Lakeside Vista Restaurant & Tavern — Restaurant in Town of Spafford

Prompted by an ad in the Syracuse Eagle Newspaper for a Valentine's Day special prix fixe dinner, we traveled to the Lakeside Vista Restaurant on Otisco Lake. Our meals began with a generous glass of prosecco and a large romaine salad with red onion, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and croutons. The main course included a grilled skewer of three shrimp and two scallops, a porterhouse steak, a twice baked potato, and asparagus. The shrimp and scallops we're basted with a seasoned butter sauce during grilling, resulting in a delicious flavor, and the steak was cooked perfectly to order. The piping-hot, twice-baked potato included bacon and cheese, and the skin was crispy enough to pick up and eat after emptying its contents. For dessert my wife chose the carrot cake and I had blueberry pie. Both were excellent. A delicious feast for a very reasonable price. Service was excellent and views of the lake unbeatable. We'll be back soon to try their Sunday buffet brunch, and next summer to dine al fresco on their outdoor patios facing the lake. UPDATE-1: Returned for dinner and had soup and salad for our first courses followed by a flame grilled burger with fries. Very nice meal. UPDATE-2: Tried out their Sunday brunch. The scrambled eggs were excellent and the made to order pancakes were the best I remember ever having. UPDATE-3: If you come here for Sunday brunch and they're serving the creme brulee French toast casserole, try it. It's excellent. Update-4: Tried their Ruben eggroll appetizer with thousand Island dressing for dipping. Very good. However, the chocolate cake for dessert was only okay. UPDATE-5: The restaurant offered some specials for St Patrick's Day. The corned beef sandwich on toasted rye bread included creamy melted Swiss cheese, lean corned beef, thousand Island dressing, and coleslaw. An excellent sandwich. The corned beef and cabbage dinner came with a very generous amount of lean corned beef. The potatoes were buttery and the cabbage went well with requested malt vinegar. The special dessert was Guinness chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, a very nice way to end the meal. UPDATE-6: The flame-grilled chicken sandwich with crispy bacon was excellent. UPDATE-7: The crispy chicken caesar salad wrap was okay, but I probably won't order it again. UPDATE-8: If French onion soup is on the menu, order it. It's one of my favorite soups and they do a great job with it. I ordered linguine and shrimp for the first time. The shrimp were great, but the butter-based sauce didn't stick to the pasta and I probably won't order it again. The strawberry rhubarb pie that we shared for dessert was excellent. In fact, it was so good we ordered a second slice to take home. UPDATE-9: Enjoyed a t-bone steak special with sauteed squash and french fries. It came with a fresh side salad, and I had lemon cheesecake for dessert. UPDATE-10: A bit of a disappointment on this visit. The French onion soup was nowhere near as good as it was when I had it earlier this year. The onions were barely cooked and the broth was thin and unimpressive. A second problem was that the chicken caesar salad had a fairly bland dressing and the lettuce was not as crisp as it has been in the past. The added grilled chicken, however, was excellent. Finally, the burger my wife ordered medium was overcooked. I decreased my rating from five stars down to four stars. UPDATE-11: Returned for the Valentine Day Special....

When there last night and when we walked in we got very rude stairs just from the patrons and it didn't rub me very well so that was kind of strike one so then we went over to the inside dining next to the bar area and then our waitress took like 5 minutes to come see us and then she got are drinks and then she didn't come back for another 15 minutes and then we order the cheese curds which I will say were very very good those took about maybe another 15 and then we ordered our food and we were there for a good 35 minutes before our food came out and then my husband's pizza was very burnt and greasy like super greasy to the point where he threw it up and my burger was pink I asked for well done burger The onions were very very overpowering I would say the only good thing that we ate would be the cheese cards in the fries while we were eating and waiting we saw a server and the cook playing around in the kitchen like smacking each other hitting like just playing around and I'm all for family-owned restaurants as long as if you're being professional and then my husband while we were leaving he went to SR waitress something because she had came over and had said if we need anything My husband was in the middle of talking to her and another table had called her over mid conversation she left and went over to the other table then she came back and that's when we were like okay yeah no we're done so then my husband went to the bathroom and when he came out he said the men's bathroom was disgusting it was crawling with bugs had pee stains everywhere and overall just extremely disgusting I don't plan on going back because it is far from us and then just are overall experience just...

Excellent location, I don't think there is enough parking for how large of a place this is. I can see that being a problem for larger events if you were to have them hosted here. The main entrance isn't clearly marked but that's not too much of a problem, the wait staff was friendly, quick, attentive, and we had our complimentary bread and water very quickly and the water was re-filled quickly.

The menu is a good size, I felt the sides were too few. I ordered the blue crab dip, the dip had excellent potential but it was very salty. I even dumped my water in the dip itself to lessen the salt.

I ordered the $26 hanger steak, I was expecting an actual steak but I got a small portion that they cut up and covered in an overly salty wine gravy sauce. They filled the plate with bland green beans and french fries. The meat was cooked exactly as I wanted, the plate was well presented but the portion of the steak itself and the sauce being too salty kind of sucked.

We also order the kids Fish Haddock for my 8 year old son, they charged us for the adult version which was $9 more and with it they gave him the adult portion. Not too bad but a little annoying. The chicken riggies were great when substituted with sausage, the one with chicken was not as good. The chicken was bland and water, tasted like it was pre-packaged and perhaps frozen at one point.

Great restaurant, very clean, organized, great location, prices are good, but maybe it was just when we went, the food...