Summit House Restaurant + Bar — Restaurant in Summit

One of the best places to eat while in Summit.

The warm bar nuts with rosemary and orange is a great accompaniment to your drink of choice. The Vesper, my favorite drink, is made perfectly here.

The food is near perfection. Every ingredient was on point, perfectly cooked texturally to enhance the dish overall.

My duck sadly was prepared medium well and not medium rare but I think there was a miscommunication with the server because the rest of the ingredients were perfect. I wish there was more romesco sauce instead of just a swipe. The kale was thinly sliced and sauté which made me realize this is how to prepare kale the right way. Thanks for the tip. Lol. The cornbread provided the right sweetness balance and the mushrooms, texturely perfect.

My wife’s steak was prepared perfectly rare and she loved the twice baked potato, a forgotten simple dish that provides the perfect rustic, earthy taste to a steak. Her Bok Choy was perfectly prepared with a hint of spice. Never had a better preparation even at a Chinese restaurant. Most are wilted and over steamed like the limp asparagus commonly found at many steak houses.

Seafood tower was ok. Not even close to the quality of Charlie’s of BayHead where the lump crab shines on its own and not prepared as a salad.

The wine pour is on the conservative side. Beautiful red wine glass but the amount is a tad weak, especially for the house Pinot Noir Fullerton Poetic which costs only $22 a bottle retail and $8 for a smidgen of a pour.

A neighbor diner had the pasta special with a heaping shaving of truffles personally sliced by the chef himself. I witnessed this extravagant display. Regretfully, I didn’t order the dish myself as an abundant of truffles flew off the mandolin and onto hers and not mine.

The dessert, the rose panna cotta was exquisitely prepared. The mazur chocolate cheesecake was divine but had a slightly dry finish, not velvety and the crust didn’t provide...

I can not recommend this restaurant as a ‘fine dining’ option.

The food: I ordered the seared tuna appetizer. It came as small portion of very thinly sliced tuna over thinly sliced potatoes. All I could taste was potato. I had wrongly expected two or three domino sized pieces of seared tuna. My wife ordered the falafel and hummus appetizer. The falafels (which I found to be very tasty) were far too spicy for her so she could not eat them. The dish was served in a bowl so the hummus was to be eaten with a spoon. The hummus was good but not good enough to eat with a spoon. I ordered the duck entree. I found it hard (not crispy) on the outside and similar to liver in texture on the inside. I left most uneaten. My wife had the scallops, which were perfectly cooked and seasoned.

The service: This was far from professional. The staff wore old jeans. In fact, our waitress wore jeans that I would have long ago discarded. That set the level of professionalism and attention to detail. I actually received the check before I received my desert! One server stuck his thumb on the inside of my wife’s ‘hummus bowl’ when placing it on the table. It would have been very helpful had the waitress noted that the falafel’s were spicy as my wife would have changed her order. These are issues of training, expectations and oversight all of which (should) fall on the manager in charge of the ‘front of house’.

The setting- this was charming but a little noisy which was to be expected given all the hard surfaces and lack of carpet, table cloths, drapery. I expected and accepted this based on the photo’s posted online.

Recommendation(?): I would pop in for a drink and enjoy the setting but I would not go...

Disappointed! We have been dining at SH for years and always enjoy sitting at the tables with a view of the kitchen. It has been a wonderful experience until last night... As we enjoyed our appetizers, I watched a station chef lick serving spoons after each plate was prepared for delivery to the tables, then return the spoon to water before using it on the next round of dinner plates. This went on for almost an hour before we questioned a server (who told us they were experiencing a shortage of spoons - no joke), our lovely waitress and finally the manager. When we spoke with the manager he justified the behavior by: 1) telling me the chef was tasting the food before plating (which was not true as the licking occurred AFTER the food was placed on the plate, and 2) the spoons were being sterilized in 190 degree water (which was also not accurate; although the temp may have been high enough, there was no guarantee each spoon sat in the water long enough to remove the chef's germs from the spoon). The manager was dismissive and made me another plate that I did not eat. We are still in a pandemic and that was not only unacceptable, but deeply concerning. When I asked the manager if he would be okay with his explanation being included in my review of the experience, he responded "Yes"; thus this review and rating will not be a surprise to him. Ironically, the chef did cease with the spoon licking after I voiced my concerns, so if the behavior was totally acceptable, why...