Malone's - Louisville — Restaurant in Louisville

First off, the service was lovely. Attentive but not overbearing. Very classy atmosphere with a beautiful whiskey bar. Let me start off that I normally do not go to chain restaurants, as I’d rather find a local place with a great reputation. However, I’m visiting the area and my mother suggested the burger here.

The food was mediocre at best. The wagyu burger was tasty, but very salty and the bottom bun was completely disintegrating/soggy from the juice. This can be prevented with better ingredient assembly (shredded lettuce was used, which was not sufficient to protect the bread) as well as just better bun quality in general. The saltiness was acceptable to me as I love salt, but it’s a sign that it’s heavily compensating for flavor.

I would give the food 3 stars except the chicken tenders I ordered very weirdly had pieces torn (bitten?? Idk!) off on at least 4 pieces. When I got to the first half-piece, I thought my partner had snuck a bite and laughed it off at first. But then he insisted he hadn’t, and after inspecting carefully, I found a few more pieces buried in the pile with small pieces that had clearly been removed since it had come out of the fryer. I don’t know if those pieces got broken accidentally due to rough handling or if they were deliberately torn because it was burnt or something but it was extremely strange. Never seen that before. Anyway, I probably should have said something, but I’m not one to make a fuss so I just ate them 🤷🏻‍♀️. The tenders weren’t bad but nothing special. Certainly not worth 2x the price of any other basic chain.

Fries were mediocre, over cooked, and over salted. The mac and cheese tasted almost identical to velveeta shells and cheese which was absolutely shocking. Maybe people who pay $25 for a plate of chicken tenders aren’t the same kind of people who know what a box of shells and cheese tastes like? Honey mustard also a notably cheap variety. That might be nitpicking, but those small details are as important as the big ones to create a special experience imo. The salad that was included with the entrees was ok, but tasted just like 7-layer salad (you know the one you’d take to a church potluck because you ran out of time to make a casserole?) which is a childhood classic for me, but not exactly a taste I was expecting here. The bacon in it was clearly not prepared at the restaurant—it had a strong “bacon bits” flavor to it that can only be found out of a bag. Frankly, it smells like bacon flavored dog treats, if you’ve ever had the pleasure. The included bread was of a cheap/commercial quality and the butter was not real butter but an imitation spread/blend. That real nice, slick, Crisco on the roof of your mouth feeling 👌. The whole food experience just screamed straight out of a Sysco catalogue—to be fair, that’s exactly the kind of food I would expect from a chain. I suppose they fool a lot of people with the high prices and classy decor (it really is super nice!!), as the place seems to be quite popular, but it’s about as generic, bland, and cost-cutting as any other spot serving your average, commercial food distributor fare.

Ultimately, the restaurant earned 2 stars from me instead of just 1 due to the fact that it won’t leave you hungry with their large portions and endless bread/salad, plus their impeccable service. If I’m back for whatever reason, I’ll give their steak a try as it’s hard to mess up steak! But any place that can’t bother to make their own bacon is a hard...

I don’t often write reviews. But in the interest of hoping this restaurant makes improvements, sharing honest feedback seems helpful. I dined with a small group of clients and the feedback was consistent across the board from all of us. Starting with the positive, our server was a top notch, professional. I recognized him from dinners at Eddie Merlot’s. As always, he was very knowledgeable, attentive and discreet, taking great care to give us a nice experience. The dining room was impressive, with a tasteful ambience. The downsides...dinner took over 3 hours. The lag time between courses was painfully slow. The steaks, only some cooked to the temperature ordered, were beyond the "generously seasoned" description our server gave us. We all attempted to scrape off as much of the salt as we could, but my steak was barely edible. The sweet potato casserole was a terribly boring mash, with little effort to season, topped with cornflakes.Yes, foodies..they topped it with the most bland breakfast cereal known to man. The rest of the food was fine, some even quite good, but for a place to tout their quality steaks, that part of the meal was disappointing. The restaurant is ridiculously LOUD, interfering with every attempt to conduct business. And HOT. So hot. All my guests complained of the temperature. I'd think for the price of my bill that they wouldn't mind running the AC in the summer.

I wanted to love this place and had planned on it being my go-to for entertaining in Louisville. I’m sympathetic to the entire industry with the pandemic induced challenges they face. But if the staff to customer ratio is strained, why not slow down the number of people they serve in favor of delivering a better experience for more enduring success? As much time as our meal service took, we ironically felt rushed to leave, as managers and hosts were frequently checking on our table’s exit status. It felt like a "churn and burn" restaurant; not the way a $500+ experience should feel dining in a restaurant at this price point. Louisville isn't lacking good steakhouses. I hope Malone's can step it up a notch to help justify choosing to splurge on dinner there over the many other steakhouses that have never let me down.

Stars awarded to my server would be 5. It was everything else that brought that down.

updateI’d like to add that I provided the restaurant with my contact info days ago, per their request. and they still haven’t...

Save your money and go to a Longhorn. For $68+ prime wet aged steaks, they are well out of their depth on how a steak should be cooked.

I ordered medium rare bone in ribeeye and when i cut into the center of the steak it was raw red. It looked as if someone had just seared the top and bottom of the steak. They only offered to "put it back on" to get it to medium rare. My friends had the same steak the same way, but it came out at a strong medium. If youre going to cook something wrong, be consistent.

In a fine dining establishment, if your steak is not acceptable, it should mean they cook a new one.

Beware the "bottomless Lexitonian " they happily serve with their steak entrees. There is a reason why they are happy to give it away for free. Its soggy iceberg lettuce, dressing has no flavor, and even managed to make sure the bacon didnt add much to the experience.

The service seems like they just hire people who graduated from highschool and do not pay them well at all. At a fine dining establishment, the staff should be enthusiastic about their menu, set an atmosphere and experience of service, and act as your guide to choosing the right meal for your desires. I felt like i was at Applebees instead.

It took 25 minutes for shrimp cocktail to come to the table...... you know. The shrimp that has already been cooked and just needs to be put on a little bit of ice with a ramekin of horseradish cocktail sauce (which turned out to be some kind of ketchup and what likely wasnt real horseradish).

It then was about 35 minutes from the time they put our steak knives down at our places to when steaks came to us.

All in all we spent over 2 hours at this restaurant for what should have been maybe 90 minutes.

The final bill was 235 dollars for 2 people and there was no adjustment at all. The manager should have come out to greet us and understand our complaint at the state of the steaks and should have assured us they would get it right. There was no pride in this restaurant. And when you have no pride, you have no shame. When you have no shame, the customer gets ripped off.

Like i said, save your money. This isnt a fine dining establishment. Its just expensive cuts of meat they hire cooks who have no business cooking them.

Longhorn and restaurants like it will do you much better service, take greater pride in their service and meat, and will even adjuat your bill without being asked if something...