Restaurant 1796 — Restaurant in St. Francisville

I have now had two meals at Restaurant 1796. One was dinner for my birthday and the other was Easter Brunch.

The restaurant is beautiful, decorated in Hunt Slonem artwork. The vibe is terrific, from the atmosphere, music and surroundings. You cannot ask for more.

On my birthday, the service and meal were fantastic. I had such a great experience that I chose this place to take my family for our first holiday after the death of my husband.

The restaurant is on OpenTable, which is highly convenient. Although I booked one week in advance for the holiday seating, the booking was very popular as the app only showed two available tables for a party of our size. It's not a secret that the ambience is great and I knew bookings would likely be scarce. I was able to only book for the last booking of the day over the phone, which wasn't a problem since we were traveling forty miles to dine. I also confirmed the menu was what I saw on the website the day I booked as was unsure if there would be a special holiday menu. I shared the menu with my family so they would have an idea of dishes.

The staff was great to call me morning of booking to confirm arrival, which I appreciated. I also confirmed the menu again, particularly as we had one in the group that had diet restrictions.

When we arrived, it seemed that the wait staff was ready to get out of the building, although there were still seated tables and parties arriving. It was mentioned to us three times that the restaurant closed fifteen minutes after our booked arrival time. The menu we were provided was not the one on the website the day I booked. After the third time of staff mentioning closing time, I mentioned that we were only able to get a booking at the time offered even though I called eight days in advance. That stopped the comments about the time we arrived.

We mostly wanted the same item on the menu which was a grilled ham sandwich, which was not on the menu we saw on the website. One of the members of our party was looking forward to ordering chicken and waffles, which not on menu.. We were told the kitchen was out of ham. Then we were told the kitchen had ham. The ham sandwich had grilled marks on the bread, but it was not warm. The cheese was not melted and the meat was ice cold, which makes me think a very cold ham was served. The sandwich was soggy. I ended up giving my niece my burger and took the less than desireable sandwich.

We also ordered a charcuterie board, which was fabulous. I definitely recommend this as it is very generous for even a party of six. The burger was also rather delicious as I took a bite out of the burger I gave my niece. Had we all ordered burgers, I am certain my review of food quality would be different.

We had four at our table order bottomless mimosas. The table had two or three rounds and we were told they were out of mimosas. No more mimosas or offer to replace it with a different beverage. We were told they may make more mimosas, but then they told us they wouldn't.

We spent right at $300 on this meal. I do think there is the opportunity for customer service training. If the restaurant is taking reservations up to 15 minutes prior to close, staff needs to be taught that they need to not punish these paying customers. Being a former owner of restaurants, this is something that I would make sure my staff knew as paying customers pay the bills and keep the doors open. It is not the customer's fault that the staff has to work later than close time. The restaurant needs to be better stocked and have a plan if they sell out of items. I have had this happen in the restaurants I owned and we either substituted a different item or we made a run for the grocery store to replenish out of stock items.

I will likely give this restaurant another chance as my first experience with food and service was great, but not before I try some of the other local offerings. Just wish that ham sandwich didn't taste like something I would have eaten in college and there would have been a few...

Yesterday we dined at 1796, the new restaurant at the Myrtles Plantation that was built on the remains of their last restaurant, which was lost in a fire.

We were ambivalent.

The structure was nice, with a sparse, eclectic decor. The majority theme seems to be spartan rustic with a lot of wood. Just in case you don’t get enough wood with the furnishings, they have a literal wall of wood for the wood stove set to greet you as you enter (this is around the corner from the wall of wine). Ok, I liked the wood wall.

If you are not feeling woodsy, they have a separate dining area in a bright alcove with festive wall paper. This is primarily illuminated by the wrap around windows that give excellent views of the property. Additional illumination appears to be available in the form of an overhead lamp that seems to be a hand made piece inspired by John Travolta’s sperm on Kristie Alley’s egg in the movie Look Who’s Talking, or its sequels.

For couples there is also seating for two in matching Mork and Mindy inspired egg chairs at a quaint side table (with views of the sperm chandler).

The service was excellent. Our waitress was prompt, delightful, and attentive. The kitchen was similarly prompt and we did not have long to wait for our food.

The menu was odd, and the food was a bit of a mixed bag.

