Twisted Willow Restaurant — Restaurant in Port Washington

Twisted Willow is doing a lot of things right. But unfortunately there are too many wrong things going on here, that we have experienced time and time again, Sadly we will Not be back. (we last dined)on 6/30/2017. Our drink order was taken by a man with wonderful candor and conversation. He had a dog print tattoo on his forearm and a kind way about him. He may have been training, as he didn't know where all the inventory was housed. The man he was working with - dark hair, glasses was visibly annoyed when he had to direct him. He was even audibly complaining about the bar prep work not being done before hand. He clearly does not have the personality to be running a bar. When we were seated, we put our order in RIGHT away. As in, before our waitress left the table. You see in past experiences, we have waited for HOURS to actually have our food delivered and wanted to avoid that. The restaurant was marginally busy for a Thursday night, but not swamped. Our appetizer was delivered and wasn't what we were expecting. The server was nice enough to comp it off our meal and deliver another option. After telling us at least 3 times it would be "right out"...25 minutes later, after we were OVER it, the appetizer was delivered. 20 minutes After that my husbands soup was delivered. Meanwhile, a table of 4 nearby received their meal, and a table of 2 ladies had their salad. Wait, did I mention the table of 4 ordered their food AFTER us? The server told us the food order wasn't put in until our appetizer was delivered. The cadence between the servers and the kitchen is ALWAYS lacking. Finally, 2 hours after we arrived, and 75 minutes after we actually ordered, our meals came. By the time you Actually get your food, you could care less about it. This evening we unfortunately left the waitress the Lowest tip I have ever left in the history of dining out. The only person worthwhile is the great bartender we met upon entry. Everyone else there needs a style session, some new clean uniforms and a lesson in running food...

I want to like this place. But it’s frankly way too expensive. 18$ burger, 26$ pasta, 13$ drinks? That’s Chicago prices… in Port. Every couple years we try it again, and now I think we’ve had our last visit. Gone are the days of a fun cocktail “book”. Now you get 5-7 tired cocktails that are marginally inspired, and cost 11-13$. The atmosphere is stuffy and just awkward. There has to be some sort of value here, for anyone to be a “regular”. There just isn’t. 3 people with one drink each and an adequate tip was 160$. For pasta and fish. And it took over 1.5 hours…

Port desperately needs a restaurant that isn’t primarily a bar, and that doesn’t just reheat Sysco food. Sadly, this isn’t it. Steerage or Singing Salmon (if they’re ever open) are way better choices. Otherwise you have to leave Port, to get value and quality.

18$ for a "double" of Blade and Bow is ridiculous. Right now, you can buy a 750ml bottle at full retail for 46$. Thats about 16 singles or obviously 8 doubles... 8x18$ is 144$. I get it, there must be a markup. But cmon, I can't know their distributor costs, though I have to assume its less than what I pay at retail. So they profit 100-120$ off a bottle of BnB? Cmon. For what? Pouring it into a glass?

For the young ones out there... believe it or not, there was a time when we could go out for a cocktail and a burger of decent quality, and it would cost less than 25$. lol. Way less. Contiuing to enable this establishment only makes it worse. I truly hope Port can find a place that can make dining out afforable for those that live there, in "Your Home Port". And I don't want to hear "its the economy stupid" or "inflation is a thing". Sure, maybe. Othere places make it work though. And Blade N Bow has been the same price for the better part of a decade. 26$ for chorizo and pasta is...

We ate here for the first time on a Saturday night with another couple visiting from out of town. We were seated around 7:15 and noticed immediately how long it took our server to get to our table to put in drink orders. The cocktails were great and we ordered two appetizers, the flatbread and the brie. The flatbread was very good, but really small for the price tag imo, and the brie was a miss for me. It was a little round of brie served in a ramekin with some green grapes underneath in a watery mess. The grapes and honey should have been served up separate to add onto the brie once smeared onto your crostini. Soup and salad came pretty fast after our appetizers and were all very good. After soup/salads our drinks sat empty for too long, it was even a point of discussion at our table. I had to wave down our server to put in more drink orders. We then waited A LONG time for our dinner. While the place was bustling when we arrived, by the time our dinner came, we were down to 3 tables in the main dining area. My friend's pork tenderloin was overdone, leaving her unimpressed. The short rib was enjoyed by the husbands that ordered it, and I was unimpressed with my scallops. For $32 I got 3 small/medium sized scallops surrounded by LOTS of chorizo and corn. This dish should be a chorizo dish, not a scallop dish as they were not the star of the show. While the flavors were good, I just didn't think the price justified the dish. We skipped dessert since it was already close to 9:30 and we were frankly sick of sitting there for so long. Overall I don't think we will be back. It was good, but nothing "wowed" us and the the service was sluggish to the point that our time there seemed to crawl on forever (while our server was very pleasant it seems they were severely...