Kingfish Kitchen & Cocktails — Restaurant in New Orleans

Wandering The Quarter looking for a place to eat dinner that I hadn't already been to and walked into Kingfish. Looked good, unfortunately all booked except bar seating. Decided to keep looking, but after an hour came back here. At this point they may have had a no show or cancellation,  but anyway..fit us in and got a table. The girl who would be my girlfriend was treating me to dinner for my birthday, on Christmas, so... ... it was great to get a table. Very appreciative to the hostess. Nice atmosphere. Clean, classy. Enjoyed being there. Good pour on the Jameson,  lol. THE FOOD:  We started with a couple of appetizers.  Fried Boudin balls, and Jambalaya Risotto.  The boudin balls were excellent, and the cane syrup sauce for dipping had great flavor, and made taste of the boudin balls pop. The Jambalaya Risotto  (chicken and andoulle) was amazing!! I've never had jambalaya in a risotto,  but I would go back just for that. Awesome. My main course was Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca described on the menu as: Blackened Louisiana shrimp, black olives, pressed garlic, and caper-basil butter. Again...a home run. The shrimp were tender, cooked to perfection, and had tremendous flavor..blackened, smoky, salty, peppery...just right. The olives had a great salty pop, and with the capers, added a nice dimension to the dish. The garlic flavor was there, but didn't overpower the rest of the dish. All of this on a perfect portion of pasta the was done all dente, and had all the flavor folded in. Can't say enough about it. The girl who would be my girlfriend had the Pecan Smoked Half Chicken, described on the menu as: Black-eyed pea succotash, tomato confit, and parmesan chili broth. I think butter or lima beans were substituted for the peas, and the girl said "no bueno". I tasted a small piece of the chicken and skin and thought the chili broth was fantastic, the skin and chicken seasoning was great. That being said, the girl who would be my girlfriend said the white meat was on the dry side. For dessert we had the "Put Up" Mississippi Mud which is Whiskey Cream Cheese and Pecan, Shortbread Cookie Crumble. Most of the layers were tasty, but the cream cheese layer just tasted weird with the rest of it. Overall, I would give the apps and my entree, staff and decor/restaurant 5 stars. My girl's meal had a couple of issues, along with the dessert. Since there are no 1/2 stars, I'll go to 4 stars. The rest of the evening was fun, and our experience here was...

We have tried them twice now. One walk-in and one with reservations through Opentable. Each for late night dining. Their hours are listed as open until 10p. Both times we were met at the door by a hostess that looked as if she was asleep and was really rather rude. The night we walked in she reluctantly sat us but told us we could only order drinks as the kitchen was backed up. However, when our waiter came to the table he recommended we order our food with our cocktails. As we only planed on cocktails and appetizers this was fine. The waiter was courteous, knowledgeable and efficient and our order was deliver promptly. Our second attempt Opentable allowed us to make a reservation for 945p. Again, we planned on the cocktails and appetizers. This time we were met at the door by 3 hosts (sleepy lady, a rude male and a confused young woman). When I explained we had a reservation, all 3 seemed confused we were there. We were finally seated at a bar top table. It was another 10mins before an abrupt and unfriendly waitress (who didn’t identify herself) finally came to the table to fill our water glasses. She ran out of water but said she would return with more, took our drink order (2 martinis) with 1 appetizer and left. 20 minutes later, no water refill and no cocktails. The 3 hosts walked past our table multiple times and could see our empty water glasses but didn’t offer to refill them. One hostess (the sleepy one) was more interested in buying candy from a little boy rather than helping the wait staff by refilling water or running drinks from the bar. A patron at another bar top table actually got up with her 2 water glasses and asked the bartender to refill them. I can understand slow service when a restaurant is busy, but they really were not that busy at all. There were 4 couples sitting at the bar, 5 couples at bar top tables with 2 bartenders behind the bar one more interested in putting away glassware than making drinks. The couple sitting behind us indicated they had been waiting for 55mins for their cocktails. After sitting for more than 30 mins with only a half a glass of water, no cocktails, no appetizer and no explanations we left. Suffice it to say we will not be giving them a third...

As a local I really do enjoy finding new places to have breakfast, we stumbled across Kingfish a few weeks ago, upon arriving to a nearly empty ding room, we had to wait to be seated, about 5 min. After finally being seated 5 min our server took our order, when we received our coffee we were perplexed over some bizarre excuse as to why the cream, which for 2 people, and which was about a tablespoon amount served in a ramekin.

After being caffeinated for 40 min, we finally broke down and asked why others were being served before us, our server blamed the kitchen, we found out she didn't bother to place our order, miraculously 5 min later our breakfast arrived.

While the food was good, the service needs some serious work.

The following week we decided to give Kingfish another shot, we arrived once again to a nearly empty ding room except this time we were met with serious attitude, once again we had to wait for our table, once seated a very nice young man took our drink order, right after he left a young lady asked what we would like to drink and we told her we were taken care of, a few moments later the young man was replaced by the young lady, during the course of our meal we found her to be annoying, cutting into our conversations and a bit too touchy.

I don't like being touched by people I do not know!

We ordered exactly the same as the week before except this time my eggs had cayenne pepper all over them, I , asked the server for new eggs and she implied that it would be at the kitchens discretion and she didn't think they would do it. At this point I really just want to leave, the couple next to us was complaining about how damp it was and we even watched a woman slip on the damp floor, I was very uncomfortable.

I did receive the new eggs but to be honest they looked terrible and I would not eat them. We finished our meal and left.

As a local business owner I really enjoy sharing great New Orleans restaurants with my customers, Kingfish will NOT be one of them.

FOLLOW UP. Thanks for the generic response from the manager, she really stepped up to do...