Haven — Restaurant in Encinitas

First … the good. The bison burger was amazing and cooked perfectly. The mole pork belly was also very well prepared and the mole lived up to the hype our server described it with. Salted caramel plantain cake … shut up! Maybe the best desert we’ve ever had.

Now, the not so good. Granted as of the writing of this review they’ve only been open a week or so. However, several of the items we were interested in were either no longer on the menu, or had changed so significantly they no longer even resembled the original dish. You would think they’d announce this at the start of the service and not when you went to order your dinner.

The burgers, ordered at different temperatures, arrived without any indication and we had to cut into them to figure out whose was whose. The fries, colder than cold. The pork belly … nowhere in sight. Our server … nowhere in sight.

When we finally got her attention she apologized and said she’d go track down the missing plating. Then she was gone and again, nowhere in sight. By time the pork belly finally arrived, the burgers were consumed. And trust me, we waited. There was never any update on where the food was or why it all had not been served at the same time.

We ordered another round of drinks, and those again took forever to reach our table. By time we got the glass of wine to accompany the pork belly … she was done as well.

In the end, the kitchen did their job admirably in the preparation of the food, but the wait staff including the bar seem to be really struggling and quite uncoordinated. For their price for dinner for three (even after comping 1 cocktail and 1 glass of wine) you would expect much better coordination between kitchen and service staff, and infinitely better communication.

We had very high hopes, given the reputation of Fox Point Farms and we were very eager to enjoy the farm to table concept. It is too bad that the service didn’t come close to the quality of the cuisine. Chalk it up to opening week jitters? Generally, a disappointment. The food and the well crafted venue couldn’t overcome the poor level of service and general inattention...

We were two separate parties of six, and we all had mixed reviews. To start out the cocktails were fantastic, and those that had Beer really enjoyed the fresh beer. Moving onto appetizers, we thought it was a little strange that the bread was $12, where really most restaurants consider that a free item. And the bread was really lackluster being just white bread, and some small rolls. But the butter was fantastic! I think it was garlic and rosemary or something. We also got the lobster toast which was fantastic as well, but for a shareable plate very small to share amongst four people that liked lobster. We also got the radish carpaccio appetizer while it was good and fresh, it could've used a little bit of seasoning or salt. Otherwise it was just bland without it. Maybe some citrus.

Now onto the entrées, the bison burger is on a secret menu, but four people ordered that and absolutely loved it. It should be a item that is on the menu permanently. Two people got the short ribs and the halibut (which was a pretty sizable slab), they both said their plates were fantastic. One person got the gnocchi and said it was just missing something. She was pretty disappointed. I went with the pork belly because it seemed the most unique item on the menu with the Mole sauce. However this was by far the worst item on the menu. I've never had crunchy pork belly before. It took a while for the plate to come out, so maybe they just forgot about it, but by any means I eat about half of the dish and went home hungry. Very disappointed and I probably should have complained before I left the restaurant.

All in all, well the service is great, and many items were tasty, we just found that it was extremely over priced for what you're really getting. The atmosphere is awesome and that's probably most of what you're paying for. But they just missed the mark on a few items and some attention to detail. I might give it a shot again in the future, But could...

Appetizers were interesting but not particularly great.

Bread and butter was unique, the specialty butters were the draw but only the pumpkin flavor was any good. The radish carpaccio was visually beautiful but ultimately was a plate of sliced radishes, our group of four didn't finish them.

The entrees varied in quality. The crispy pork belly was extremely flavorful and enjoyable. The short rib was the best thing anyone ordered and what I'd recommend to anyone.

The ribeye steaks felt like a waste of $50. The cut of meat is questionable and they cut it in half before serving it. I would prefer my steaks to not be disassembled for me, serve them whole. Also, both steaks were more rare than asked for. I ordered medium rare and it was definitely more like rare or even blue rare in some spots. I just ate it anyways cause I was more than halfway through before I got to the undercooked portion and sending it back at that point would feel wrong.

We were celebrating a birthday and they brought us a free dessert that was actually incredible. It was a coconut and plantain cake similar to a carrot cake. Absolutely ten out of ten on the free dessert.

I would go back, but I wouldn't order the steak. I'd get the short rib.

All of the drinks were also spectacular.

Overall, 7/10 experience for now and they will likely...