The Lantern — Restaurant in Ridgefield

This was a pretty mediocre experience, but there's enough potential here where I haven't completely written it off yet. My mom and I came here for lunch on Easter. Points in The Lantern's favor for even being open that day - we had a tough time finding a mutually agreeable destination due to the holiday, especially one without an exorbitant prix fixe menu. We were able to walk in off the street and immediately secure a prime table right up front next to the window, ideal for outdoor pooch viewing. I didn't have a good view of the interior for the most part but did take notice of the excellent wainscoting/backdrop behind the bar - very pleasing to the eye.

I decided to roll with the Easter specials menu and selected the lamb ragout entree. Per the instructions on the bottom of the menu, I asked our server for more information on the seasonal spring cocktails available. He didn't know (and in my opinion should have), but quickly conferred with the bartender and confirmed that they only had one specific drink. I may be paraphrasing slightly, but it was called something like a berry smash. Not a huge deal, but if you've gone to the trouble of creating a specials menu that specifically includes language about special cocktails plural, there should be more than one. Regardless, I decided to get it. I believe it was vodka, club soda and some blueberries. It was refreshing for what it's worth, but pretty bland. I'm typically not a huge fan of mulled ingredients in drinks (too easy to accidentally eat part of them, so I tend to avoid mojitos), but this is one that could have used mulling for flavoring purposes. It basically tasted like a plain vodka tonic without a lime or lemon and needed at least one more ingredient.

My mom got the breakfast pizza and was okay with it. She asked for the breakfast pizza with sausage, and it came with both sausage and bacon (the item on the brunch menu says it comes with either of them). The bacon was easy to pick off but shouldn't have been on there to begin with. Small issue, but those can add up.

The lamb ragout was good, though not great. The lamb itself was juicy, tender and flavorful, but I could have done without the carrots (I think their inclusion should have been mentioned in the description - I probably would have gone with a different option). Also, like the drink, it was lacking at least one more ingredient, in this case a sauce. Beyond the actual lamb the dish was pretty dry - the pappardelle was only moist in areas where the braised lamb had made direct contact, and I had to really saturate the pasta with the lamb before eating it.

The service was fine. Our waiter was friendly/attentive for the most part. There were one or two times where we were looking around for him (that might be the trade-off with the cozy window nook we were in, as I don't think we were really in the line of vision too often), but nothing egregious. And the price point to me was arguably the biggest selling point - the total bill came to a little over $50, which, given that an alcoholic drink and two entrees were involved, definitely isn't bad for this area.

I'd definitely stop by again; the talent here is evident, but I'd probably avoid the specialty menus...

I took my mom to this restaurant for brunch on her 90th birthday two weeks ago, and the service was awful. For the first time, I gave only a 10% tip. I would have left nothing. But when I complained to the bartender saying it would help if they had more then two servers and himself for the whole restaurant on a busy weekend when there was a street festival outside, he said he knew. They’d been asking the owner to hire more people and they wouldn’t.

We had to flag down the server to order and to get our water refilled. She never did it. So we went to the bar ourselves to get the water pitcher. One entree came out like 20 minutes after the first. We had to ask the other server to check on it, because our server was nowhere to be found. We had to go to the bar to get the check and pay. And he gave us the check of the table next to us and vice versa. He apologized and said he’d fix it.

I should have insisted on a refund credit slip, because today I got my credit card bill, and there were charges for both checks. I called and asked to speak to a manager, who I was told was outside. I waited on hold for 12 minutes and finally hung up. Now I have to go through the hassle of filing a dispute with my credit card company. Oh, and the food was...

TLDR: Marcelo, from staff, told me they're operating without AC and put a clearly spoiled avocado on my sandwich. He was unable to refund me or help at all.

I ordered the $20 grilled chicken sandwich with avocado to go. When I saw my sandwich, the avocado was very brown, smelled, and tasted off. I had eaten this sandwich in weeks prior and it had perfect avocados on it. I called to get a refund as the chicken sandwich has only a few main ingredients, with the avocado being one of them. Marcelo answered the phone, cut me off after he heard about the avocado before I was done speaking, and said it was "a hot sandwich." After I told him I had this sandwich before and the avocado was perfect, he then said they had no AC, and there wasn't a manager present to help me. He said he could issue a refund but it would take 3-4 days, and when I asked him to issue the refund, he then said he couldn't. I'm never eating here again, if only because it's a serious health concern that the restaurant is operating without AC and using spoiled...