Root — Restaurant in Georgetown

This restaurant is going downhill real fast if they don’t hire a real chef. What is coming out of the kitchen is not from a trained chef or even a chef at all..My husband and I started with the crispy Brussels sprouts appetizer that were over salted I had to send back immediately. The waitress came back to say it was the ponzu sauce that made them salty and basically gaslit me..I told her absolutely not, I love ponzu and that the salt was all throughout the sprouts and so we changed the appetizer to the meatballs with grits..the meatballs were dried out and burnt on the bottom. The whole dish sitting on top of grits with tomato sauce and a piece of dried out burrata was so odd and bad tasting..burrata should be soft and gooey. My entree was the lemon caper salmon. ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING…it was not baked nor sautéed but rather deep fried!! Salmon is already so oily that my first bite turned my stomach it was so greasy, I didn’t eat my dinner at all. The waitress knew it and just asked me if I wanted a box to go..there was also zero lemon anything but capers thrown on this dish. The veggies on the side were also over salted. I loooove seasoning but this person cooking must be marinating/brining things in salt water then seasoning again with more salt. Hubby had a steak that was a tremendously fatty cut (about 1/4 he cut off of fat) but he was hungry and just ate it. Waitress had also charged us for the sprouts and had to fix that whole ordeal after we paid and realized it as we were getting ready to leave. She didn’t really seem sincere about her mistake and I believe she assumed we wouldn’t catch it. DO NOT GO HERE! They are definitely struggling to pay a good chef/wait staff to keep things afloat. Too expensive for this quality...

Walked in with spouse and in-laws for dinner after trying some tasty small dishes from this place from the recent food, beer, and wine festival.

Appetizers and main dishes were all delicious and well made - grouper bites, wagyu egg rolls, Parmesan grouper, chicken pasta, seafood risotto and pasta. Dessert was lemon tarts with blueberry compote, which was pretty good but not quite up to the same level as the savory items.

The primary issue for this experience was simply the 4% added fee for using a credit card that I saw when the bill was given - first time that's ever happened. For a finer dining establishment such as this one, it was surprising to see they needed to pass on credit card fees to the customer, which cheapened the whole experience. Pretty disappointing for an otherwise nice meal.

Edit: With regard to the owner's response - an additional point of feedback: if you choose to present this decision as something that "rewards" your customers for using cash (while also pointing the finger at a trend you are following) it would be advisable to notify your patronage before presenting the bill that you have this policy. Aside from the fact that credit card fees should simply be the cost of accepting added business that you have chosen to engage in, notifying that you are passing it onto your customers only when the bill has arrived both appears slimy and counter to the integrity with which you claim to have made this careful decision. That is why it feels cheap. The fact that you are not clearly letting your customers know ahead of time with the explanation you gave gives such implications and is not...

Host made it sound like since we didn't have a reservation we'd get slow service. I could see the reservation sheet in front of him, and there wasn't any reservations left for the night. Service was indeed slow. Waitress didn't clear dishes unless handed to her, offer new beverages or set utensils in accessible spots (knife for pork on opposite side of table? why?)

Food was hit and miss. Word around town is the apps are great, entrees lacking. That's what we found as well. Ricotta app was very good, could have used a few more beets since once those were gone it was missing a big part of what made the dish delicious. Shrimp Bisque was ok. 2 of the 3 shrimp in mine were rubbery from being over cooked, the third was tender. All three tasted like boiled shrimp from a shrimp cocktail preparation that were added to the soup as a garnish. Soup started off a bit bland, but then I found some peppercorns near the bottom that made it much better. Menu said pink peppercorn, these were green.

Tomato Basil soup was very good, House salad was fine.

Pork chop was ordered medium, arrived cooked through. Breading and protein were underseasoned, bourbon jelly had no bourbon flavor, tasted like applesauce. Big miss.

Shrimp and grits tasted like something was added to the grits to enhance creaminess, like creme fraiche or sour cream. The result was bitter. The consistency of the grits were soggy, likely held over too long. The sauce was more lemony and acidic than I would expect for a shrimp and grits. The shrimp were...