I've been to, and this includes fast food chains. This experience and food was only worth it because I now know to never go here again, or to ever recommend to family and friends.

Update - This visit was back in June of 2020, if anyone else reads this, it took the owner 542 days to respond to my review about how disappointing their food, wait staff, and how awful the overall experience was. THE OWNER TOOK 542 ENTIRE DAYS TO RESPOND, EVERYONE! I guess I shouldn't complain about the wait staff now, they take after the owner of the restaurant. We were overall left alone after our meal was presented to us, so the rebuttal by the owner stating that we should have spoken up and said something is moot. We were there for almost 2 hours, asking for the check took over 15 minutes. We were the only customers inside besides one other group of two people. Do you honestly think I should have said something to the wait staff that was not attending to us and extend our meal time even further? I am offered a "remedy" to this by the owner, or whoever finally decided to type up a dried out, typical response, but I don't want a remedy. I just don't want people spending $20+ for a well-below subpar burger when Rochester has so many better options. I want to say more, but I may have to wait another 18 months. I'm purely editing this so people see it again and because it has made me smirk at how long it actually took...

So there is a lot to unpack here so I'll try to categorize each portion of my brunch.

Wait time was 25 min. Actually less than I'd expect at a brunch rush. Easily can go walk on Park Ave while you wait. Conveniently, you're able to get a text message to advise that your table is ready.

Service was great handling the demand from the brunch rush. Our server was friendly and you can tell he tried to make sure all the tables were taken care of.

Chicken and Waffles entree was incredibly disappointing. The chicken was crunchy on the outside and very moist on the inside. However, seasoning was non-existent. It really needed salt and possibly a slight kick to give a depth of complex flavors which would have played well with the sweetness of the maple syrup. The gravy tasted like turkey gravy; groundbreaking. I think it should have been omitted. To add a possible spin to play sweet with the spice, a Thanksgiving chicken and waffles would have been great adding cranberry sauce and the savory gravy; making it a playful sweet and savory dish. The waffle was well, a waffle. It is a blank palate that can take on any flavor you add to it. Unfortunately, the waffle was on the same level of no flavor as everything else.

Vegetarians and vegans, pay attention here... The burger and fries with the meat substituted with a quinoa patty tasted like toasted quinoa with zero thought to what flavor it should be. If it had roasted garlic or even some roasted red peppers, that would have elevated the flavor. With meat substitutes, seasoning is essential. Missed opportunity is more like it.

A note about the interior is that it comes across as part sports bar, part bistro. Didn't help that some random guy started doing push-ups on the floor near the bar. Possibly a beta male mating ritual. I don't even know.

Overall, I can't see myself coming back here for food. Can maybe give them an opportunity to redeem themselves with drinks some evening but I'll need time to forget the void of flavor.

If you can't taste due to Covid or think salt is spicy, then you'll be fine eating here. A new chef or a new menu might be needed if this experience is typical of this venue.

Please know, the staff was friendly and the restaurant was very clean. Surprisingly not as loud as you'd expect from brunch, which...

We arrived for our reservation at 6:30pm before we were set to get drinks with friends at 7:45pm down the street. We figured it would be more than enough time to have a quick bite and be on our way.

When we arrived, there was only about 2-3 parties seated inside, and the same outside on the patio. We got seated quickly on the patio and that was about all that went right. The restaurant is in a great spot, we were able to sit outside and enjoy Park Ave on a really nice night.

Our server tried his best, it looked like he was covering every table inside and outside that night. After about 10 minutes of being seated, he arrived and took our drink order. He then left to get the drinks arriving back about 5 minutes later. My husband ordered a burger and I ordered a Cesar salad with fries. Our server did notify us that a party of four inside just places four orders of their burger challenge- 18 burgers in total not including all the additional sides. We expected it to be a bit of a wait, but not an hour.

During that hour, we noticed it started to get busier outside but inside still remained pretty empty. We also never saw our server again until about 45 minutes in where he told us the kitchen was really backed up. This was also when he was notified that the party who ordered four of the challenges dined and dashed.

We let our server know at 7:40pm with still no food, that once it did come out we needed the check so we could rush to our next spot. Dinner arrived right at 7:45pm, he offered to get us boxes but never returned. Ten minutes later and late for our next reservation, we ended up having a few bites and had to leave 60% of our meal on the table. When I looked inside, our server was standing at the bar talking with someone.

We were visiting from Buffalo so the chances we will dine here again are slim when there are lots of other spots on Park Ave to check out. I would recommend that during the weekends and busy dinner hours, the food challenge is...