Elevage SoHo Kitchen & Bar — Restaurant in Tampa

So disappointed with this place. The service was absolutely atrocious. Slow, incompetent. The food was subpar.

I was excited because I'm a vegetarian and they mentioned they could make me a nice vegetarian risotto that was off the menu. I was very pleased. I ordered the vegetarian risotto. I got it and it looked great but I immediately noticed that there was not only bacon in it but also chicken in my vegetarian dish. They were semi apologetic, which bothered me the most. Many times I've ordered vegetarian dishes and they have come with meat. It was the way they responded to it, nonchalant. When the dish came out the second time it was vegetarian but I needed a spoon to eat it. It was like soup. It was a completely different consistency from the first one. The first one was the quintessential consistency of risotto. I basically spent $25 on a bowl of soup with a few mushrooms floating around in it. No one seemed to care much.

We needed change for our tip and it took an extraordinarily long time to get change for a $50. According to the manager, there were no $20s to be found in the entire restaurant. They had to scrape some up at the hotel.

Then we waited and waited and waited for the valet person to show up. It wasn't busy. They weren't bringing anybody a car. They were just nowhere to be found. We went inside to inquire where the person was. We were told just to wait longer. When the guy finally showed up, we just asked for our keys because we saw our cars parked about 20 feet away. He charged us $5 each and we went and got our own cars.

Nothing was comped. No one really cared. I will never go back. The food was bland. The only thing that we somewhat liked was the $12 Velveeta macaroni and cheese. The hostess was also nice. But that's it.

Don't believe...

We are Tampa residents and had been to Élevage couple times before and were not impressed at all with the food. We are in the middle of an in-town, move so decided to stay at the Epicurean for two nights.

After a long first day with the move, we checked in to the hotel, and decided to have our dinner at Élevage. We ordered our drinks, and soon after we got them, we ordered our food (Smoked Short Rib and Striped Bass). Our meals were served in record time at about 5 minutes. The short rib and the striped bass were inedible. Short rib was tough and fatty. The striped bass was not warm, seemed to be cooked a while before we entered the restaurant, and the caponata on which it was served was clearly not freshly cooked that day. We felt that our food had been under a warming light for hours before being served to us. It certainly tasted that way.

Our total bill, with tax and tip, was around $137, overpriced for two people (2 main dishes, one glass of wine, and a cocktail). Our dinner took less than 30 minutes!

The server was okay and pleasant enough. He didn’t seem to notice that we didn’t eat much of our food, so after we asked for the check, he proceeded to give it to us right away.

This restaurant is located in a hotel named and themed after good food - the Epicurean. It desperately needs to step up the quality, taste, freshness, and creativity of its dishes.

Thankfully, the ice cream shop across the lobby was open so we were able to get some good ice cream to erase the taste of such bad dinner experience.

This is the third time we go to Élevage and will most definitely...

Tampa Bay Restaurant Week - Elevage This year they have a 3 course prix fixe menu. There were no choices to make, dinner for 1 was $65.

Last years menu was phenomenal, the best meal out of all the participants. This year was a step back. Not nearly as creative or delicious. However, being Elevage, the meal was still 5 stars.

There was a Peach Salad, complex and poignant flavors tamed by a lemon vinaigrette. The Crawfish Carbonara was a clever combination of cajun and italian cuisine. Served with bucatini which is a thick sphagetti type noodle that is hollow. Many restaurants are jumping on the bucatini trend. Last was the stunning visual of a Chocolate Mousse Popsicle. All in all a delightful meal accentuating some of Elevages clever creations.

LAST YEAR... The thick cold potato soup with caviar and chervil was interesting and enticing, the caviar lending the perfect saltiness to the dish.

The Seared Scallops with a divine Burre Blanc Sauce, flecked with Smoked Trout Eggs and Sorrel Leaves was sublime. The complexity and perfect flavor symmetry made me slow down to savor the dish. Trout eggs popping like fireworks and the acidic citrus flavor of sorrel leaves achieving near perfection.

The Aged Rohan Duck with Celeriac Puree matched with the Duck Jus was a flavor tri-fecta. The flavors coming in waves...crispy skin, the sauce mixture, the duck fat and aged duck flavor melding in to bewitch the palate. Then some tasty Madelienes to finish with a burst of orange zest to wake you from the decadent...