Justin J.
Yelp
Came here for the Valentine's Day dinner with the girlfriend. I picked Church and Inion for the V-Day menu (gf is a steak lover) and the inside looked super atmospheric.
As soon as I sat down I was dreading the meal. There was a table next to us in the corner with a newborn infant. As a parent of three, I am not unsympathetic. But the restaurant never should have allowed someone to come in with an infant on a special holiday night when it's all adults trying to have a romantic dinner. It was completely inappropriate. To make matters worse, they seemed to have some connection to the people here. Throughout my entire meal there was a constant stream of various employees hanging out at this table, crowding me and my girlfriend, in addition to the already crowded nature of Valentines Day and their baby stroller being parked between our tables.
We ordered the wine pairings for my girlfriend. All of the wines came out long before the dishes, so it wasn't truly a "wine pairing", because all of the wine was finished by the time the food came out. Pour size on the wines was "stingy" to put it nicely.
She had the carrots & ricotta appetizer, I had the pork belly toast. Her's was OK, mine was absolutely disgusting. The fat on the pork, instead of being crispy, was just... fatty. The combo of things on the bread was way too much, there was no good way to eat it and it tasted disgusting.
The steak was ordered medium rare and was cool, borderline cold when we got it and dark maroon. This was a rare steak... a very rare steak. Considering that they cut into slices it before bringing it to the tables this should have been caught and stopped and never brought to the table in the first place. The steak - and yes, ribeyes are a bit fatty - was in desperate need of a trimming, entire bites were nothing but fat. The whipped spinach was horrible, it was just spinach mixed with a ton of cheese and had no flavor just a lot of salt. There was some sort of puff pastry, I had a bit and that was it. The lobster was tough and chewy and had some sort of glaze on it that I didn't care for very much.
The desserts were so boring, this was the first time in my recent memory that I didn't eat it all. One bit for each of us on the dark chocolate raspberry mousse, the dark chocolate was way too dark, I didn't taste any raspberry. My cheesecake was overwhelmed by the crust, all I could taste was graham crackers.
Service was fine, especially given that it was a special event. Ambiance was gorgeous as I thought it would be, the playlist was all over the place and not particularly romantic in any way.
As I often say in my reviews, price sets expectations. This was the most expensive meal I have ever had in my life. I have had some very expensive meals... this was the most expensive. For this amount of money I expect perfection. I got a lot of very nicely presented items in a cool location and none of it tasted particularly good. When we sat down we said we would love to come back on a non-holiday... on the way home we decided that we were not coming back. I wanted to give sister restaurant Tempest a try, but if that lobster was any indication, I have no desire to check them out either.
J.Ja