Turtle + the Wolf — Restaurant in Montclair

I went with a friend after hearing great things and frankly we were quite disappointed. It’s not that the food is bad, but that it is severely overpriced and the dishes are experimental. Some of them work, some definitely do not. Service was friendly and attentive, although our waiter seemed a bit new and unfamiliar with the menu: he told us the pork shoulder dish was seared. We were confused and after consulting the kitchen he corrected himself that it was seared and then braised. Not a big issue, just think staffing could use a bit more training at a place that purports to be high quality. This is not why I am giving 2 stars, that is because of the food, which I will describe in detail.

1. We ordered the chicken liver mousse as an appetizer. This was the highlight of the meal. It was a large portion for the price and decent quality. There was still a slight taste of thiols (the liver could probably be soaked in milk or another mild acid for longer) but it still tasted good. It worked well with the mustard and the pickled onions. The quince cubes were the most experimental part of the dish and it worked quite well, I just wish there was more of it and it would be better to slice them thinly instead of cubed so they lay better on the toast. It would also be improved with actual toast instead of the thin crisps.

2. I ordered the brick chicken. It was a bit on the small side but not a terrible portion size. The chicken breast was cooked nicely, not dry at all. However, the skin was flaccid. Is it not the purpose of using a brick or another hot, heavy object to rapidly sear the skin of the chicken while maintaining full surface contact in order to get it crispy? This was quite puzzling and not pleasant. One of the accompaniments was Parisian gnocchi, a plain flour and egg gnocchi. It was slightly under-seasoned. Even worse, there was no texture on the surface. An important step in making Parisian gnocchi is to bake it and then broil it to brown the surface after it is boiled. One or both of these steps were clearly skipped. The soft consistency with no bite, combined with the shape, makes it a poor match with the chicken. It would have been better as simple potato purée that can be eaten with the chicken instead of alongside it in a disjointed way. The other side was green beans braised in some sort of stock with a soffritos base. Soffritos and green beans don’t work particularly well together, the beans don’t really absorb the flavors so it feels disjointed. The soffritos and braising liquid itself were quite flavorful. It would have been nice just to serve the chicken on top of the soffritos as a sort of sauce, and serve some roasted green beans with a bit of lemon juice alongside.

3. My friend ordered the pappardelle with pork shoulder ragu. The pork shoulder itself was quite nice, but the ragu was lacking in acidity and had way too much cream. Pork shoulder already has a mellow flavor and that much cream just makes for a sauce with an extremely mellow and uniform flavor. It would have been much better if they used some white wine in the sauce (or more wine if they already use it). The most offensive part of the dish and the meal overall was the pappardelle. It is advertised as fresh pasta, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s homemade. It is not al dente at all, which is nearly impossible to achieve with a homemade fresh noodle made with egg yolks. Either they completely forgot the egg yolks while making the dough, or this is store-bought fresh pasta that was a bit overcooked. You can find much better pasta at nearly any mid-price italian restaurant in NJ.

Overall there are some good points about the restaurant. It has a nice ambiance and friendly staff. The chef is clearly well trained. But for these prices and portion sizes, the execution of the dishes was simply offensive. They should pare back dramatically on the experimental compositions and first try to execute a cohesive dish that is worth...

I seriously find it hard to believe the customers who came here stated that the food tasted phenomenal. And to that one person who posted their 5-star review just because they felt he/she needed to because "after reading the reviews, especially the negative ones, I felt compelled to post." No just no. Let's keep it real. The food was okay, okay? Some of the food tasted overcooked to almost burnt. The staff seems off and when I mean staff, I mean everybody who is contributing to the restaurant's service. Everything felt like how you would usually expect from a restaurant here at this location - Montclarish. In actual meaning, I mean having hundreds of people making boasted claims that restaurants like these are absolutely wonderful despite being actually decent. Have you seen the reviews, I mean like come on. Girlfriend cries over ink pasta. Wow, I'm definitely hooked! Anyways, I mean, even other locations, besides Montclair's restaurants, have high to even better reviews than that of other towns. I mean look at Montclair's high school compared to other towns near it. However, that's a whole different story. Excuse me for getting on a tangent. Well, it's Montclair so what would you expect? Just bless these weird, trendy hipsters - both the staff and customers. Everything felt fake. I guess this is the only review coming from an actual outsider's perspective rather than the average Montclair citizen's or someone from the city's perspective or from other higher class whatsoever place you came from. However, I do give perks, I guess, to how it was unique from other places I've seen around town, it was different the style and the so-called "BYOB" restaurant. Other than that, I found it to be a downer overall. Just being real with this. No offence. Just only my actual perspective into this. Don't take this as an end-of-the-world thing. Take it as a critical review not a negative one. But who am I to judge? I'm just a plain outsider. It's only one low review. You'll live. If anybody reading this far from the restaurant's definite staff, thank you for your time and consideration unless if you're just plain furious or offended by this review or would probably make a "positive" review to just cancel mine out. Thank you. P.s. I feel as though I explained everything in a constructive critique manner so contacting me would not be necessary. I appreciate it....

Just being honest, the price point to taste ratio isn't the greatest. I think it has to do with the demographics of the population in this area being rich and affluent. This population tends to avoid strong flavors. My experiences: under salted and lacking bold flavors that will stand out at any point in any dish. For 48 dollars, the duck pot pie had objective flaws. To understand let's go through the decisions made. They took 2 handfuls of lean duck meat, wrapped it inside of a steamed green cabbage leaf, and then put it inside of a pastry. For some reason, there was no salt to be tasted. Then you expected gravy right? Barely any if it was there at all. The cabbage further dilutes any flavor through moisture and blocking of taste buds competing with each bite. It also significantly adds difficulty to the eating experience by trying to cut through it for meaningful bite. Pastry was ok. Complaints: Duck is chosen for it's rich duck FAT. A pot pie without a gravy is a sin. I expected a creamy duck fat savory salted experience with a crisp pastry to add balance. Why add the cabbage when it just furthers dilutes a non existent flavorful dish? Plus it forced me to use a knife to eat a pot pie. It was bizarre. And there were 0.25" long bones in the pie. We got 3 pies. All had bones. 1/5.

The Paparadelle pasta was good. But 28 bucks good? No. It was good because the pasta was hand made. But it was under seasoned and under portioned like everything else. 3.5/5.

Oysters were good, but I wouldn't say it's better than anywhere else - it's just raw oysters.

The donuts were very fresh and ironically the only truly good item here based on skill. But the orange glaze served on the side was very very watery and detracted from the experience of the donut as just covered in sugar. Very funny. 4/5, and 2/5 with the glaze.

I could go on and on about this place trying to sell an experience and money to make you too afraid to feel like you got ripped off, but I'll...