Latitude 48 Bistro — Restaurant in Montana

The restaurant is clean up top and looks well presented. The outside is inviting and the building itself looks pretty cool at night.

The food overall was pretty good. I still give some props for the food in that the Steak Tips with Polenta and the Brussel Sprouts were really good! Highly recommend both of those dishes and would go back just for those.

What I don’t recommend is the Stuffed Poblano (this was so bland and flavorless, it tasted like a dirty shredded rag stuffed into a pepper). The drink I ordered, Huckleberry Maitai was promising in the way it looked but was ultimately flavorless. It tasted like water with a weak flavoring added to it that you couldn’t distinguish. The drinks themselves were also a bit weak. I suspect this was due to the bar not being adequately stocked to make an amaretto sour (a bar without sour mix is curious). The dessert was alright, not amazing. Something my party guest and I noticed was that the desserts didn’t really seem to match the food. Adding to that there was 3 options. Unusual but we grabbed something and gave it a try. The devils cake was super salty. My partymate noted that it was unusual for any cake to taste that salty and wonder if maybe the salt was mismeasured for that cake batter.

The service was a bit mixed in that our service was lacking with the server we got but the server that was serving the tables around us (a different person) was highly attentive to their tables. So there is some opportunity there. An observation for our service was that we only saw our server at the beginning and end of the engagement voluntarily. I had to get up out of my chair after we had been waiting for them to come back to order a second round of drinks, we had nearly finished all of our food at this point.

The last thing for us here was the speed of the service of the kitchen. Our drinks were coming out AFTER our food. Which those that keep track with timing know that this is a bad thing to practice. Drinks should always come out before the food or with the food. Never ever after. 👎The first round of drinks should be out before the food comes so that as the food is arriving the customer can order their second round. This increases business for the venue and this ideology seemed to be missing from this visit.

I hope that this is a one off for this place as it’s got some promise but there were a lot of things that were off or half done. If a manager or owner reads this comment I hope this helps you guys to tighten up your menu offerings and tighten up your...

Sooo, came here expecting better from a higher rated eatery in Whitefish. There is a chefs counter, empty, asked to sit there, and got “well that’s the chefs table”, okayyyy…tell me about it maybe? No. I don’t have an issue spending money for a great experience, but I guess this wasn’t an option. I thought I may have had a better chance to sit there than the hipster wearing his best grey sweatpants out. Was seated, server came by and rattled off the specials, all seemed from some past menu someone saw somewhere, unimpressive to say the least. The server never introduced themself, ever. Who are you? Hahaha…. On to the food - elk tartar, nice presentation , nice effort, but if your “bistro” is not going to put s&p on he table, chef, you had make damn sure your food is seasoned properly. Definitely could have used just a touch of salt and some acid to bring the flavors up and out. The parmesan “crisp” was everything but, chewy and old. Smoke was a nice touch giving the most flavor the dish had, too bad as it could’ve been a great app, but was definitely mis d the mark. Spinach salad with same old standard garnishes, still a touch of salt would’ve gone a long way, the food runners pepper mill was tired and couldn’t had here there for 10 minutes peppering the salad. Haha. The place has a great wood fired pizza oven in their open kitchen setup, and was looking forward to a great “signature pizza”. The dough was old and lacking flavor (running theme?), no yeasty bubble, flat, didn’t rise at all during cooking and undercooked and pale. Best of all, instead of using semolina on the peel, they were using cornmeal or polenta, so you get these nice sandy grains in your teeth and gums. As a James Beard recognized chef, nice try folks. For what you’re charging, provide a better experience, hopefully use these comments to better your operation, but from previous reviews, maybe change your name to “Attitude 48” (good luck with your future heath dept inspections) Stay tuned for the snarky excuses from...

Virgin to the Whitefish dining scene ? No need to reconnoiter yelp or zagat guide. Head directly for downtown and jaunt over to East 2nd and Central Ave. This intersection is the home to Latitude 48 Bistro. (Street parking is prevalent with no spaces more than a few blocks away.) Google maps’ sub-description of Latitude 48 (colloquially L48) as “traditional american” couldn’t be further from truth. Browse the menu and you will understand. We started with seared beef tips and house-smoked trout toast. The beef tips were prepared medium with a green chimichurri sauce covered in micro grated cheese. Tender small bites with balanced flavor. The trout was house smoked, shredded, and reminiscent of rillette in texture. Served on a crostini and topped with an unusually wonderful pickled cherry. Our server Amanda recommended Aruma Malbec, an Argentine 2017 vintage of balanced tannins with a plum and dried raisin finish. Onwards; our second course found us enjoying roasted squash over curry with pepitas. A pleasing dish with light curry background flavors. My friend chose the emu tartare served with a quail egg. The meat was a healthy ruby color and similar in shade to bluefin tuna; an absolute treat. Our second wine pairing landed on another Argentine red. This time a Cab Franc: Lamadrid. At first tasting my initial surprise was to the complete lack of green pepper and vegetal flavors, something I have come to expect from restaurant by-the-glass cab franc options. Second sip? Dark fruit. Maybe plum, maybe dried blueberry? Medium to full body and certainly worth the journey. Did I love L48? Absolutely. This is a restaurant deserving 5 stars for service and flavor. A patron will work hard to find any faults. Thank you for the experience. Ps take Amanda’s advice to ski chair 7 and keep looking for...