The Electric Jane — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

One review of The Electric Jane, which opened in February, notes that it's not to be confused with Jane's Hideaway, which recently moved from Printers' Alley to East Nashville.

Trust me, no one will ever confuse the two.

They have live music on the stage and I'll say this for Friday night's singer: She was head and shoulders better than anything else that would take place in that room last night.

The cocktail list is uninspired and lacks consideration. The wine list is smaller than the one you'll find at the average Cracker Barrel and about as carefully chosen. Four bubbles, four whites, four reds. All served in the same shape of Restaurant Depot glass that does no wine any favors.

But onto the food...

Starters - The staff is forced to make a gimmick out of a Greek staple: Haloumi that is flamed tableside. All you taste is the lemon used to put down the inferno. The walnut pesto that came with was a weird flex and tasted like very little besides greasy nut pieces.

It's likely that Olive Garden has better calamari, but I don't generally get calamari at Olive Garden, so that's just a guess.

The shishito peppers were shishito peppers. But identity aside, they exist only as a replacement for one of the many unavailable menu items and because they know that tourists' cousins' matrons of honors' little sisters had them once five years ago in a restaurant in Chicago back when they were both novel and suddenly ubiquitous. (The peppers were the least awful of the small plates we tried, even if the chili jam garnish was unnecessary and felt like a last minute addition someone found in the larder just before its expiration date.)

The entrees are where it got to be downright offensive. Steaks should be hard to ruin in the hands of a professional. Then, by God, The Electric Jane kitchen needs to hire some professionals. They also need an introduction to salt and pepper, neither of which were present on any of the four orders of steak frites at our table. Temperatures were all over the board with one medium steak coming out almost rare while another came out practically well done in spots. But all you could taste was char. The steaks were at least cooked over real fire (I'm guessing...) because the main note in the mouth was carbon char and lots of it.

The frites were run of the mill Sysco fries with no flake salt, rosemary, or thyme to make them the least bit interesting. The broccolini was greasy and tasted of yet more char.

Oh, but then we have to talk about dessert. God knows, I wish I didn't have to, but here we are. I can only say I'm glad not to have ordered one and only took small tastes of two friends' choices.

I guess The Electric Jane's kitchen had to run over to the Wal-Mart on Powell Avenue to get something masquerading as a menu chocolate mousse cake from the frozen foods aisle. Whatever it was, it came out colder and harder than Minnesota roadkill in January. We're talking actual ice crystals on it. See the picture below. Ice. As in a fork could not penetrate the mousse layer it was so petrified.

The cheesecake was nothing resembling homemade. If they have one, The Electric Jane's pastry chef must be named Marie Callender. I'm told the "chocolate salami" (an incredibly unfortunate name), which is touted as a cheesecake garnish, had the taste and texture of a cheap protein bar.

All told, a cocktail, a single glass of a mediocre Sangiovese (that the waitress, who clearly knows less about wine than I do about Sanskrit recommended heartily), an appetizer, and my steak frites came out to $111.76.

I am not offended by the number. Or I wouldn't be if they had the walk to match the talk. I've paid far less for better meals as well as similar amounts for stellar, memorable meals. Mediocrity is offensive at any price, but when the tab for one diner goes into triple digits for what I ate, it's absolutely inexcusable.

For that price, I'd hope they could budget for salt and pepper in the kitchen.

One star out of five, purely for the band not...

I visited this place on a Friday, Aug 26th for dinner around 9. We had an 8:30 reservation but had to wait roughly 25 mins before being seated. The place was pretty packed and the bar was full. When you walk in you're hit with the bar which is a large part of the place. There are seats offset the bar for people who are waiting for tables bc the tables are at the end of the bar and by the stage. It's pretty nice as far as the esthetic.

We were seated closer to bar and had 5 of us. I was not aware that parties of 5 were hit with 20% gratuity. I felt like the waiter Kayla didn't do much for us bc she knew she was getting a tip and it showed. She started off with our drinks and then got both our appetizers and dinner orders which was fine with us. The appetizers came out before. But she never came back to clear off our tables before dinner. The people who brought out our food was trying to set and clear at the same time. Kayla never came back to check on us. She did for the other two tables literally right by us. The only one who checked on us was I'm guessing the manager/owner Vladimir(?). He was great. He made sure we had drinks and ketchup since we had all ordered steak frites which was outstanding. I'd get that again. It was my friends birthday and Vladimir made sure we were straight and gave us a round of shots. Had he served us the entire night I would have given this place a 5/5. But unfortunately he didn't and the time Kayla came back she asked us how we were splitting the checks and appetizers and we said to split it. She gave each of us our tickets and then dropped our cards and stuff on the edge of the table and never came back to us. We w enjoyed the show and sat there. She never came to clear our table after giving the receipts back. She cleared the tables next to us even the couple that was watching the singers too they had a clean table while enjoying we had a table full of plates. We didn't get a chance to order dessert or more drinks. Kayla dropped the ball and I feel like we were judged off the bat. My friends and I tip well and understand the service industry can be tough but we were not demanding at all.

If I do go back it won't be with more than three ppl bc apparently the party of 5 you're automatically charged with gratuity and not attentive service....

We were very excited to check this place out after reading the good reviews, and while the drinks were great, we were left disappointed by the service.

We were greeted by a hostess who clearly did not want to help us and had a very bad attitude from the start. We had arrived early for our reservation and asked to sit at the completely vacant bar after checking in, just to make things easier on everyone. We were told we needed to be seated at a table once our reservation time arrived. When we approached the hostess again at our reservation time, she huffed and acted as though we had requested something out of line when she was the one who had pressured us to keep our table rather than freeing it for someone else. We were told happy hour was until 7, and we were seated at our table around 5:15 after grabbing a quick round at the bar. We ordered two rounds of drinks once seated at our table, and when the check came out, we had been charged full price for our drinks plus for our water. It turns out that happy hour and free water only applies at the bar, and none of this was ever mentioned to us. Not only this, but it took nearly 30 minutes to get a slice of cake to go when I had mentioned wanting to put this order in to our server after our first round had been ordered.

Based on the lack of compassion from the staff, I probably wouldn’t recommend this bar to those who want a more...