Fire & Ice — Restaurant in Middlebury

Restaurant Review: Fire and Ice - Middlebury VT

This restaurant is a multi-generation family-owned restaurant that has made its staple in the Middlebury area. It has designed its restaurant to cherish the memories of the town and family. You can definitely see this in its eclectic, interesting decor, starting with the Sailing Boat Hull Shaped roof to the 10+ curated themed rooms that are filled with local treasuries and memories; you can see what families flock to this restaurant, big and small, to enjoy a fantastic family dinner.

As a seasoned traveler, having explored 68 countries and 36 states, I approach restaurant reviews with a clear criterion: Taste, Presentation, and Service. My goal is to provide an impartial perspective, highlighting both the commendable and deficient aspects of dining establishments.

The evening started with our amazing waitress - Michelle. She had a bubbly personality, constantly checking in with us, and was quick to answer questions, provide feedback and recommendations, and quickly resolve minor issues. She represented the restaurant well.

Appetizers We started with the Fried Mozzarella. Since we were a party of 5, I decided to order 2 orders. Big mistake. They were surprisingly large, cooked perfectly, and served with an extraordinarily tasting thick creamy marinara sauce.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls. I was very excited about this appetizer because, most of the time, you get deep-fried rolls that taste like oil. These rolls were wrapped in rice paper, served cold, and had the perfect combination of shrimp and vegetables - accompanied by a fresh cucumber salad and served with Ponzu (soy) and peanut dipping sauce. Very refreshing to the palette, especially before a hardy meal.

Filet Mignon - this 8 oz filet was cooked to perfection - crispy on the outside with a buttery and soft interior, which you can top it off with bearnaise sauce or 2 amazing additional sides for the steak, a Bacon-Onion Jam, which was absolutely amazing, and pickled onions. My favorite was the combination of jam and pickled onions, which were savory, sweet, and tangy. Served with a baked potato.

Shrimp Risotto - a special for the night was topped with a creamy chevre, green peas, and garnished with an amazing watermelon radish. I find that either you do risotto right or you fail miserably. In this instance, the risotto was cooked perfectly and presented with a velvety and creamy texture, great consistency, and the perfect combination of flavors to round the dish. I was impressed with the presentation by adding the spiraled watermelon radish, which added a great dimension to the dish.

Classic Fettucine Alfredo - This is a tough dish for me to review as I had authentic original Fettucine Alfredo with Alfredo di Lelio's family in Italy. The founder of Fettucine Alfredo. This dish definitely stood up to the classic dish as well as it could, and in comparison to other versions I have eaten, it definitely ranks well.

Whiskey Barrel Steak (not pictured) was my main entree. This dish was definitely amazing. I was a little nervous that the Whiskey and Vermont Maple Syrup Marinade was going to be overpowering. Still, alas, it was the perfect combination of rich, smokey notes and sweet undertones of the syrup. It really provided the perfect addition of sweetness to the dish while still allowing the flavors of the steak to really stand out. The twice-baked potato reminded me of the times my father twice baked potatoes as a kid. Hard top shell broke open with a creamy textured potato filling.

Overall - This restaurant was excellent. It provides a space for the locals and visitors to get together and have a large selection of local flavors with twists along the way. The owner clearly takes pride in what he puts on the table, and the guests are treated with a great experience. Make sure you walk through the restaurant to see all the different dining spaces, which is a great...

Seconds after we were seated I sipped my water and noticed some grime that looked like someone had been drinking from the cup. Optimistically I suggested I was just seeing bad water spots until I spun my glass around and noticed what looked like some sort of eggs growing all down the inside of the glass. I immediately told the server and she quickly replaced the glass and gave sort of a “oh sorry about that” verbal acknowledgment... oddly she left the disgusting glass 3 feet from our table on a serving tray/stand.

After trying to move on and having ordered drinks, appetizers, entrees and the salad bar we decided we should definitely ask to speak to a manager. The server sent someone over who I told about the glass and then I grabbed the glass (which again was left right next to us). I explained that I’m not one to make a big issue but that the glass was really gross and looked like it had something growing in it. She glanced at it and dismissively said “oh that’s just food from our dishwasher”, followed by a look that read like an annoyed “so what?”. I had to encourage her to rewash all of the other “clean” glasses nearby at least, to hopefully avoid this happening to other customers.

We then enjoyed our meal - we were very hungry and had driven down from Burlington - but were left a little put off by both the glass and the response of the staff.

Great prime rib, apps and salad bar. I’d like to, as I usually do, have devoted most of this post to those items, but that wouldn’t be representative of our experience.

I decided to think for a couple of days before posting this review, and after Googling a bit I’ve become more disillusioned and going down to 2 stars, and here’s why...

I had noticed a chemically taste to the scallops right away, but I’ve experienced that once or twice before and I chalked it up something weird about my own taste buds - like how cilantro tastes like soap to some people. When I noticed the chemical taste again while eating leftovers for lunch the next day, I Googled “scallops taste like...” and saw a suggestion for “ammonia” and after some reading have determined that the scallops we were served were at best not fresh and past their prime... but more accurately, had gone bad and shouldn’t have been served to anyone.

The cherry on top was that despite spending $125, not even a drink was comped. I’m honestly shocked that they didn’t at least give us drinks or apps for free, and express some genuine concern. Other restaurants will do that even for...

We received a couple gift certificates to the place and were very excited to go. Maybe our expectations were too high, and that is why they seemed so bad. But man, was it bad.

We were seated shortly after arriving and really loved the decor and atmosphere. It definitely had a fun vibe to it. The waiter brought our drinks and took our order in short fashion. So for, really excited about it. After about 15-20 minutes goes by, we still hadn’t seen the dinner rolls they asked if we wanted when our drinks were brought. That made the next 25 minutes, which we spent waiting for them to check back in on us, seem a lot longer. After 45-50 minutes they finally did check back in to let us know our meal would be out shortly. It really just seemed like they put us in the corner and forgot about us.

If it was just the wait, and being forgotten about initially, okay that happens. Sucks, but it happens. Surely after all the reviews, the food would be worth it. It was not. The prime rib I ordered was raw. Not medium rare, as advertised and ordered. Not even rare, which I could have lived with, but raw. The mashed potatoes were not good. They were at least mostly edible. The shrimp sidecar that came with it tasted sandy. The rolls finally arrived and were as hard as granite. When you’re thinking to yourself about the frozen pizza that is sitting at home, and how you can’t wait to get back to it, it was not impressing to say the least. My wife ordered the steak stuffed with lobster, whose name eludes me, but they said it was lacking of seasoning of any sort. They did like my shrimp sidecar, or at least more than I did, and really liked its seasoning, so maybe I’m just...