Wild Iris Cafe — Restaurant in Dunedin

I've reviewed well over 1,500 restaurants. From the newest awarded 3 Michelen Star restaurant (only 13 in the U.S.) to Diners. Listed with Google as the top 10% Restaurant Reviewr. It's extremely rare for me to submit a review without visiting 3 times. As a Chef, knowing that there may be a day of inconsistency. The food that I ordered and service had so many things wrong, I'll never return to Wild Iris Cafe again. Particularly since the sever told us the owner was there.

Wild Iris Cafe is an adorable tiny place inside. Outside is the draw for diners with seating under the Oaks. However cheap tables and chairs. With 2 ply napkins. I'm giving Wild Iris 2 stars, One for the seating under the oaks, One for slicing the lemons into generous 1" slices that you can actually squeeze. Finding that most restaurants have cut down on the slices of lemons and limes. A great test of a Cook versus a Chef is the knowledge of cooking a Well Poached Egg. Explaining a Well poach being slightly runny as explained to the server when I ordered. When she served my food prior to me even cutting into the eggs, she commented they look "Great", I responded with, "I'll let you know" as I'm also sitting with an empty glass of ice tea. She walks away. Not a good sign in our industry when you have to flag the server down to refill an empty glass of tea. My Classic Eggs Benedict eggs were coddled with no run at all. Instead of a slight run. The ham used was average deli ham. The muffin had been precooked and held for so long it had no texture at all. The Home Fries were simply disgusting! Not only old but overcooked potatoes and many were burnt. The potatoes were so bad, I question if they were yesterday's potatoes!

The server was extremely pleasant! Yet, I still had to flag the server down to show her my food after 3 bites and to get my tea finally refilled. comments. Her excuse on the muffin was it looked like the Hollandaise and runny egg made it soft. Impossible since coddled egg has NO RUN and the 2 tablespoons of sauce hadn't come in contact yet with the muffin having only 3 bites. She also didn't supply another lemon slice. There were only 5 tables filled outside with 2 other servers working the area. When she gave me the tab eating only 1/4 on the plate. She made no offer of taking the Benedict off my tab. Plus the Owner was there!

A small restaurant usually can't afford an expediter that makes sure the food looks right before sending out. It is left to the Cook (in this case) and the server to make sure the dish looks proper. In my dish, all failed miserably. Wild Iris Cafe Cook and Owner should get guidance from 2 local Diners that undercook fresh cut and SCRUBBED Potatoes every morning and rewarm on the griddle. With the owner was on the premise, and OK with putting out burnt, old potatoes. I can only imagine what the food looks like when he isn't! Thus, One And DONE with...

I would NOT recommend this place to anyone of color. I normally don’t like to leave such reviews but I can’t think of any other reason why we were treated so horribly. If it weren’t for the owners son and Dana the server we would’ve left. We came in as a party of six. My daughter, who is mixed went up to give our names. We were told it would be a 30 to 35 minute wait as they didn’t have any tables for our party size. They took my name and number and we went to sit across the street. After sitting for about 30 minutes we began to notice other people walking in and being seated immediately. So, we figured they may have forgotten us and decided to walk back in. We were given an instant attitude from the hostess who was just returning from sitting another party. She stated she still didn’t have a table ready. We decided to go sit in their little makeshift waiting area to wait. While sitting there TWO more parties one of four and one of three, both seated right away. The son sees I’m getting upset and begins to clear a table. The hostess and server both come up and ask him what he’s doing and take one of the chairs to seat yet ANOTHER three person party and have us continue to wait. As I go to ask the hostess what’s going on she snaps that they’re trying to find us chairs. Although they just took chairs to seat another party. At this point I ask for a manager who I didn’t realize the entire time was there and knew what was going on. He was walking around to every table taking pictures and talking to the customers. The son proceeds to grab chairs from inside and seat us and apologize. The manager/owner walks off and disappears into a detached office. Dana is given our table I’m assuming because the other server knew we weren’t happy with her instructing them not to seat us. Dana saves face and is super friendly and prompt however, even after several mentions about wanting to speak to the manager, he never comes by our table. I watched him walk up to every other table and I mean EVERY OTHER TABLE, including one that wasn’t even fully seated yet and NEVER, came by our table. I was still going to give a five star review because his son and Dana however, I called to speak with the manager to see if he had any explanation and the young lady was about to say hold on but began to stutter and say the owner wasn’t there. I, along with my family tried to make sense of it and the only thing we can come up with is the complexion of our party. I really do not understand what the issue was because there’s no explanation for why he wouldn’t even hear us out. Not even acknowledge that we asked to...

2nd time visiting. The first was good. This time was less than average- hence the 2 stars.

My husband ordered the Hash Benedict. There is no hash, folks. Don't think that if you grew up in the south, you can go here and get hash. We told the server that we found it odd that the dish would be call "Hash Benedict". She said well, it's roast beef hash. Lol. No, dear. When you are from the south, we actually know what hash is, this is not it. The English muffin had shredded roast beef directly on it, with a few potatoes (again, not actual roast beef hash- which is what it says on the menu), the poached eggs and some sauce which was not a traditional hollandaise. It was very, very basic.

I had the Nova Toast, which honestly was decent. Not great, but average.

The Bloody Mary was good as well.

Hostess at the front table is a gem. Honestly, her personality saves the restaurant. Be thankful you have her, management.

Service is average.

Let's see, I'll give some suggestions and see if the restaurant implements these to help avoid another review like this.

Suggestion #1: On the Hash Benedict, actually make it with hash or rename it. There are many, many recipes on the web. The one you are using is not hash. It's meat with potatoes.

Suggestion #2: On the Hash Benedict, put something like the nice red tomatoes on top of the English muffin, under the hash. The way you have it now, is just sad. It needs more flavor and it will help the presentation alot.

Suggestion #3: Be consistent in your presentation of menu items. The first time we came, I ordered the sweet potato home fries. They were perfectly cooked. This 2nd time, some were still raw in parts and the whole plate presentation was lacking.

Suggestion #4: Adjust the prices of your coffees. There is no way that patrons should be paying $6 for a coffee with regular milk. Unless I'm in Starbucks and I'm getting a Venti with a specialty milk or a flavor shot. This is not Starbucks, neither was it a Venti.

We may try again, but with so many places in Dunedin to choose from, we will go elsewhere before we head back.

Hopefully, future patrons will have better...