Lonesome Dove Knoxville — Restaurant in Knoxville

Let’s begin with a large round of applause. From the decor, to the elaborate menu and even seemingly upscale cocktail menu, this has to be the most elaborate restaurant grift out there. Don’t get me wrong, our server and subsequent manager interaction were beyond lovely and the former even got us somewhat giddy with anticipation regarding the flowery menu. Speaking of the menu, this is where things began to unravel. The ingredients in each dish are carefully worded as to take your attention away from the fact that you’re actually being sold salt-less kitchen waste for no less than 18 dollars and no more than 3 bites at a time. Don’t get me wrong, I love fine dining / omakase / tapas and whatever other pretentious crap is thrown my way, but this restaurant chain is consistently pawning off the same days-old vegetables and undercooked meat in multiple cities. Don’t fall for the pretty bow they put on the exterior. Let me break this down for you…

Hamachi tostadas: Tastless wads of “fresh” fish carelessely thrown onto shards of tortilla chips locally sourced from dollar general. To crown them, they are thoughtfully adorned with a transparent slice of serano that had been aging nicely in the misen place drawer for no less than 48 hours. The perfume of other aging vegetables is the cherry on top. From what I gathered, the yuzu was an attempt at encouraging guests to “use-u” their imagination in hopes of conjuring up some level of conciously perceptable flavor.

Mac(less) and “cheese”: Playful little dish of elmers glue and orzo(?). Whatever you can’t choke down is a great adhesive for any upcoming school projects. Fun for the whole family! Another indication that salt is potentially in short supply. Tim’s love for kindergarten paste really shines through here. So much so that he decided to make it available to patrons via menus across America. Judging from the price, I’d imagine they’re slaying the poor horses in the kitchen off to the right to get it to you fresh and piping hot. neigh

Wild boar ribs: I’m not sure how anything went wrong here. Somehow, they managed to extract all the bbq sauce flavor and leave only the exquisite taste of… brown? It had the texture of human hair wound and compacted along the length of a scraggly bone. For a place that prizes their grilled meats, I’m suspicious it’s being sourced from disgruntled patrons. Our guess is ol’ Timmy actually cut a deal with Ronald to collect the Mcrib™ rejects that base jump off the conveyer belt and land themselves in Knoxville, TN.

Bibb lettuce: A love letter to vegetable haters everywhere. Honestly my fingers are getting tired but don’t let the lardons distract you away from the oddly fork tender greens that dissolve on your tounge. Maybe some gastronomic tricks at play here. Think aspirational greens you routinely forget about in the back of your fridge on a weekly basis. One day though.

Pork chops: Saved my last bit of strength for this tradgedy. It dxemplified what this restaurant seems to be about. Carefully plated, hot off the press and even had some tenderly painted on grill marks. The two chops were bathing in a pool of white flavorless goop and some sort of attempt at demis glace that again tasted like Tim’s favorite flavor, brown. To our glee they cooked it to a lovely rare (see attached image) just the way we like it at home. Seeing as we had an 8 hour drive the following day we decided to hold off on enjoying such a creation. There are enough memories here already to not warrant sharing them with rest stops up the east coast. The gas station attendants don’t deserve that.

Again the service and atmosphere were perfect. We tipped the server handsomly and thanked her. It just feels like food execution which I thought was the goal of an eatery is lacking in all categories. If anything above tickled your taste buds feel free to stop by, but If I were you, I’d stop by Wendys like we did and you’ll thank us for it.

We’ve never paid $200 for the stock of an abandoned grocery store before, but we won’t...

If you are planning to visit LD, here are my thoughts on our selections: -Fettine Trio: Highly touted by the menu, website, and server but honestly it was pretty lack-luster. Unique idea but in all honesty Boar's Head is no better or worse.

-Rattlesnake/Rabbit Sausage: Probably one of the few truly game flavored items we tasted

-Elk Loin: Ok so up to this point the portions, except for the Chili were very small. The Chef totally reverses course on the mains as the portion is exactly what you would expect from a Texas-based establishment. The Elk was perfectly cooked medium rare, but otherwise, I have to say the accompanying flavors were lack-luster. The most disappointing was the promise on their web-posted menu for Hen of the Woods mushrooms! On our evening the menu was changed to mixed mushrooms, which turned out to be just simple button mushrooms. My overall rating of the meal fell significantly on this choice.

-Antelope Short Rib: Both my wife and I were equally excited on this one as we love short-ribs and we were both excited to try antelope for the first time. Sadly the game flavor we were seeking was not there. After returning home we had to somewhat wonder if it was even Antelope and not just beef? It was perfectly cooked but there was no flavor that necessitated a trip to Knoxville and a hotel stay to just visit a restaurant that prides itself on wild game. The pairing was inedible. The robust portion of short ribs were served with well under-cooked fried cauliflower crowns. They were hard, and completely tasteless. Not even a hint of salt. Hopefully their complete presence on the plate when returning to the kitchen was a sign to the Chef that we were not impressed.

