DelecTable — Restaurant in Shorewood Hills

This is a difficult review to write. I really wanted Delectable to live up to fine dining standards however it fell short in major ways. New Years Eve Menu Review

The positives: Meat and vegetables were very well sourced. They are cooking with fresh and quality ingredients. Most meat and vegetables were properly cooked. The waiters were polite and served us in a timely manner.

~ Pork Tenderloin with cherry sauce and sousvide sweet potato with sautéed kale and kale chip. The best executed and conceptual dish of the night. The sautéed kale brought great acidity with they cherry. The tenderloin was perfectly cooked. The kale chip added a nice salty crunch. Loved this.

The negatives: Dish conceptualization was some of the worst I've ever seen, even compared to a mid tier restaurant. Portion sizing was erratic and seasoning inconsistent. ~ Lobster tail deep fried, covered in hollandaise, then put on a poached pear compote. Lobster is a sweet delicate morsel that doesn't need to be covered up and accented with more sweetness. The dish severely lacked acid and I ended up eating the lobster by itself. ~ U10 Bay Scallop on pommes purees with a mushroom gravy. Why are you taking one of the best scallops and putting it with a heavy gravy and potatoes? You can't even taste the scallop. I ate the scallop alone and enjoyed the pommes purees and mushroom gravy on there own. Again another seafood item served without citrus. Potato's were chunky which isn't how pommes purees is served. ~ Foie gras torchon with apricot ice cream on whipped honey. I gagged eating this. The whipped honey was SO STRONG you could barely taste anything other than honey and apricot ice cream. Only tasting notes are sweet and a tiny bit sour. The bread was stale and the torchon was seasoned in maple syrup (more sweet). I honestly don't believe they ever tasted this themselves and I can't fathom what there intention was. ~ Wagyu Beef - This was cooked medium well and the fat on the sides wasn't rendered. A tragic waste of such a beautiful cut of meat. It was under seasoned and the portions were inconsistent. ~ Waffle with Caviar and crème fraiche- Would have been interesting except it was drowned in maple syrup. ~Rose Trifle - It was 70% gelatin... fill the inside with a mousse next time and put a thin layer of gelatin to get the globe look. It will be more texturally interesting and more pleasant to eat.

A wait staff member did a fire show at the end and he seemed very annoyed to be doing it. There was no introduction to it happening and was just a weird random event. Fire shows don't have a place at a fine dining restaurant.

Cocktails were unsurprisingly far too sweet.

The cost of the event doesn't excuse the glaring problems in the menu and execution of the dishes. I'm surprised to see such positive reviews on google as our dinner was laughably bad. Luckily the money is going to well sourced products which ended up being the...

Last night my husband & I went to DelecTable for the first time. What were we waiting for?! We shop at Vom Fass & each time are reminded of the restaurant…& promptly do nothing about it because I’m terrible at planning ahead. We sat at the chef’s table because I like to be as close as possible to whatever is going on. The evening was flawless. Attentive service & Chef Ben & his crew were delightful to watch…calm & precise. Chef introduced each course & he let us know what farm each ingredient came from, who the farmers are, & where they are located…my kind of place. Local is important to me & that is how I cook at home. I have relationships with the people who grow & raise my food. Chef Ben’s passion about what he does was evident & he answered our questions with ease. The food was creative, challenging, & showcased the best of what Wisconsin has to offer right now. Each dish surprised my taste buds & made me think…does this belong here? Do these ingredients go together? Wow, that’s aggressive! And yes, in the end…it all settled in & made sense. This is not your grandmother’s cooking. And I like that. Sometimes good food just is…& other times it’s like art & opens your mind to new possibilities. I usually have an easy time picking favorites…but not with this menu…I’d gleefully eat it all over again. What made me happiest was that I was served things I’m not a huge fan of (bitter greens, chicken breast, sous vide protein)…& they worked! I will immediately send back a piece of meat that is sous vide…I HATE the texture & no one seems able to hide it. Chef Ben sous vide the chicken breast in butter…& oh, my…it was luscious. Parsnips 3 ways included a crispy peel…using the whole vegetable. Many dishes featured my love language…sweet & savory. The standout ingredient of the night for me…Zatar spiced compressed Metiki dark cucumber…those few zesty bites made the lamb sing…it was the only thing I wish I had more of. My Mad Apple Mule featured apple cider that had been pressed that morning…& tasted like autumn in a glass. The meal was incredible & I am...

We took two cooking classes here. We did not have a dine-in Chef's table dinner so this review is not about the dinner. The perfect: The bartender is amazing and the drinks are great, 10/10. The good: The staff is incredibly friendly and very positive. Almost everything on the menu is something you or someone else actually makes in class. The bad: The classes have too many people in them and so the kitchen is VERY cramped with the number of students. We took two classes, a Crepes one that was not fun and a Hanoi cuisine class that was much better but still flawed. There is only one instructor with no helpers, saying it is disorganized is an understatement. You may only participate in making 1 of the dishes for the class and your participation might just be cracking and frying 24 eggs. In both classes it felt like 15-30 minutes after we were done cooking before we ate and at that point all of the food tastes like old takeout (especially crepes). Students burning things, asking for utensils, not having the right equipment while the chef runs around and tries to get the next thing ready. The classes feel like 16 people who are bad line cooks in a kitchen and the only person who knows what's going on is the instructor. Our entire class shared one turner and two knives.

Suggestions: Get two floating kitchen islands and put them in the center of the room so students can do non-cooking prep work away from the main cooking station. Have at least 1 helper in the class in addition to the chef making sure things are moving along and that students are doing the right thing. Put a mirror above the doors to the class area facing the chef so that the chef can see what's on the TV screens instead of asking 100x during the class if we can see...