Artisan's Table — Restaurant in Orlando

So Bite 30 is a wonderful event that many local restaurants participate in around the Central Florida area every year. It was in danger of being canceled entirely this year, but it just got postponed. And in a wonderful turn of events, many of the restaurants that chose to participate are offering their Bite 30 menus for takeout!

I evaluated all of the restaurant menus, and Artisan's Table seemed to have the best one. I looked at the apps, the entrees, and the desserts. They all looked really great, so out of the three restaurants I plan on going to this year, I chose to come here first.

The place is smack dab in the busy section of Downtown Orlando, in the lobby floor of a giant skyscraper of apartments. The interior is very classy. There's a nice bar with trendy decor, a couple of prominent booths in the corner, and a very high ceiling that makes you very happy to be inside of this space.

APPS.

Sweet & Spicy Shrimp Skewers (Shrimp skewers, spicy garlic marmalade glaze, scallions). These guys were cooked absolutely perfectly. They were plump and juicy. The marmalade was a little thin and didn't adhere to the shrimp the best. But these little morsels were awesome.

Pimento Fritters (Fried Pimento cheese balls, citrus sweet chili glaze). Not as awesome as these, though. These balls were so firm but they exploded with pimento love. Not greasy. The sweet glaze with the fried cheese was a good contrast. Winner.

ENTREES.

Braised Brisket (Bacon creamed corn, crispy onions, blueberry gastrique). The brisket was cooked very well, super tender, fell apart. The creamed corn was a very unique item, with whole kernels for you to bite into. I only wish there was more of the gastrique to cut through the richness of everything else on the plate.

Shrimp Pappardelle (Sauteed shrimp, smoked bison sausage, fresh pappardelle, roasted red pepper & goat cheese cream, parmesan, fried rosemary). This was the best dish of the night. The shrimp were perfectly cooked and plentiful. The smoked bison sausage tasted like something that the genius Cajun people came up with. And the cream sauce was deep with the red pepper flavor and sooo sweetly tangy with the goat cheese. Wow. If you're coming here, please get this dish.

DESSERTS.

Blueberry Polenta Cake (Blueberry compote, honey cream cheese whipped cream). This was solid. A moist cake, whole blueberries in the compote, and cream cheese with that hint of honey that made this dish light and just a touch of sweetness.

Flourless Chocolate Torte (With chocolate sauce, white chocolate mousse, strawberry). This thing was the opposite of light and was oh so decadent. Thick thick chocolate. The mousse was nothing to shake a stick at, but the strawberries were a very welcome presence to cut through all the richness of this dessert.

Overall, this place was not a disappointment. I'm giving this place five stars for being open, participating in this Bite 30 event, having all their staff wear masks, and giving me a delicious meal....

First, the positive....great server named Joey. He was attentive and respectful of the things that went wrong and very gracious of all that went right.

The negative...the hostess was not present at entry. There was a line of perhaps 5 people backed up to the door. The person in front of us was in gym shorts and tank top waiting to pick up a to go order?..... and for 1st time guests, it was very confusing as to where to stand....we could see a nice restaurant but people were getting coffee and bags to go, along with those like us, wanting to be seated. The hostess came up finally and asked us to wait while she was ringing out orders or setting up "to go" cups and bags. The hostess was truly void of personality, took us to the "most undesirable" table in the restaurant (it was never filled during our 2 hours there) and when we asked to be moved, she was clearly annoyed. In hindsight, we should have turned around at the front entrance but had spent 15 minutes parking and were curious about food and hopeful.

The entrees were just OK. The fish had to go back as was bathed in salt. The waiter was very apologetic and eager to make it right, however, No attempt was made to keep the other guest's entree warm so we could eat our meals together. The steak was a medium, not a med rare as ordered..but at that point, we didn't want to make a deal of sending yet another entree back...and the server was so nice we hated to do that to him. The second attempt at the fish was good....just too bad it came out after the steak entree was eaten. Not much fun to eat meals at separate times.

The wine glasses were empty when the entrees were set down and we asked if those could be filled for the meal (we had already ordered the round) and were told the bar was very backed up. So.....empty glasses with fresh food. Kind of stinks when $9-12 glasses of wine aren't present when food is presented. Again, the waiter was wonderful but at the mercy of the poor management.

The space is terribly loud with only the sound of loud voices, no background music, nothing can be heard, essentially no ambiance sound wise. The A/C was apparently not working at capacity as it was "warm", not even cool throughout the night.

Sadly, we will not go back . It's too bad because we were otherwise excited to have found a new restaurant. They have a lot to do keep people wanting to come back. For the nearly $200 price tab (for 2 people), we could have had a long, well prepared, well spaced out, enjoyable dinner with a great table (which one assumes you will get with a reservation)

The waiter was great however, had he notified the manager of the many errors of the experience, surely a manager would have comped a glass a wine, come over to apologize, do anything in his defense. As it stands, he didn't do that....something from management (just an 'I'm sorry") would have gone a long way. We won't be going back till we hear of...

Being from Dallas, I lean towards being a foodie than not. And the food in Dallas is pretty damn good for 99% of the categories most people consider. As such, over the years I've come to expect certain things at a restaurant; including:

1. Environment / Ambiance / Atmosphere
2. Food: Quality, flavor, quantity, and presentation
3. Cost

Of course, there are many factors; but at the heart of it all, the above suffices IMHO. One of the other factors is accessibility, which's based on its location. In this case, it's downtown Orlando. Parking wasn't fun for lunch. In lieu of street-side parking, a parking garage near by was $6/hr with $3 increments per half hour measured to the minute. At 1:01 you're paying $9. Fair or not, I feel obliged to consider that as part of my meal cost. And believe me, I'm considered a spender (the opposite of stingy).

However, sometimes I recognize that this is just part of the course, per se (no pun intended). For lunch, you have to order before you sit down. My colleague and I both had two different printed menus --I coughed it up to a mistake. Not wanting a burger, but also not wanting what seemed like a pork-dominant menu (I don't eat pork), I opted for a Caesar Salad and added steak to it ... at the time of this writing, it's $8 + $10. It took too long for the food to come out. In the meantime, my other colleague (3 of us) had already received his burger and finished it. Also in the meantime, we went a long time without a refill of our waters/drinks.

Finally our dishes come out. I can't speak for my colleague who ordered a Smoked Turkey Club; but mine was underwhelming. Enough for me to not want to visit again.

The steak was not medium as I had requested. Hell, I doubt it was cooked right at all, as it seemed to have been pan seared. The best part of my dish was the salad itself. But little things count. In this case, and I'm not pick I swear, there was enough croutons on my plate that I had to move them all to the side. It was just too much.

Now, yes I'm from Texas where steak is ... well ... we're known for it. But this was something I could get better at a Chili's or Friday's. Combine that with sub-par service, and a high cost, and it makes this place less than 2 stars for me. I would give it a 1.5 stars if I could, but it definitely didn't warrant a round...