The Vesper — Restaurant in City of Rochester

With my mother in law in town, and wanting to treat her to dinner in the beautiful foodie heaven that Rochester is, we searched for a local fine dining restaurant in the area and came across The Vesper. We have ordered take-out from here previously and the experience was wonderful. Tasty food, beautiful presentation, and the prices felt right for what we received. This time felt very different.

Our appetizers were the charcuterie board, truffle parmesan fries, and their grilled cheese bites with bacon and a tomato soup. Our appetizers took about 20 minutes to receive, and after finishing our appetizers we had waited over an hour before our entrees came. In this time, our waitress did not ask us if we needed any more drinks, and we were out of water for an astonishing amout of time until we asked, and after asking for more water it took another 10 minutes before water was brought to the table. I have never felt the need to wave down an employee just to ask for more water in an upscale restaurant, especially with all glasses on the table being empty. We felt very ignored and were having second thoughts about our entrees. We ordered steamed muscles, a Vesper burger, and a steak. We had also ordered the more expensive "Trust Fund" to share, which was a Vesper martini, seafood sampler, and caviar.

When we asked about our food about 50 minutes after our orders were placed, we were told they would be out right away. I requested that anything that was not yet being prepared to be cancelled as it was much later than we had intended to stay, and without asking the kitchen, the waitress told us that everything had already been started. As we watched the kitchen staff continue to prepare orders for other tables, some of which who arrived after us, we did not believe our food had been placed on the grill yet, nor did our waitress check to make sure.

The mood shifted quite intensely for our table as we felt our concerns were ignored, however once food did start to come out, she mentioned that she had cancelled our "Trust Fund" menu item which was the first good news we heard, unfortunately. Aside from this, we only heard from her once to grab plates from our table, and did not ask us about drinks or water. This wait would have been much more easy to stand if we had been waited on more frequently, however with only about 7 tables of people dining with us, we felt completely ghosted and sensed a cold shoulder from the Waitress. We finally received our food after waiting for over an hour, likely close to an hour and a half, and the beef had been overcooked, and the steamed muscles came 10 minutes later and were cold. Not good.

We would love to come back to give the Vesper another try, however this was not a great first impression of the...

Where do you start with the high points? Is it the menu, the aesthetic, the location? Yes yes and yes.

Menu: Solid but small (focused?) menu that covers a variety of current/creative apps, comfort food items (ie, top-3 grilled cheese sandwich of my life), legitimately and appropriately built seafood selections, (al dente scallops, mahi, and poke) at reasonable pricing.

Aesthetic: fits a certain vibe that many like. Along the directly/dimly lit, candles, dark-finished bar, and exposed brick and beam interior. It says "come on in and stay for a while and we won't tell nobody". Love it.

Location: I'm partial to the location as it's next corner down from our Rochester office. Fantastic little neighborhood tucked in from the Notable corner of Woodbury Ave (Fuego, GEVA, & The Strong West-East notable neighbors) and South Ave (Dinosaur BBQ, Rochester Public Library, and entrance to South Wedge, north to south). It's adjacent the South Ave and 490 east interchange... a spot that feels remote in a good way, but very accessible and plenty of close parking.

Drinks: oh I almost forgot the drinks. Solid menu of cocktails that include local Iron Smoke Whiskey and a variety of fun themed drinks (ie "mother of dragons" etc). Creative and strong.

5-Stars!

COVID UPDATE

Have ordered many times during covid and have loved it!

As things have been opening up, it's been great enjoying a drink outside on the patio, as well as a few small get togethers at the bar or private table. Guests always felt "socially appropriate" distance etc, and the staff is all great with masks, etc. They even have free masks at the front for guests in case they've forgotten them.

The new cocktails on the menu have been nice updates, but they're always happy to make something from scratch upon...

Me and my girlfriend planned a nice valentines dinner here. We looked at the menu and we planned what we were gonna eat and we were excited. We arrived and saw that there was a set 3 course dinner for 170 dollars and that was it. No original menu or other food to eat it was this 3 choice course meal that we didn’t know about. On paper the menu didn’t look bad but the food was mediocre at best. Deconstructed Crab Rangoon had the crab cold which isn’t how crab rangoon is served. The soup that was given I can’t remember what it was but I can’t lie it was very good. I got the salmon for the final meal and that was just extremely underwhelming and not a lot of flavor. The drinks we ordered were light and didn’t have a lot of alcohol, but even though the dessert wasn’t added to the price of the 3 course meal, the pina colada crème brûlée was quite nice. They took a bit too long for them to get us even water and it was pretty annoying. we also saw a couple get up and leave because they didn’t have the original menu. We weren’t told in advance about this menu change and I checked the menu of this restaurant the DAY OF and there was no mention of a different menu for valentine’s day. so it was very disappointing to arrive and not be able to eat what we were craving. In total with tip our total was north of 200 dollars and in absolutely no way was this worth the price. I never leave reviews but this was a complete disappointment and they should rethink how they approach different holidays for...