Tony York's On Main — Restaurant in Kentucky

Last night my wife and I went to Tony York's Restaurant in Glendale with my brother and his wife for a nice Valentine dinner. My brother made a reservation two weeks in advance. The evening turned out to be a major disaster. First the wait staff was either stretched too thin or overworked. After being seated we had about a ten minutes wait before a waitress appeared to give us a menu and pour water followed by another ten minutes before she came back to take our order. The menu was pricey and we receive two menus with different prices for the same dishes apparently they marked the items up a couple of dollars for the Valentine weekend. They do not serve any alcoholic drinks but we could have brought our own wine which we did not know until we were seated. We were not offered any other drinks such as coffee or tea. We place our order and waited another 15 to 20 minutes before the waitress reappeared with our soup or salad. Meanwhile the table of 6 adjacent to us had arrived after us and had finished their soup and salads. My wife had the tomato basil soup ($7), which she rated as excellent and I had a Caesar salad ($8) which I consider to be adequate. My brother's wife had house salad ($10) which was excellent. My brother could not have the soup or salad due the health reasons. Now came the big wait, about 45 minutes before the entrées were served. Meanwhile, we were seated near the piano with a pianist playing good dinner music but overly loud on a slightly out of tune Wurlitzer grand piano. Apparently, she did not know the meaning of background music and did not know how to use the soft pedal. It was nearly impossible to carry on a conversation so it made the wait very unpleasant. Finally the entrees arrived. My wife and brother had the chicken Cordon Bleu with asparagus and rice ($20). My wife said hers was good but prepared in a quick way like a recipe out of Better Home ad Gardens cookbook. The Cordon Bleu was a flattened chicken breast and grilled with a piece of Canadian bacon (not ham) on top with a square slice of cheese on top and placed in a broiler until the cheese was rubbery. My brother's Cordon Bleu was nearly inedible as the cheese was rubbery and the Canadian bacon was overcooked and dried out to the point that it could not be cut with a knife. The asparagus was tough and the rice was dried out from setting too long. My brother's wife had the salmon ($24) which she rated as very good. My big disappointment was with my entrée, chicken alfredo on fettucine ($20). The chicken was a flattened breast seasoned a grilled until it was over done and dried out. The alfredo sauce was unlike any I have ever had and I make chicken alfredo often and order it often in good Italian restaurants. The parmesan cheese was not melted as it was made from dried out cheese, the sauce was thin, lumpy and had little taste The pasta was overcooked and strips of fettucine that had stuck together in clumps and were not cooked. Over my wife's objections I complained to the hostess who apologized and offered to serve me another dish but I refused as I did not want another 45 minute wait. The waitress came and apologized and offered another entrée but I refused so she took my entrée off of the check. The shock was that on my brother's check was a $50 annual membership fee, which he was aware of but I found to be ludicrous for the poor food and service. Overall, this was one of the worst dinning experiences I have had in recent memory. I believe I know a good food as my wife and I have traveled extensively, having recently been in Budapest, Vienna and Prague where the food was excellent. I do not know how Tony York can call this an...

This was a good experience that just fell short. Let me explain. We ordered a 5 course meal. The calamari pomodoro and the fried green tomatoes with remoulade were fantastic, as was the BLT Cheddar Ranch salad and the Apple salad. The highlight of the night was the seafood bisque. It was superb in ways that can only be described as heavenly. But that's where it stops. The entree we both got was the beef tenderloin with scallops and a potato pancake. Of the items on the entree, only the bernaise sauce was good. The beef tenderloin was under cooked, cold in the middle and slightly disappointing. The potato pancake was burnt to the point where it's charred exterior left an odd taste in your mouth. The worst of the plate were the scallops.

I've heard a lot of bad reviews for the scallops, and I think it comes down to this: the chef just doesn't know how to sear scallops. You turn the flame or cooking surface to high heat and sear the scallops on each side for 30-45 seconds until golden on each side. This is the only way to ensure that the scallop is cooked through. Ours were not seared at all, and of the 4 on the plate, only one wasn't still absolutely frigid on the outside, and quite cold in the middle.

Dessert wasn't bad. The 6 layer chocolate ganache cake was decent, but it followed a spectacularly poor performance, and it lost it's magic as a result.

Don't get me wrong. Tony can cook. Tony makes great food. He just needs to learn a few things about preparing meat and scallops, and take care not to over or under cook the various bits of the entree, and it would be a 5 star establishment.

The only other comments are, the restaurant lacks a tasting menu, and doesn't offer wine pairings. It comes close to being a fantastic place to go to eat a delicious meal, but until every note from every plate strikes the right chord, it just falls...

Just "ate" here and had a horrible experience. Firstly we were excited as my fiance and I love to travel the world eating everything we can try. We were visiting family in KY and stopped here as the reviews looked good. I'm not sure if this is common for this place but this is now in my top ten horrible experiences for me. Firstly after being sat down we waited over 10 minutes to get our ice teas (Fine dinning without wine should have been the first sign). My fiance had to ask for buns (as we had placed our orders and had drinks finally but after 5min it was a little long) and once we got them we got cold buscuits rather than buns that the other tables seemed to have. As we received our salads we noticed at least 10% of the salad had wilted or turned so we put the lettuce on the side to highlight the error without embarrassing our waitress as she seemed new and frazzled. As we waited for the main course we had to ask for our waters to be refilled. Once our main course arrived our salmon was overwhelmingly fishy (so much so I was afraid to eat it) and my soon to be mother-in-law's and sister-in-law had cold food then when asked to be reheated it was seen by two people at the table that the owner Tony touched the food to test how hot it was. Obviously considering we had a party seven and four dishes were horrible (and touched) we tried to address the issue with Tony himself. We have all worked and understand where Tony stands as those around the table are business owners, foodie lovers, prior food preparation directors, etc. When we told Tony the situation he was combative, defensive and went as far as telling us to move back to California if we want fresh salmon. We simply had a horrible experience and was appauled by the owners response to those trying to give feedback from a place of...