Dave N.
Yelp
I feel sorry for the people of Geneva to have F.L.X. Table as their metric for fine dining. Somehow the highlight of the meal was the focaccia, which makes a ton of sense because the portions of the next 3 savory dishes needed all the help they could get. Loading your patrons up with bread was a smart move on their part, as the rest of the meal turned out to be a disaster.
Our first course was the stuffed squid; one of our diners noted her shellfish allergy prior to our visit to F.L.X. When the chef stopped by to verify the allergy, we were sure to reiterate that her allergy included both mollusks and cephalopods. So when her dish was substituted with a dolmades, but still included cuttlefish ink on the plate, we immediately notified the hostess Elizabeth that there was an issue. Well the chef immediately WALKED BACK the dish! His words were "this is why we ask tables prior to the meal if they have allergies". Doubling down on serving you guest an allergen is absolutely wild. One of the most important things a restaurant can do is understand food allergies and not question when a guests tells you than an ingredient on their plate is an issue. We explained that a cuttlefish is a cephalopod in the squid family, and he, without apology, picked the dish back up and remade it without the cuttlefish ink, but not without delivering it with zero emotion, apology, or feeling. Had I not been with family who has travelled across the country to be here for Christmas, I would have walked out at this point.
Dish two was a lentil dish with bacon and confit duck. The duck meat was shaped into a rectangle reminiscent of how meat comes out of a sous vide ziploc, the shape was absolutely bizarre and completely lacking texture and structure. Unsurprisingly, the bread and lentil dishes were the largest portions of the night, further emphasizing the strategy of loading the meal with cheap carbs.
Our last savory dish was by far the worst however, a venison medallion coated in seaweed powder topped with ikura (or caviar for an upcharge), greens, a sunchoke puree, and black garlic. The venison was cooked well, but was lacking salt. The Japanese intention of the dish with the salmon roe and seaweed powder was extremely strange and, in my opinion, made no sense. Most of the diners in my group chose to scrape off the seaweed and ikura.
Finally, the dessert course was a boozy eggnog with homemade cookies. Honestly, no complaints here, although I wouldn't describe the eggnog as being made with an amalgamations of bourbons, it just makes it sound like we are getting the dregs of the bottles in our dessert. This was par for the course, I suppose, as the chef's messaging throughout the meal seemed to be an exercise in bragging about the travelling he has done.
The tackiest part of the experience, however, had to be the end of the meal. Not two minutes after our dessert arrived, the hostess explained that we were to pick up our cookies and eggnog and head into the next room, where we would find our coats, and have an opportunity to order more cocktails. Asking your patrons to carry their meal through the restaurant is absolutely unhinged, but even worse is having them walk through a glorified gift shop on the way out, using our coats as the bait to get us into that section of the restaurant. The old man who greeted us seemed bewildered that we didn't want anything else, and asked for our check. We were so happy to have left, and I feel sorry that Finger Lakes residents only have F.L.X. as a metric for fine dining. The silver lining of this experience is that we had a lot to talk about on the car ride home. I cannot in good conscience recommend this place to anyone who has any sort of passion for cooking.
