Le Chateau — Restaurant in La Crosse

We were traveling in the area and intentionally timed it so that we could have dinner here (prior positive experience years ago). The building is beautiful and the server was nice- the dinner was abysmal. I can’t remember when I had a dinner this terrible. We ordered French onion soup, salad, ribeye steak, lobster tail and shrimp. When the soup came my husband said ‘this is not a good sign’. It had hotspots (microwaved?) tepid overall, no cheese, poor flavor. Salad was fine. The bread was smashed and both cut side were dried out like the bread had been cut hours prior, and just sat getting stale. When our dinner came, my husband dug into the lobster and I started with the vegetables . The lobster still had ice in the center and the accompanying butter was cold. My vegetables not only looked bad (no roasting, just blonde Brussels sprouts & potato) but tasted bad too. The sprouts were cold and the potato was hot but no seasoning. When the waitress stopped by, we told her we’re struggling already told about the issues she took the lobster and I said don’t worry about the brussels sprouts. Next we started our steaks. Awful. My medium well steak was less than rare. My husbands med rare steak was also less then rare. We told the server. She told the owner who instead of coming out asked that our plates be brought to him. Again, instead of coming out to speak to us he sent the server out to tell us that he felt the medium rare was medium rare, and acknowledged that the medium well was not to order. Since everything was awful, and we felt dismissed by the owner we asked if we could simply pay what we needed to and leave. We were charged $70- and we left the server $20 since it was not her fault. Please keep in mind we were charged for awful food we did not eat. We were charged $70 for a glass of wine and a salad. I would even understand them charging us something more considering food was made albeit bad however to charge us $70 for food that was objectively awful and that we did not eat is terrible business. Shame on the owner for making that call and also for not having the decency to come out to see us. I may not get to lacrosse often but I am an alumni from there and my network does, so I’ll make sure to share our experience not...

I wonder what this place was like early on in its history? I feel like something has shifted in its quality in recent times. If you go, just do the cave. The bar is amazing and the atmosphere of that is a delight. We made a reservation for dinner in the restaurant (not an easy task. You can’t book online and they don’t seem to consistently answer their phones). It didn’t really seem like we needed to have made the reservation as we were two of maybe six people there. The restaurant is beautiful but empty and so quiet normal conversation felt uncomfortable. I really enjoy foie gras so I was so excited to see it on their menu. I was disappointed to get a severely seared chicken liver on a charred crostini. Duroc pork sounded amazing, but I could smell the charred bbq sauce on it before it got set in front of me. It was indeed burnt on the bottom of the chop and the chop itself was tough and flavorless. It was the first time I have ever sent anything back to a kitchen. I hated to do it but when you’re charging $42 for what was supposed to be a duroc pork chop, expectations are high. This missed the mark entirely. My husband’s duck was fine. Not great, just fine. After sending the chop back the manager came to ask what was wrong and argued about whether or not they felt like it was burned. She confronted my husband when he expressed his lack luster opinion of the duck. To try to make things right we were offered desert. Fine. Let’s do the crème brûlée (cue the snarky comment about how there will be something burned on that just so I am aware before it comes out of the kitchen). Pretty sure we got vanilla pudding that had been dressed up with brûlée’d sugar on top. It was thoroughly meh. Despite the snark they did take the chop off our bill. I wasn’t expecting that to happen and did not ask for that so it was a nice gesture. I really wish this place was what other reviews made it seem like it could be. Maybe it was once but the quality must have slipped as of late. It’s really a shame. Go for the bar though, that was absolutely stellar and made we wish we hadn’t bothered with the other part of the business at all. Maybe the bar food menu would have been more...

Maybe an unpopular opinion but I was unimpressed with this place. I had been there once 10+ years ago and had fond memories of everything but my gf and I made a reservation for dinner last night and were both pretty underwhelmed.

The bread was served with butter; no oils or balsamic. Just very plain. I ordered a smoked old fashioned. It took ~20 minutes to get my drink after ordering it.

I had the French onion soup and the Elk loin, which I’d ordered med rare. When I received the soup, which took ~30 minutes to receive, while flavorful I think it was the last of the pot because there was maybe a 1/3rd of the cup filled and no cheese visible in the soup. The waitress kept apologizing for the delay in our food, which we waited an hour for. When we did receive our meals, there were maybe 3 bites of my elk that were med rare; the rest was medium or medium well. It was also lacking in flavor throughout and was very tough except for those 3 bites in the middle.

She had the lobster risotto with a side of lobster; the risotto was very plain tasting and didn’t have any chunks of lobster in it, so what makes it lobster risotto?? She also ordered wine with her meal, which was brought out late as well.

The salads were good, but a ~$180 meal with tip should leave us more satisfied than “mmm good salad” and I don’t mean that in a pretentious way; this was a special night out for us and the food was simply bland and overpriced, and there seemed to be a disconnect going on in the kitchen. I did let them know the elk was over cooked and my options were a) Chef can make a new one or b) Free desert.

To be honest we didn’t want to wait even longer at that point for anything else so both options were turned down. We got to the point where we just wanted to leave, which is crazy after spending that much on two meals. Either adjust your prices or adjust your kitchen, because this may be considered a 5 star establishment but certainly wasn’t a 5 star meal. I’ve had better dinners at supper clubs for...