Restaurant Lorena's — Restaurant in Maplewood

We went to Lorena’s for the first time on a slow weekday night, the service and atmosphere were nice but we were unfortunately very disappointed by the food.

Atmosphere 5/5: The restaurant is beautiful and clean. With bonus points for the good quality cutlery, steak knife especially.

Service 4/5: The service was ok overall. Everything came out quickly and the staff was mostly pleasant. We did notice the waiter practically scoffed at us when we decided not to order drinks, but I doubt they meant any harm by it, they were probably just upset because lack of drinks usually results in lower tips.

Food 2/5: For food, pretty much everything we ordered was below average, with the exception of the escargot which was good.

We got started with some complimentary bread, of good quality, with the most flavourless butter (or margarine) I’ve ever had. We ate next to none of it because of that, which is fortunate because the bread ended up being great dipped in escargot sauce.

For appetizers we ordered salmon tartare and escargot. The tartare tasted like blended salmon with cream on top. I wonder if the chef forgot to add lemon, because there was nothing sweet or sour to balance the fattiness of the salmon and the cream topping just made it worse. The onions on top of the tartare were also wilted and not crisp. The chips that came with the tartare tasted like they were deep fried 3 times and then left in the oil and were pretty much inedible. Even the cucumbers were soggy, not crunchy.

The escargot was great, I found it a tad too salty but my boyfriend thought it was just right. The butter and herb sauce it sat in was great for dipping the bread from earlier too.

For mains I had a duck dish and my boyfriend had chicken.

The duck itself was cooked to just the right temperature (I prefer medium) and the skin was wonderfully crispy and covered with a thin but flavourful crust of some sort. However, the dish as a whole was horrible. The duck sat in a sweet brown sauce and a sweet cream sauce which were both as sweet as honey! The onion and cabbage were burnt (not lightly seared or charred as probably intended) and bitter while also being sickly sweet due to being drenched in the two sauces. I tried my best to cut the duck on the side of the plate so that it wouldn’t get too much sweet sauce on it, but I didn’t have much luck.

My boyfriend’s chicken dish was overcooked and dry and the chicken sat on top of a bed of very oily vegetables, mostly corn. I don’t mean olive oil or vegetable oil either, the vegetables were interspersed with bacon pieces and everything was covered in a coating of bacon fat. This was especially noticeable once the dish cooled down a bit and the fat took on a more solid mouth-feel.

We decided to order dessert despite not enjoying the rest of our meal. And while I wouldn’t say I regretted the decision, I wasn’t particularly impressed with the panna cotta.

Ps. The tea was pretty good,...

If I could give 0 stars I would. My wife and I went out for a celebratory dinner (made our reservation online thru Rest around 3pm for a 8:30 res). We got there a little early at 8:20 and were seated right away. The meal started off great with Oysters and an app and we tried to ignore the 6 top next to us who were clearly drunk and being loud and obnoxious. We waited another hour for our entrees before asking our waiter where our food was. He apologized and said it was being plated now. We waited another 10 minutes and at that point we had had enough of the drunk table next to us and asked for our check for the food we’ve eaten. The waiter insisted on bringing out our entrees another 10 minutes later and offered us free dessert or to do something about the bill. At that point we had just had enough, scarfed down the food in 10 minutes and asked for the check. He asked if we wanted dessert on the house and we politely declined as the thought of spending another 20 minutes next to this terrible table was unbearable. The waiter brought us our check and nothing was discounted and nothing was comped. We asked to see the manager (who is also the chef) and he came out very confrontational saying, “well we had a big group, and you made your reservation last minute and we squeezed you in...”. We made our reservation online earlier in the day and did not call and ask the host or hostess to do us a favor by squeezing us in. He also suggested that people usually budget 2.5 hours for dinner and if we were in such a hurry we could’ve told him so. He did not offer to take anything off the bill or comp us an app or give us a discount like the server said. I understand you can’t control other diners especially in a BYOB, but they could’ve have offered a small discount or to bring us the check when we asked for it instead of charging us full price for food we didn’t want after we had refused it. His only solution was “come back and we’ll make it right.” There is no way we would voluntarily come back to be subjected to that again. 0 stars for a terrible experience with an unapologetic and unprofessional owner/chef. Stay far far away from this restaurant as it is not worth the headaches for the money you’re paying! Due to the chef’s arrogance his wait staff got bageled on the tip where a 10 % discount or comp of apps would’ve have...

Loved this restaurant! One of my new favorites in NJ. We will definitely be back. I think very reasonably priced for French fare and the ambiance.

We visited for the first time around the holiday season and loved the vibes.

I made a reservation for the dining room (recommended instead of the front room for a more elegant vibe). We were one of the first seatings so we got to see the beautiful restaurant and decor without the hustle and bustle.

Great menu choices here. Hard to find a French restaurant with these classics on a menu in NJ. Only wish they had a good foie gras on the menu. I think there was an option but it was seared.

To start we had a burrata from the specials menu and the escargot. Both were so delicious and the burrata was fresh. They also served us bread and butter which we also used to dip in the leftover escargot sauce! Although I will say the bread isn’t the best bread and maybe lacking in freshness.

For mains, I had the filet mignon, ordered medium rare. It came out closer to medium and it was perfectly melting in your mouth. I didn’t love the crust on top but my parents tried it and liked the contrasting texture.

My mom had the chicken and my dad had the duck. I tried a little bit of everything and I think the duck was my favorite. I also loved the pomme puree side that came with the steak. So good. The portion sizes were also really great, we even had leftover chicken.

For dessert we had to go for a creme brûlée and also ordered the apple tart. The creme brûlée was delicious. The apple tart wasn’t my favorite but we finished everything. I also ordered tea and it came in a pot, so we asked for an extra teacup to share.

Our service was very attentive and very pleasant. No complaint.

We parked on the street, not sure if they had a lot, but we...