Mutiny in the Heights — Restaurant in Houston

I expected tasteful, pleasant, timely experience – this was not that. In fact, if you want any of those things then I suggest you check out other wine bars. We were guided to our “table “on the patio. It was a very tall coffee table, with a taller bench, and then two ridiculously short chairs. Whoever chose the furniture didn’t consider their patrons comfortability. Later on in the evening we observed several patrons having a difficult time bending down from the bench to pick up their plates of food and seat the plate on their lap to eat. After making a request we moved to one of the proper dining tables on the patio. All four of us ordered from the HRW menu for their $39 options. We placed an order for our full course at one time. The waiter told us “the appetizers are usually ready very quickly “ - I wish that was the case. We waited so long for our appetizers that the managers came out and apologized to us. The second manager asked what we would like in compensation for waiting about 30 minutes for appetizers with no communication, we told him “whatever you would like to bring us we are happy to receive.” Eventually they came with our appetizers, they were OK. A friend and I ordered a bottle of wine but only she and I split it. The entrées were all lackluster. I expected this to be a flavorful and curated dining experience but it just seems like they took cuts of meat, roasted them in plain butter, and put them on a plate. Two of us got the steak, one got the pasta, and another got the fish - none of us liked our food. The entrées were flavorless, but albeit they did not taste putrid. I steered away from a portion of my dish because the jus from my steak make contact with our waiters hand, and he seemed nice but I didn't want to consume that… All of us found the desserts to be unpleasant . The chocolate cake was dry but somehow accompanied with a mousse. The crème brûlée was very liquidy on the inside and the entire top was not caramelized, only the center portion. My buttermilk pie was extremely fluffy and squishy unlike a custard and more similar in feel to a hydrogenated whipped cream . The pie was paired with a sorbet which was an interesting and unpleasant flavor combination. My sorbet was partially melted by the time I got it. After finishing our desserts we had to wait roughly 20 minutes to get the check. It was at this point that we realized not only did the manager not bring anything out to compensate for us waiting so long for our appetizers, but there was not a discount on our bill either. After sending the check back and asking to speak to the manager he did give us a $12 discount on the bottle of wine, the bottle of wine that half the table didn’t even touch. He claimed that he originally had planned to send out some hush puppies until he “realized that they were out of them”. This interaction struck a nerve, because hush puppies are not even on their menu right now and he acknowledged they are serving a very condensed menu, the same condensed menu that they have been serving for the last 20 days - so how did he not know that they weren’t making any hush puppies? I’ll never know. Even if the kitchen had no hush puppies, his lack of communication felt like a signal of the overall team’s lack of intentionality to curate a dining experience worth the $260. The best items that were brought out to our table were the bottle of wine in the charcuterie board, which makes sense because Mutiny didn’t have to make those… When we gave the manager feedback, he assured us that the desserts were made fresh daily by chefs who come in earlier in the day. They should probably just stick to buying their desserts from a restaurant supply. We were told that hopefully our next dining experience could be more pleasant – I think it’s safe we are not going back to Mutiny. Their staff had such a hard time managing a condensed menu and still providing a pleasant dining experience. 3 hours of our lives and $40 a person wasted on...

This is a beautiful restaurant, but the food and wine are subpar at best. I will not return because there is no reason to accept okay to subpar food in a city like Houston.

The positives:

-beautiful restaurant with pleasant atmosphere

-the bread basket and butter were good (sadly, this was the peak of the experience)

The negatives:

-Wines. Not great. This is a tasting room, so I hoped for better. I and another at our table had a rose flight (it’s houston in the summer, forgive us) and were both disappointed. Another at our table had a different flight and didn’t like it much more.

—Entrees. Bad. I and a friend split the veggie carpaccio and tagliatelle. The pasta was edible but not good by any means; it lacked flavor. The fish in the carpaccio tasted so bad we had to send it back. I ordered the “cacio e pepe rice” as a replacement. It was edible at least but was not good; the sharpness and saltiness of the Parmesan was overpowering and not balanced. I typically really enjoy cacio e pepe, but maybe the concept just doesn’t work well with rice. (For completeness, one at our table ordered a steak that she enjoyed. Her matchstick fries were good. Another in our party enjoyed his salad as well).

—Dessert. Also not good. I thought there was no way they could mess up a lemon cake, but they did. It was served with a lot of pisco foam/crème that tasted like gasoline. The actual sponge was not great either, neither in texture nor flavor. Others at our table ordered the cheesecake tart. It wasn’t bad but wasn’t great either.

I have just returned home from dinner and am wishing I had stopped for something else on...

First thing the hostess said to us was “we have a reservation after you, so that gives you about 2 hours.” That really set the tone. Let’s start with atmosphere: we were placed in a side room with a view out to the patio. Nothing too special except the sun was shining directly into my eyes. It wasn’t a big deal…I adjusted, but I did notice they didn’t have any blinds and others may not be ok with it. There were only 4 tables in the room yet, it was very loud. We could barely hear one another. The decor reminded us of a lobby to an apartment complex office. Picture tacky glass blown blue decor. Next, the food. We ordered the Ranch Board, octopus, cheese wheel and tenderloin. They were all below average and stupidly overpriced. The presentation was even worse which wouldn’t have mattered much if the food tasted good! Very disappointing there. The wine was the best part. We ordered a bottle off of the Corivan menu. The list was short but good variety for different regions. We were told the price was incorrect on the menu and they did honor it. We then ordered another bottle off the regular wine list. For the second bottle, the waiter, who was nice and friendly, brought us two glasses—one of what we ordered and another one he recommended us to “try” … we decided to go with the one he suggested only to find out it was over double the price of the one we had ordered 😒 Guess they wanted their money back for the first bottle. We ended up leaving after 2 hours after all and the place was half empty. Save your money and time… you could get better food, wine and experience...