The Empire Bistro — Restaurant in Tiffin

TLDR: disappointing.

Good; Service was great, Tori the bartender was very nice and friendly and explained things well. Fries were excellent Atmosphere - very nice, upscale feel (unfortunately not matched by the food, see below), love the exposed brick and art.

Needs Improvement: Cocktails - very limited options, did not even have Aperol or Campari so classics such as an Aperol Spritz, Negroni or Boulevardier are off the board. Poor rum and Tequilla options as well. with the cocktails that I wanted not available I went with a glass of wine and here I have issues as well - wine was served extremely cold (a problem in a lot of restaurants) but worse in a tiny glass that did not allow for the wine to have much of a nose at all. they should invest in some glasses with a larger bowl that will allow the aromas of a wine to be enjoyed to the fullest extent.

Food: recurring theme for me: aesthetics - we eat with our eyes first and there were some very unappetizing choices here.

1. French Onion Soup - broth was tasty but the cheese looked like unmelted bits of Swiss cheese floating in the broth- very unappealing to the eye and not what I expect with French Onion, the croutons were complete soggy as well and had clearly been sitting in the broth for a while… gross. Side salad - this tasted good but aesthetics could be improved. Here the problem was the vinaigrette which had a look like bright pink toothpaste (and kind of had that texture as well). A good vinaigrette should not have that texture. Croque Madame - the biggest crime here was the bread - soggy toast that looked straight from the grocery store. Invest in some sourdough or even and English muffin would have been better. Eggs were cooked okay but again aesthetics were an issue - the béchamel (looked more like just melted cheese) was haphazardly mangled across the eggs and the limp toast, this was crying out for a garnish of some kind (or maybe even put the eggs on top of the sauce?). See pic below. Overall hugely disappointing for the price, seemed like diner fare.

I was told that dinner is better, but I would have a difficult time going back after my first...

I use to love this place and would go there almost every time I visited Tiffin. I knew management changed but I assume they would have hired someone of similar caliber. I don’t know what it was about our appearance but maybe two women in their mid 30’s are always greeted so poorly. When we walked in ( I black pants and sweater with my friend wearing jeans and a sweater ) were asked if we just wanted to sit at the bar despite the place almost being empty. We were planning to order dinner so I asked for a table and was given an awkward look followed by an uncomfortably long pause. The few people in the place were dressed similar but older and each table had a male so perhaps that was the issue. We ordered two appetizers ; the crab cakes and mozzarella balls ( the crab cake recipe has changed they were crumbly and not sticking together at all and they didn’t come with the delightful raspberry sauce that they use to) I ordered a filet medium rare and received a well done filet ( they asked and I told them … even cut to show them there was no pink at all in the filet. The filet tasted decent even though it was not cooked how I wanted). She had lobster bisque which contained two small pieces of brown chunks. For dessert we split a creme brûlée and it was served cold. The waitress we had was amazing and she was the perfect balance of attentive / talkative yet let us have space to enjoy our conversation. My asparagus was cooked perfectly as were the mozzarella balls. The drinks were outstanding. Im not planning on going back but if you do avoid the crab cakes , lobster bisque, steak and if you want the creme brûlée maybe ask if they will heat it as the texture was right but the temperature was as if it were taken straight from the fridge it could be a pleasant experience. Again, the waitress was amazing as were the drinks. It’s unfortunate the hostess and cook were clearly having a...

We were celebrating our anniversary and decided to go to The Empire for a nice dinner. We ordered an appetizer of crab cakes, which were delicious. Then we ordered dinner, and explained that we would like our salad prior to dinner. From experience, we AGAIN stated that we would like our salad BEFORE dinner! Our server gave the thumbs up. We waited for our salad. We were served our salad, and before we took our first bite, along came our dinner in the hands of the owner and server. The owner stated that our food would be "overcooked in the window" if we sent it back. We were offended by his words to comply with THEIR error. I requested to have our salad, as we asked and would like our dinner prepared fresh. Once we were enjoying our dinner, the owner then came by and asked if our food was good, we replied "Yes", and then the owner stated, "Its the same food"! We knew it was not, and the owner thought he was creating humor. Not only do we feel insulted by the owner, he did not compensate in any way. The food was delicious, the service...