bellwether — Restaurant in Jacksonville

The food and service were spectacular. The service: We sat with Rodd, a polite and well versed server in both the menu and wines. In-depth menu questions were answered with high knowledge and understanding of the entire menu. And, when the answer was unknown he was happy to ask the chef, which he always did. He was attentive but not obtrusive a difficult task which he completed perfectly. When deciding on a wine to pair well with the duck he had the thing in mind, a smooth and delightful cab. The food: We highly recommend the squash soup. It was our favorite course of the meal. Simple yet still delicious. Hints of fried sage, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and chilli powder danced in perfect harmony across our taste buds as the thicker bodied soup was spooned into our mouths. The poutine was a strong match of salty and smoked as it should be. The duck paired well with it's neighboring beets and other platings. The chicken and dumplings a welcomed spin to such a old favorite and it held up to the test of countless memories at the childhood table. The ambience: Well done and decorated with subtle notes of style. The comfort of the location however is our strong complaint and only reason we can't offer 5 stars. The chairs are so smooth that if you were to lean back against the uncomfortable backrest you'd only find yourself sliding off the front of the chair or severely slouched. Additionally, the seat of the chair seems to slant oddly forward from the backrest as if to speed up your ungraceful dismount from the front of the chair. Looking around, everyone in the restaurant seems to agree as they were either sat without use of the useless back rest or oddly slouched as if hanging on. Encouraging the patrons to lean into conversation and the amazing food is certainly something I can endorse. But the chairs here we be better off as even just a padded stool in this case. If offering a chair, don't forget it's purpose and function.

A...

I hate to give a 4 star review because many aspects of our 1st experience were great!

The positives: *My husband and I had delicious and beautiful cocktails. *The staff was very friendly and even played peek a boo with our toddler who was a bit hangry when we arrived. Most importantly, the food had good flavor. It tasted fresh and clean and the noodles were cooked to perfection. *The decor was light and modern. Pleasant.

The negative: Just one - service was slow. It took a while to get our order taken initially which I can live with and chalk up to our fussy toddler. Who wants to approach that? We finally ordered drinks, appetizers and our toddler's entree. It took a while after we received our first order to get our entrees ordered. They did come out quickly once we did! The server came by, asked how everything was and then deuced. My husband didn't get a water refill and we sat for a long time after our meal was finished. With nearly all staff stopping by the table next to us to catch up with the couple there- our server included - you would think someone would notice we were done with our meal. I tried making eye contact a few times, but staff whizzed by too quickly to notice. The restaurant wasn't full either. Finally, a very nice lady, who may have been a manager, noticed. She got our table cleared and brought our check. I don't know what the dessert menu is like as they didn't offer and we were over it. Our server showed back up and brought us a bag for our leftovers at the end. Again, everyone was very friendly, just not that focused on service.

We won't add it to our rotation, but we won't purposely not go there. Their other restaurants are in our rotation and we have always enjoyed great food and...

Took me a couple days to cool off to be able to do this review. I don’t like to write reviews in the heat of a bad emotion. - This was a girls night and we all left feeling the same and even talked about it a few days later. First the positive: The food was tasty and the portions were a good size for one person but not for sharing unless you have a small appetite. The temperature of food was good. I had the oxtail ragu pasta dish and it was delicious. Now for the bad: as you can imagine it is the service. The place was not very busy and there was plenty of servers. We were seated by the bar area. The waitress brought us water and then took 20 minutes to get our drink order. Then another 30 minutes to get our food order. Never saw her again till the end when she brought our check. There was a food runner who brought our food. We did see her talking to the bar tender often. The bartender did bring us another round of drinks when we ordered through him. At one point we asked for more water and he pointed at a water bottle by the ledge of the window that we could get up and go get to help ourselves. Not quite what I would expect from this kind of dinning. Even at Denny’s they bring you water to your table and don’t tell you to get it yourself. For my first time there I was not impressed by service. Due to the food tasting on point I would give them a second chance to see if service was just off that day. For the cost I expected so much more to enjoy our evening out. I do realize that service industry has had a hard hit and I eat out often enough to make adjustments to...