The Town Company — Restaurant in Kansas City

A few people had heard great things about the food here, so we decided to try the brunch for a friend's birthday after some miscommunication with our original location. I was reading about the chef there and was very excited to get to try the food, however, there weren't too many options on their brunch menu that piqued my interest so decided to share a few items.

Food: We ordered deviled eggs, trout lavash, crab cake benedict, hash brown and ribeye and eggs. My friends and I were starving by the time we ordered our food and she was saying how you can't go wrong with deviled eggs and I jokingly told her I have had some really bad deviled eggs but was sure this would not be one of them. I REALLY wish I had not put that out into the universe because my goodness these eggs tasted like salty mustard with a hint of egg yolk. The crab cake benedict wasn't terrible. The crust on a crab cake was a bit thicker than most of us would have liked but the poached egg was cooked well. The ribeye and eggs were ok. The quality of the ribeye reminded me of the ads you see on Facebook that are $59 for 10 ribeye. The lemongrass flavor of the fried rice was good, but the texture of the rice made me think it was too freshly made to turn into a good fried rice. The eggs on there were also cooked well. The trout lavash was good. Some parts were saltier than others. The hash brown was probably the best thing we tried.

Drinks: We all tried a variety of drinks and nothing really stood out to any of us or made us want to order more. The biggest fail was probably the carrot mimosa. I don't think anyone cared for that one. I ended up ordering a Paloma and it was good, but definitely not $17 good.

Service: I felt like we paid for fine dining service and received fast casual dining service. The waitresses weren't very attentive and just weren't all on the same page. We ran out of water A LOT. They left extra bottles on the table for us to refill our glasses but those ran out quickly. With how salty each dish was, we needed to drink a lot of water!! One waitress told us it was a full bar so they could make just about anything. My friend was ordering her second drink off the dinner menu and another waitress told her she couldn't order from the dinner menu. She told her that she had ordered her first drink from there. We asked how many eggs come in the deviled eggs and were told 4, so we ordered a couple for our table. We'll apparently they come with 3 in an order. Not a huge deal but still annoying. Another annoying thing was the cakeage fee. We were told there would be a fee but all assumed it was a flat fee. We definitely should have asked specifically how much the fee was so we're weren't shocked when we received the bill and saw the $96 ($8/ person)!! We all understand it was our fault for not asking but we sure did wish they would have told us so we could have eaten the cake elsewhere! We asked to split the ticket by table but I think our waitress left because they were saying they didn't know she split the ticket. We decided to just have one person pay and we would just venmo her. It is not a big deal but the annoyance is already high at this point!

Overall: If I could describe the experience here in one word, it would be SALTY. The food was so salty that it left each of us feeling extremely salty at the end of brunch. I think my expectations were just too high for a hotel restaurant. I thought I was going to experience a great restaurant that happened to be located in a hotel but I just got room service food. The only thing that made me give 2 stars is that most of the staff there was nice so I don't want to completely bash my...

The atmosphere is incredible. The service is impeccable. The food is remarkable. The only reason this did not get a five star review is that nowhere on the website did we notice before arriving that this is a small plate restaurant. And when they say small plate, they really mean small plate. They tell you things are shareable. They are not shareable. Maybe small children could share. Adults cannot share.

Also, and this might be a personal thing, I don't like when the first thing a server tells me is that Chef takes all orders at once and Chef decides when food comes out. I'm not in First Grade. As a result, because we took their advice and ordered several of the smaller appetizer like small plates, when the main dishes came out, we ended up having to get boxes to take food home. Had I been able to order my smaller small plates first and consume them, then I might have known how hungry I would be for my main dish small plate. And I might not have ordered something as big as the pork chop. That's why I like to be able to order what I want to eat when I'm ready to eat it and not have to order everything all at once for Chef to determine what I get when. Again, just a personal thing.

A second thing that did not sit well with me would be the dinner rolls. They are also delicious, and prepared in an individual little skillet. The skillet apparently holds 3 rolls. It is not often that only three people dine. Most people in the restaurant the night we went were tables of 4. That means that you have to buy several of the dinner rolls, and at $12 a skillet, it drives up your ticket price as far as cocktails. I'm sure there were little iron skillets out there that could have made four rolls.

Neither of my issues take away from the phenomenal quality and taste of every single dish we had. I highly recommend the chicken livers. You don't see chicken livers on many menus. I was excited to find a restaurant that serves them, and they were cooked to perfection.

I think this is absolutely one of the best dining experiences I have had in Kansas City, maybe THE best. When you go, just know that it is a small plate restaurant, and you must order everything all at once. When you go in knowing that beforehand, you can savor the ridiculously...

Jillian and I have followed this power couple since the beginning of the pandemic, when they moved from Portland, Oregon, to Kansas City so they could work at the new restaurant inside Hotel Kansas City, The Town Company.

Helen Jo is the executive pastry chef and Johnny is the executive chef. Both of the chefs are humble from the very beginning. Just telling them you love their food makes them blush. That is hard to find in a good chef.

We visited The Town & Company the first week it was open and fell in love with some of the small details we knew the couple would perfect over time. We recently had the pleasure of being a part of a women's chef even at Waldo Thai where Helen Jo perfected a dessert you can now find on the menu now.

To start our evening we had drinks with the barkeep in wood filled dark green ceiling bar area just to the right of the main kitchen. After a few unbelievable drinks the chef was ready for us at our chefs table seating. What an experience from the start. We were able to speak with all of the amazing staff behind the scenes as they prepared everyone's food. It was like watching a ballet. They were all in tune with one another, so much so you would have thought there were attached to one another. Dancing around the tiny kitchen preparing works of art.

Every dish was paired perfectly with the first. Our pork chop and corn bread melted in our mouths. To close our amazing evening off chef Johnny learned we had experienced his lovely wife's madien voyage dessert he insisted we have all of the deserts on the menu.

I hope these two never change a single thing about themselves and their love for great food. The Town & Company will forever be among our top establishments. We feel at home like many of our favorite places and can't wait to dine again...