Iron Gate Restaurant — Restaurant in Washington

Food - 4 Stars Service - 3 Stars Atmosphere - 5 Stars

Some shining moments, some areas that could step it up. We arrived on time for our 830pm reservation which was booked for inside....they sat us outside. We saw all the heat lamps and didn't say anything (it was ~40 degrees out and rainy) bc the space was beautiful. Unfortunately, sitting on the cold metal chair sucked the heat right out of us and forced us to quickly ask for the seat warmer and blanket. Not to mention my wife's seat was wet and she didn't notice. Dress + wet cold seat = not fun. If it's that cold; recommend to the staff that you just automatically give them out.

Service started out ok, but overall was inattentive, especially regarding our drinks. Food arrived in a reasonable time. Explanation of dish was weak or non-existent. Not a huge deal but a way to step it up.

Food - We had looked at the menu online and had a plan but arrived to a different menu. Some parts of us were happy, others sad. Recommend keeping your menu updated. We ordered the buffalo tartare, pumpkin salad, lobster dish, and mixed grill.

Tartare - not bad, not amazing. Had mini potato chips on top it. A little strange. Would rather see more/larger chips on the side to eat with the tartare. Personally I prefer a cracker or toast as a vessel for my tartare.

Pumpkin Salad - not what I was expecting but really good. Recommend getting this. Only improvement is that it needs a little more apple to balance the pumpkin.

Lobster dish - eh. Not saying don't get it, but hard to judge and a little pricy for half a tail and 1 claw. The noodles were really good, but when you are outside in 40 degree weather everything gets cold quick. So by the time, I got the meat out of the lobster, it was hard to enjoy warm. This was compounded by the fact that there's no cracker for the claw? How was I supposed to break into the lobster claw? I manhandled it and made it work, but definitely was covered in lobster juice for the next hour and wasted valuable time to eat the dish warm. All you gotta do is give me a tool or pre-crack it for me.

Mixed grill - Pretty solid. I'd get this again. Lamb steak was amazing. We asked for extra tzatziki fairly early into eating the dish. It arrived after we were done. Which kinda sucked bc we wanted more of it to go with the meats. The waiter apologized and awkwardly offered it to the table next to us who was eating the same dish. Why? That's kinda weird. Perhaps just bring us some extra nan to eat it with?

While all this was happening, the staff missed at least 3 times to offer me another drink. My glass sat there empty. Definitely missed an opportunity for another $20 sale.

Overall, I'm 50-50 on going back. If money doesn't really matter to you.....I'd give them a shot. The weather definitely didn't help our situation. For me, I want to give them another chance, but at the same time, $245+$45 tip for dinner/drinks (2 cocktails, 1 glass wine, 1 beer), $60 for transportation, $40 pre-dinner drinks (different location) and $75 for babysitter.....that's nearly $500. Man, I could make 2 tomahawk steaks from Snake River Farms and throw back 2 bottles of wine for less than half of that.

Yes, I tipped slightly less than 20% on purpose. Too many little mistakes. The waiter asked for feedback while we were waiting for our uber. I appreciate that and always nice to see a staff want to improve but also hard to give all the little details in the moment.

Also, I don't always do reviews, so this one isn't meant to scare anyone away. We go to nice restaurants every 4 months or so. The places that are "eh" I just never go back to. This is the kind of place I want to see succeed and could absolutely be a huge winner if they fix some...

Usually I wait a few days to chew on my experience before I post a review, but I was really blown away tonight at Iron Gate. There were a couple mishaps so this is really a 4.5, but overall I had a great experience. I made a reservation for restaurant week and for $55, you get everything listed under first course, your own second course, and a third course to share. There was SO MUCH FOOD.

The restaurant is very cute inside - I encourage you to sit outdoors if you can, they have a very cute patio. Staff were all nice and accommodating, but we sat for more than fifteen minutes before someone came by to take our order but no stars knocked down for that, I know everyone is understaffed. They have a good mocktail menu, so if you don't drink alcohol check it out. I had the cretian tiki and thoroughly enjoyed it.

They had amazing hummus they were passing around on the house - it was well seasoned and excellent with the cucumber and radish. According to our server, the focaccia was everyone's fave from first course, but I make equally delicious focaccia at home so it wasn't top of my list. What did impress me was the medjool dates and arancini. That's not to say the rest of the first course was bad - the salad, onion, and deviled egg were all excellent.

I picked the lamb kabob for the second course and it came with Caesar salad and spelt bread. The bread was tender and flavorful and the kabob was juicy and well seasoned. There were three small pieces of bone in the kabob however and I almost broke a tooth on one of the larger pieces. It happens when you grind your own meat, but that can get stuck in your throat or you could actually break a tooth on it. The Caesar salad was great, well dressed and with actual anchovy. I'm not a seafood fan so I wasn't happy when I chewed on a whole anchovy, but I know others would love it.

Third course was the panna cotta and I found it to be pretty meh. The brittle, berries, and sauce were great but the actual panna cotta was kinda just there. I should've done the semifreddo.

Overall the food was delicious and I highly recommend you stop by. Half star knocked down for the bones in my lamb kabob, and now that I'm subconsciously running my tongue on that tooth, I'm pretty sure I did...

I am not one to write bad reviews but feel our experience was so poor that we want others to beware when working with Iron Gate’s events team. We inquired at the beginning of January about their patio/courtyard spaces for a wedding reception in November 2023. I was assured our date was available by the events coordinator and we had a phone call and quite a few emails back and forth planning our reception timeline and potential menu/wine options. We were encouraged to make a dining reservation to see the space and taste the food which we did (and spent $400). I was told there was no need to submit a deposit prior to this and the events coordinator would call us the day after our dining experience to check-in. She never called (not that big of a deal), but when I emailed again to see if we could sign a contract and put a deposit down I was told nonchalantly “We just booked up this date. Can I check other dates for you? Cheers” without so much as an apology! I asked twice if we should put a deposit down earlier in the month and was told no, they would be holding the date for us. We sent about 10 emails back and forth with the subject line “Matt & Emily Wedding 11/3/2023.” How we were not offered a courtesy notification at BARE MINIMUM that someone else was considering our date is completely unacceptable.

Iron Gate’s excuse is that someone else was covering for their Events Coordinator while she was out unexpectedly and accidentally gave away our date to another party. After a month of planning and booking musicians and a photographer for this date their only solutions are for us to hold our wedding reception from 11am – 3pm (?!) or to change our location to their sister venue 30-40 minutes away on a Fri night during rush hour traffic.

We have wasted a month planning with this venue and $400 on a dinner. We were so excited and now we are scrambling to find another option that fits our needs on the same date. A restaurant manager has yet to call us back (over 24 hours after I called to explain the situation).

What a huge...