Drinks: -Blue Bonnet: Flavors are well executed, but too sweet for our taste. -Comanche Moon: Where's the Gin? Either the shot was light or the pairing is off as this item may have been missing an ingredient. Tasteless and light. -Beez on Thyme: Good but wait, the bartender forgot the lemon twist? -Bartender's Choice: So I do this often when I seen that the bar has more than just lemons and limes on hand. With a well appointed supply of herbs I asked our server to let the bartender create one of his favorites knowing that I am always hunting out interesting gins. The result was not great, so I will not highlight it's contents in this review. Only to point out that probably not the best place to give creative license to the bar.

Service: Upon seating we were met with a soliloquy of how well timed the food pairings would be as the staff and kitchen would be working together... Yeah that didn't really happen. Sorry but the Server took away from the meal with his constantly drooping face mask. He also didn't read the situation of a romantic evening. Removed my dishes before my wife was finished with hers.

Chef never came by. May not be his/her thing but when the restaurant has one table, it seems natural for the Chef to come by and thank the patrons and give some context on the food. No such visit.

But we were asked to climb up to the 3rd floor before departing to be given a marketing speech on the restaurant's ability to hold large functions... Read the room. We already noted we were from out of town and came to Knoxville just to visit the LD. Really was an odd moment to end the evening. Upon returning to the second floor the sever asked if he could get us anything else as I was left standing to sign sign the bill. I attempted to give him our coat tickets and he just responded you can get those downstairs... (Again at this point we are one of two tables.)

Bottom-line we wanted to experience new and interesting game meats and struggled to fill an order among the items that were far from "wild". The results were not the flavors we had been hoping for, and the service/price equation was off. The restaurant was fully staffed as with a total of two tables during our visit....

Me and my girlfriend went here last Saturday, 2/8, for an early Valentine’s Day since I will be traveling next weekend. I really wanted this experience to be better but it’s hard to salvage a whole lot.

Atmosphere is good. I will say the set up of the restaurant makes it very difficult on the servers to keep up with tablets because there is an upstairs and downstairs and lacks line of sight to a lot of tables.

We ordered several dishes to share - elk sliders, butter lettuce salad, bison ribeye and some sides, my favorite being the burnt carrots. Elk sliders were good. The salad left a lot to be desired. The bison ribeye - the main event - was unfortunately mediocre at best. It was thickly (and I mean THICKLY) crusted in black pepper. So much so that it was impossible to really enjoy the flavor of the meat as the only thing to taste was black pepper. We ended up with a pile of the crust scrapped off on our plates. Supposed to be medium rare and come out a solid medium which I think was another one of the issues with cutting it.

The next little piece of annoyance was that neither of our steak knives were sharp enough to cut the ribeye. I asked for different knives that were sharper at which point I was told they had lost the individual that sharpens their knives and did not have any others. It’s not great when a high end restaurant doesn’t have steak knives that can adequately and cleanly cut steak.

Service was very okay. Either my glass or the girlfriends was empty at least 50% of the meal. I was a server at one point, that’s not something that should happen at one of the highest end restaurants in Knoxville. We also frequently were looking around because our server hadnt stopped by. The biggest annoyance here was that she didn’t stop by after our food was brought out and it was only when we were 3/4 finished with our meal did she stop at our table - because waters were empty. At this point I brought up the fact that the steak was almost inedible and they asked if we wanted them to do anything. At this point I was getting full and would have originally had them bring a different steak but both of us were just over the meal by now and ready to go.

I wanted to give more than 2 stars but I really don’t feel that the meal deserved it. At home, I enjoy cooking and rarely dine out. I frequently travel to large cities, however, and do dine at high restaurants. My comparison may be inappropriate, but one of the nicest places in Knoxville should have exceptional service comparable to high end places in other cities.

The temperature was the last issue. I was wearing a suit so no surprise that I got warm. Took the suit jacket off and was still sweating. My girlfriend, however, was in a skimpy low cut, high thigh cut, and no back dress. She was also burning up by the end of the meal so much that she didn’t want to finish her food which is a better litmus test, I think, for the place being way too hot.

I compare the service to my other experiences and, in this instance, it didn’t even meet 50% of expectations.

As far as food quality, I like to cook as I said, so I have a very hard time giving a great review when I can make food, especially steak, that is better at home.

I will say the burnt carrots were great - best item in the entire meal in terms of enjoyability and taste. I do want to again make note that the layout of the restaurant does make keeping up difficult for the servers.

High end restaurants are hard because customers expect everything to be great.

Wanted to enjoy our time more but unfortunately I could not recommend it for fine dining based on...