Perrone's Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in South Carolina

A mixed experience. Some dishes were disappointing while others were very quite good. We had heard great things and really expected to be wowed. Also, the menu looks excellent, but execution was a bit off with a couple of plates. Here is my detailed review.

The cocktail menu was extensive and looked really creative, but again, the execution just seemed a little off. My husband had a zombie, which is traditionally super boozy, but this one just didn’t seem to be well balanced. It was good, but not great; I had the mejorita, which was also… Good. I am accustomed to craft cocktail bars, where they make their own bitters and shrubs, and reach beautifully balanced flavors with lots of fresh-squeezed juices and interesting infusions, and this seemed a bit disappointing in comparison. I will note that I am also fine paying $16.50 for a cocktail, but I really want it to be cocktail that is worth $16.50, and these were not. The menu boasts of cutting edge cocktails, and I just did not feel that these cocktails were that cutting edge. To be fair, the descriptions sounded cutting edge. Perhaps we just ordered poorly. They have housemate orgeat and tiki bitters. They have a wonderful selection of spirits, including Appleton rum, which we drank a great deal in Jamaica. But the drinks we ordered were just a bit uninspired. I am seeing more drinks come with foam, which I really love, and the sea salt foam on my drink was perhaps the highlight of the drink. Either the bartender was having an off-night, or we just ordered poorly.

Let’s move on to the food. We came in for the octopus carpaccio. I love carpaccio, and I have had beef carpaccio and salmon carpaccio and a wide variety of other types, but the octopus was just a miss. It was too chewy. Maybe if it was really microplaned then it would have worked. I know octopus is chewy, but I’ve also had it prepared where it can be cut with a butter knife and melt in your mouth….this was not that dish. It was very chewy.

We also had the caviar eggs, which were again…good. We’ve had lots of fun versions of deviled-type eggs with Caviar on them or lobster bits or other goodies, even deviled egg caviar flights, and this was good, but it felt like the caviar (which should’ve been the star) was not. In fact, even with caviar (which cann be quite salty) it’s like the eggs still lacked seasoning. I don’t know where these went wrong, but they were nice, but not Fantastic. Again, they sound great, but something was a little off in the execution.

All of this said, the steak tartare was fantastic! Really wonderful flavors, I wouldn’t change a thing. I would go back here just for the steak tartare!! It was really quite exceptional, and I’ve had a lot of steak tartare in my time.

The mousse truffee was also good.

My husband’s scallop soufflé tasted delicious, but it looked a bit messy. But the flavor was on point. I guess we expected it to stand up a bit more, but it looked a bit like a soufflé that had fallen. But perhaps that’s what it was supposed to look like. When people use the word “soufflé“ it can mean a lot of things. But the plate looked a bit messy, but again, the flavors were excellent.

Will we be back? Yes, I believe we will. I would like to try something else on the cocktail menu, and I would sit at the bar and have a cocktail and just a steak tartare...

To whom it may concern;

I debated for a while about whether or not to write this review. In the spirit of full transparency, the person I’m about to mention might actually be one of the owners. I’m not sure if this will make a difference or if it’ll just go unnoticed. Still, I thought that offering constructive feedback from someone who works in an organization with one of only six Forbes Triple Five-Star hotels in the U.S. might be helpful.

This restaurant uses OpenTable for reservations. I booked a table over a week in advance for four adults and mentioned in the notes that we’d have a baby in a stroller.

About four hours before our reservation on Mother’s Day weekend, I received a call from a woman who I believe had the same last name as the restaurant. She spoke quickly and seemed a bit rushed. She had questions about the size of the stroller and mentioned that accommodating us might be challenging due to how busy they were expected to be that evening. However, she didn’t offer an alternative time or any further instructions. We assumed she’d figure out a solution, given that the restaurant clearly didn’t review their reservations until just hours before service.

At the Forbes Five-Star Steakhouse in my hotel, we conduct reservation audits a month in advance to catch any issues early and rarely need to reach out to guests—we handle most things in-house to avoid last-minute disruptions.

When we arrived at the restaurant, we were greeted by an older woman at the host stand. She seemed to size up the stroller with a look of surprise, almost like she couldn’t believe we showed up—despite the reservation note a week in advance and the phone call just four hours before. She told us that a table she thought would work for us was still in the process of paying their bill, and that it should only be "a couple of minutes."

The most frustrating part of the entire experience was when she then proceeded to "educate" us on how we should be making reservations in the future. She insinuated that we somehow weren’t clear-minded and that, since we were now a party of five (because of the stroller), we should always book for five people going forward. We were completely taken aback by her tone.

After waiting nearly 20 minutes to be seated, we watched her casually slurp soup at the host stand.

Finally, when we were seated, my sister-in-law was maneuvering the stroller to settle it by the table when the hostess interrupted, saying, “You’ll have to put the stroller the other way, we have guests sitting at this table beside you soon.”

For a $600 meal, the service was absolutely terrible, and we’re unlikely to return. We’re huge fans of Bistro 270 and Frank's, which have been much more accommodating to our family and my new niece. We believe that the combination of excellent food and service creates an experience of much higher quality. Plus, they use actual menus—not binders with plastic...

As you enter this wonderfully intimate restaurant, you are greeted by three lockers of dry aging meat. Two full of beautiful ribeyes, making their way to 45 days, and one filled with salmon, being dry, aged as well. Melissa was a fantastic server as we ate at the bar. This is our second time dining here so we switched it up a bit and primarily ordered small plates to what accompanied by one entree to split as well with a bottle of red wine. The wine menu is vast with much detail. Unfortunately, the online menu does not appear to be the most up-to-date one so I cannot give you the exact name of the photo with the octopus, thin sliced, but it is in the salad section and was a very fascinating serving of octopus. Delicious! The special of the evening also not on the menu itself, but the appetizer feature was the burrata cheese with olives, extra-virgin, olive oil, dried tomatoes, pesto, and large leaf basil. The olives were particularly divine as they were not super briny has most all Lazare and I enjoy. These were rather delicate and flavor, and the burrata was out of this world. The foie gras with lingonberries was as much art to the plate as it was the the palate. Tuna crudo and shrimp rounded out the small plate list for us. Our entree(on current menu but not online also) was the pork raghu bolognese pasta. This was our one repeated dish from our first dining experience as the quality of it reminds me of my travels to Italy last year. There is definitely time that is put into this dish based on the flavor. The dessert chosen was my least favorite of the evening, but a unique presentation nonetheless. Called the bomba chocolate fig(I may not have that title correct) which is served with a small glass of port and a detailed instruction card. While the port was quite delicious, the dark chocolate enveloped fig to me liked anything exciting or repeat worthy. However, I am looking very much forward to try and the other desserts during our next experience as well as the...