The edges of the menu are burned, nice touch for a phoenix establishment that offers wood stove cooking. The content of the menu though... Ok, what exactly is Hawaiian sea salt? Seriously, Hawaii is surrounded by an ocean that is connected to other oceans. Yes, I know that the salinity changes from area to area, but when you boil off the water isn’t it all the same salt? Get ready to Google some of the ingredients/condiments.

The first item on the menu are the corn breads. We tried the mustard greens and butter milk one, and it was good. It was a small cake of corn bread topped with mustard greens, onions, and bacon jam with a side of whipped butter milk. We had this as an appetizer.

The entrees are al carte—if you want a side you order it separate. We had the hearth rice and it was ok, it was a sticky, almost compote rice lump covered in some green twiggy things. I had the pork belly, three slices served with three sauces (bar-b-que, mustard, and garlic butter, though they had far fancier names). My dinner companions had a steak with a C’Zar salad (both of which he declared to be good) and the special. The special was to be a pork belly dish, but I’m honestly not sure what it was, none of us were. It was some kind of pâté covered in green twiggy things and surrounded by a sea (Hawaiian?) of sauce with cheese boats. The cheese boats were the “cheese straws” offered as a side or shareable on the menu. Why they are called “cheese straws” when they are square Cheezits on steroids escapes me. They were ok, the pork pâté they accompanied was less so.

We had the rice pudding for dessert. It was not that good. Seriously, Senior Ríco for 88¢ at Walmart is better.

The prices were in the realm of reasonable. Near the upper reaches, but there. The bill came out to about $40 each (1 cornbread, 1 salad, 1 side, 3 entrees, 2 teas and a soda). A bit expensive compared to other local restaurants, but far cheaper than Ruth’s Chris and less of a drive.

The bottom of the receipt even has a handy tipping guide. The kicker was that below that was an offer to buy the kitchen staff a 6-pack for $12 or 12-pack for $20. Seriously? That was a bit of a turn off.

I do hope 1796 does well, but I think that they will need some changes. What is wrong with offering some good Southern comfort food? Why get your salt from the seas of Hawaii when we have excellent salt deposits right here in Louisiana (i.e. Avery Island)? Why is everything al carte, other than to jack up the prices)?

If they really want to stick with the avant-garde motifs I hope that they decide to explore the small plates concept. With a small plates menu you pay a set price and can order as many appetizer portions of anything...

Well what can I say, the staff was super friendly, the restaurant was clean and tidy, and a little cool. The grounds were beautiful so take that extra 20 minutes and walk around, the gazebo is great, lots of ducks, beautifully kept landscaping. Now back to the restaurant...unfortunately nothing worth the price you pay, everything is ala carte, EVERYTHING! Usually a nice fine dining experience combines your meat vegatable and starch, but not here. Corn bread to start, we ordered the mustard greens and buttermilk, it wasn't terrible, it comes out as one piece the size of a bread plate, couldn't taste the bacon jam and not exactly worth 12.00 Next we ordered the mushroom and bleu under the fresh pickens catagory, this was good, I loved the smoky flavor of the mushrooms, aswell asthe blue cheese crumbles...this comes out as a head of Romaine wedged, drizzled with blue cheese...was it worth 15.00, no it wasn't but it was good. We ordered what the table next to us were raving over for our Shareable selection- Potato Gravel, so disappointed, this was diced potatoes deep fried, coated in a spicy salt that was way to spicy to eat. I was able to dig down to the bottom of the bowl to find some that weren't too hard and spicy, there was also crumbles of rock hard morsels of I have no idea covering the potatoes, make sure you have good strong teeth before partaking in this choice. We left that bowl nearly full upon exiting the restaurant. Lastly our main course, we chose Land, we ordered the 16 oz Ribeye and the Iron Roasted chicken. The steak was okay, ordered at medium, it wasn't great but it was eaten. The chicken was okay, pretty sure it was fried not iron roasted, never saw a cured egg. A side note, the green sauce for the steak is much better on the chicken, the green sauce for the chicken tasted like pureed jalapenos, much too hot for me, it went better with the steak. Now, the cocktails were good and fairly priced, just don't order a mint julep. My problem with this restaurant is that it is extremely over priced for the quality and type of food you order. In my opinion if the servings were cut in half as well as the prices, then this restaurant might be a huge success. Again, very disappointed, and heads up,if you are staying at the plantation and dining here, bring a cooler for your leftovers. Also keep in mind that the prices on the room menus are a far cry less expensive than the menu inside the restaurant, but I did bring this to the attention of the...