Lulou's — Restaurant in Reno

I had higher expectations. I heard a lot about this restaurant and i set my expectations pretty high, not all of them were meet during visit. Positive side first, the food is very good, just one plate was wrong in my opinion, the beef carpaccio was so overpowered from all the other ingredients in the plate that I could not taste the beef at all. I got the concept of "fusion food" and that carpaccio was very Asian tasting and the fusion part of the dish was very clear but if order beef carpaccio I want to taste beef carpaccio and not just seaweed and sesame!! All the other plates were very good, octopus was tasty and soft, cioppino was well done and the antelope was astonishing (they could come up with some.more creative sides for such an important piece of meat rather that the usual veggies, but ok) The whole restaurant needs just 3 person cooking and they do an amazing job in preparing everything in front of the client and keep a nice pace, I don't understand why this restaurant have 3 chef's and 8 waiters, the proportion is completely off and half of the waiters at the end of the service we're simply sitting at the bar chatting. One of the dark note of this place is definitely the price, it is way overpriced (I payed less for some Michelin stars meals than how much I needed up pay here and this place is good but far away for a Michelin grade), cutting unneeded personnel will have a positive impact on cost too. Another big red flag in my opinion is the proximity between tables. Part of the "luxury" experience is feeling comfortable and having someone few inches from the back of your chair at the point that you can barely move, eating a great meal in a room filled with people and with noise is not what I am expecting when I chose for a super fancy restaurant like Lulou's wants to be. Is definitely worth a visit for a special occasion, there is some room for improvement, let's hope they want to keep growing and become better and they don't sit down and be happy with what they have today (that is still one of the best restaurant in the area, but not THE best...

This place is very good, but nothing close to “impeccable” and “exceptional” like the reviews say. Unless you have never left Reno , yes I am sure it’s the best place you have eaten. But as a high end restaurant it falls short of that exceptional service and food you expect. The octopus dish was heavy with pork fat and didn’t allow the actual octopus meat to shine which was the whole point of ordering it. The paella was drenched in butter and completely lacked the Spanish flavoring you taste in an authentic paella dish. The flavors of each individual item did not come together (shrimp, quail, clam). My wagyu beef was quite delicious but I think adding 6 fries to the side cheapens a $125 dish, and the radish like salad on the side was drenched in butter. The salad would have balanced the fatty wagyu beef with citrusy fresh flavors much better.

Lastly, the service itself was average at best. From a monotone greeting upon entrance to getting a waitress who lacked any personality or character, it certainly was not a service you get when the average table leaves $60-80 tip.

Since Reno doesn’t have much competition, perhaps we will be back once in a while for occasions but I’ll take Kru, the Kitchen, & Localis in Sacramento over this...

This place has fantastic food. The duck was incredible. The ribeye steak was the best I’ve ever had and I’ve tried a lot of steaks. I wish I could say the same thing about the service. Our server for some reason just clearly did not want to be there, and was very inattentive and not very nice. She also answered really strangely to some of our inquiries or questions about the menu. For a restaurant like this, you definitely expect the service to be quality which was a huge let down but the food was so good it almost made up for it. They definitely weren’t overly busy. We asked for our check and explained that we were ready to go, but for some reason it took another 15 min plus me having to walk up to someone for us to finally get the check. Overall, I would go again, but would definitely request a different server to see if the service was...