1886 Bietgarten Utica — Restaurant in Town of Frankfort

OMG...What a HIDDEN GEM!!!

This place is very unassuming. I was not expecting much of anything, especially bcuz there was nothing on the menu that jumped out and spoke to me. I ordered the Longhots for an appetizer. During the wait for the food to come to my table, I kept seeing dish after dish coming out to other patrons, and they ALL looked amazing. I took another stab at the menu, and still nothing on those pages stood out... So, I said to myself that if this appetizer is good, then I'm eating here. It was fantastic!!!

I then waved the waitress over and asked her for a recommendation. She started going over the general points of the menu, and I had to stop her and say, "I don't want to hear about the menu. What would YOU recommend?" She gave me a thumbs up on the chicken cutlet sandwich that I had told her I had my eye on and then also recommended the chicken parm rigatoni in the vodka sauce. I got both.

These two meals were so amazingly delicious that I was absolutely floored. The sandwich: top marks, the cutlet was nicely thin, and so was the breading. It was also still moist, which is difficult for a hammered piece of meat like that. Again, top marks. That rigatoni though...lemme tell you what, that vodka sauce is where it's at!!! I have never had a sauce so good. Truly. I have had plenty of sauces, and plenty of vodka sauces at that. This blew everything out the water! I mean, seriously, this sauce has ruined me. I loved it that much!!

I couldn't believe how wonderful the food was after having such low expectations about the unassuming restaurant itself, the menu, none of it spoke of how shockingly good the food...

Arrived right at opening time, we were quickly seated but that was the quickest part of our experience. There were 3 other tables seated upon our arrival. The service staff were all extremely kind, but perhaps they were understaffed (3 total observed) or could not handle managing to go and table service, but it was one of the slowest experiences in my dining history. It took about 10 minutes for us to be presented with a menu. I took over an hour for the food to arrive. I observed other tables even having dishes come out ten minutes after their party had received their food.

The quality of the food was great, my dish was definitely top five favorite from all the others I have ever had! It appears to be a very popular and well-respected restaurant but the service itself definitely needs to be re-evaluated. They were often getting calls for take out so perhaps the balancing of both, or the kitchen itself could not handle both. We were not from town, just passing through. If long wait times are a common occurrence, it should be communicated to in house diners...

Well me and my son went there the other night for dinner I can say their food is delicious we ordered the purple cow wings outstanding delicious I like how they char broil them my son ordered a chicken sub was topped with cheese and spinach awesome size order I ordered a double Hamburg with Swiss cheese and bacon and drizzle with ranch dressing and an order of waffle fries outstanding taste on the burger great size portions hopefully they won't reduce the order of their food because we're going there tonight for dinner with my son again so my boyfriend can try it out didn't try their homemade deserts but they look outstanding to the prices aren't bad for the portions that you get hopefully they will keep their portions the same with everything going up to be kind of sad to see that happen to cut the orders down if they keep the sizes that they have I think they will do an awesome and outstanding business nice work guys keep the good work going and we'll be coming back...