Louis' Basque Corner — Restaurant in Reno

It is with a heavy heart that I leave a less than stellar review, 35 years in the making. sigh This restaurant in my family pre-dates my existence. We are Basque and the only time I've had Basque food is in the little town my family is from, Markina-Xemein. My aunt had her wedding reception here years ago and its been a regular post in my extended families Reno trips ever since. When I moved to Reno, I immediately became the envy of the family because I'd be close enough to have this delicious cuisine at my whim. Wanting my first time to be special, I waited 6 months until my father was able to make the trip to Reno. I locked in our reservations ahead of time.

This is a family style restaurant in the most traditional sense, meaning that you are seated with strangers at the same table where you pass plates of food to one another.

Great ambiance, great concept, loved it.

The first course featured bread and a brightly flavored vegetable barley soup. My grandmother would have loved this soup!

The second course was a tangy dressed simple salad alongside some bacon and leek beans as well as the spanish chicken with rice.

The salad was much like the ones that are served at my aunt's house, the beans were so delicious and had such a wonderful depth in flavor. Ill discuss the chicken at the end of this review because I want to solely focus on the positive for now. Stay with me.

We were also served some of the best French fries I have ever had!

My dad had the rack of lamb which was to die for! The texture was perfect, the rosemary flavor was all through the meat, melted in your mouth. I cannot stress the mouthfeel, it can be really difficult to get lamb right.

My fiance and I ordered the ox tails. Another amazing dish worth going back for, we joked about drinking the Bourgeois sauce it was served on.

Dessert is optional which we did not indulge in so I have nothing to write about that.

The reason I am rating the service two stars is because me and my fiance were served bloody chicken. When I quietly and kindly showed the waitress, the only thing she could ask was if it was ok to take our plates away. ....Uh, you don't need to be culinary trained and serve safe certified, like myself, to know you shouldn't eat off of a plate with raw chicken blood on it. Sorely disappointing in how she handled it though we still tipped a loving $45 in cash. What I would have liked to hear from her was an apology and offering a small discount. But no, she couldn't admit fault, she had no sense of customer satisfaction at all.

Instead of going home and ruthlessly posting this review in anger, I reached out to the restaurant via their website hoping to discuss further before I posted photos of the bloody chicken they served us but here goes...after a week with no response...

Desperately wanting to fall in love with this place as generations of my family have, I will give this place another shot sometime but we won't be having our wedding...

Would not come back, but not because of the restaurant's eccentricities. I will address the eccentricities in the next paragraph and my review in the following paragraph.

It is a family style restaurant so you will share another table and food with neighbors who you don't know at your table. They may also eat most of the food that is supposed to be shared. Depending on who you're sitting with you may need to eat/ask aggressively. You sit across the table if you come with a date so your date may be sitting next to two random people. If you don't like that this restaurant won't be for you. I watched an older couple leave after finding this out. Also they only serve the food in the back so don't get your hopes up if you see empty seats at the front. It is the kind of place that attracts tourists and loyal localists at the bar who feel like they'll fight you if you complain.

Personally, I found the restaurant unethical and my entree inedible. I ordered the prime rib. I got prime rib, but a piece that looked mangled and going on well done but I guess it could've passed for medium well. Needless to say it wasn't insta worthy (or appetizing) so I hadn't taken a picture, though I wish I had for reference. I only took a picture of the plate after I was done, you can see not even a hint of red on the plate. The waiter served the steak to me without saying anything though shortly after I heard him mention to a nearby party that the prime rib was going on medium which I thought was a horrible understatement or I was served a horrible piece. To me it felt unethical to know they were serving something that needed a caveat without offering an alternative and even worse the caveat they were offering was somewhere between misleading and false. Had they wanted to offer people well done prime rib, that would be fine in my opinion. There might be someone who likes prime rib well done. Another person at my table ordered the same meal and barely touched his as well. It is the only time I've taken food home in a doggy bag and immediately fed it to the dog in spite of being a very...

Good things first!

Service - quite attentive and kind.

Pincon punch - first sip was a bit much. But after a minute or two (and adding some extra ice), it mellowed and opened allowing flavors to shine. Unique and a must try.

Oxtail - slightly over-cooked in my opinion. But that's probably just me being fussy. I think most would enjoy the "fall off the bone" meat. Also, the sauce was wonderful. Great, rich flavor. Chef's kiss.

Not so good things..

Wine - complimentary, which is a nice touch. Sadly, it was bad wine. :-/ Over oxidized, probably. But possibly cooked. It didn't smell right and poured an odd color. Flavor was definitely off. Disappointing, but it was free - so can't really complain.

Beans - ever wondered what frontier-style beans were like? Yeah, like the ones in the old western movies. That was this. Not sure if that's necessarily a good thing.

Fries - unseasoned and basic - likely purchased frozen in a big pack and then, for some reason, left unseasoned. If these are made here, big disappointment.

Salad - past it's prime and fairly basic American style. A little off-color. I probably wouldn't have served this to guests, but.. yeah.

Bread - basic American. I hope this isn't made here. If it is, another swing and a miss.

Rabbit - cooked perfectly but the sauce didn't quite come together. There just wasn't any harmony here.

Clean-up efforts - a little on the pushy side. Yeahh.. that's an understatement. Easily the most pushy I've experienced in my life. Efforts oscillated between somewhat annoying and incredibly aggravating. One person in particular - he was way too much. Way too aggressive with trying to move people along.

Cheesecake - fruit compote topping was overly sweet and kinda garbagey. It seemed an afterthought. And I humbly suggest offering this as an option instead of serving it as the default. Frankly, the compote ought to come with a warning. I think it ruined the cheesecake 😕 Similarly, the ice cream was good quality. But why smother it in chocolate syrup? Sometimes simple and pure is...